Open Mouth, Insert Foot

I made a fool out of myself last Sunday...

Not the first time -- probably won't be the last :)

I have been reading through the book of Acts lately and it has touched me like never before. Reading about how the gospel and the church started and spread through the preaching of the word and the signs and wonders done by the hands of the Christians... There was a pattern: The church would preach, encounter unbelief and persecution, and then perform signs and wonders, and whole cities were changed one by one. The spreading of the gospel went hand in hand with the miracles. In fact, it seems that scripture infers that the "power" the early church was filled wih upon receiving the Holy Ghost was the power to heal and perform signs to accompany their witness.

I could go on and on about the book of Acts and take you scripture by scripture, but I'll spare you...

So Sunday I got a text message from a friend telling me he couldn't make it to church because he was feeling very sick and was having chest pains. In my zeal I texted him back that I would pray and that the Lord would take care of it and I further told him that he would be feeling better within the hour. I spoke the word of faith to him as such and then I prayed for him right then and there, with faith. I truly believed that God would heal him.

So we left it at that, our gathering for worship and sharing went very well, then then in the evening about 7pm I received a phone call from my friend. He was calling to ask a ride to the hospital because his chest pains were bothering him so much.

Slap in the face. Open mouth, insert foot.

I felt too foolish to even mention my word of faith to him earlier that morning. He was kind enough to do the same. I left my wife and boys to go pick him up and take him to the emergency room.

On my way to pick him up, as the sunlight outside began to wane, and traffic was scarce, I was praying and talking to the Lord. I was very confused and frustrated, and was pouring out my heart to God about it. Was I not right with God? Did I not pray enough? Is it even worth stepping out in faith if God is not going to show up? Was it just not God's will, and if not, why did I not recognize that? How do these healing things work? I continued to talk to the Lord while I waited for him in the waiting area...

After waiting a bit, and feeling worse as the minutes ticked on, I went out to my car and knelt and cried out to God for understanding. It was hard to pray, but I pressed through with the tiny bit of faith I had left. It didn't take long until my frustration gave way to peace and my lack of understanding turned into understanding.

There were two major reasons that God gave me for my blunder. The first, and lesser of the two was that "This kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting." The second, and major reason, was that miracles, signs, and wonders were to accompany the witness of the saints as they reached people with the gospel. In other words, miracles are mainly for unbelievers. They have a purpose and they follow something specific.

Miracles are not to be paraded around by prideful and fat saints...even when us fat saints try it, it doesn't work -- as my situation clearly shows. They are to accompany the preaching of the gospel to the lost. In fact, nearly every miracle recorded at the hand of Christ and his disciples in the New Testament record were done on unbelievers or on brand new believers or in situations requiring a witness of the Holy Ghost to unbelievers. Other than that, they followed around certain people, like Jesus or Paul, like flies on a candystick.

The Lord showed me that when we are filled with the Holy Ghost, we are filled with power to do even greater miracles than Jesus did. However, that awesome power is only activated when we preach the gospel to the poor, meek, and lowly of this world. Then it will be said of us that the "Lord worked with" us, "confirming His Word with signs following."