Consider ONLY the Promise:

I actually wanted to post this message of Dr Cref.lo Dol.lar (Because of your Unbelief Pt 2) the other day, but I couldn’t find it in between all the other recordings I have, and like I said then I felt compelled to share that other message. Well, yesterday I wanted to look for this message again, but once more I had no idea where to look for it. I just thought to myself; let’s start at the message we recorded on the first of March. Guess what? That was the message I was looking for! The very first message I opened, was the one I couldn’t find earlier this week. It can only be the Holy Spirit’s guidance that led me first to the message of Walking in the Supernatural and now this one:

“Go to Romans chapter 4. I want to show you something that … I don’t know, I never thought about this before, not in this perspective since I’ve read this scripture. Verse 19: “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb:” Now we know the story, God told him that he was going to have a son, he is a hundred years old, his wife is old, everybody is old, everything is dead, and here is one word that I never… watch this, watch me use this word – I never considered – and it’s the word consider.

Let me give you the definition of this word and then you will understand what he did to not have unbelief. This word consider means; “to think carefully about, especially in order to make a decision.” To consider something means I’m thinking carefully about this, especially in order to make a decision. Here is another definition I like; it means; “to bear it in your mind…” To bear it in your mind. You’ve heard people say, “now, bear in mind, now…” Consider means to bear in mind, it means to contemplate. When you are contemplating something it means you are reflecting on it, it’s what I was doing with that polyp. Now, now watch this, this is so awesome…

So why is it that a hundred year old guy and a ninety year old woman, how is it that they can get together and give birth to an impossibility? I’ll tell you how, because Abraham would not contemplate, or would not bear in his mind, or would not think about the deadness of his body! He would not bear in mind; he would not contemplate, reflect on or think about the deadness of Sarah’s womb! He only thought and contemplated and reflected on what God promised. When he refused to consider the deadness of his body and when he refused to consider the deadness of his wife’s womb it kept unbelief out of the equation. And when unbelief is successfully kept out of the equation, mustard seed faith can go to work, and give birth to impossibilities.

I believe this year God wants to give birth to some impossibilities in your life. But He is not going to able to do it until we refuse to bear in mind the contradiction. We can’t think about the contradiction. We can’t think about the thing that goes against the promise. Here is what God is saying; “I need my people to only think about my promise. I need my people to only reflect on my promise. I need my people to only bear in their mind what I promise.”

So what the devil’s saying? The devil is trying to play the same trick on us that he did on Adam and Eve. They were only God conscious, they only contemplated God, they only reflected on God, and he shows up in the garden one day with the contradiction to what God said; “hath God said…?” And that was enough to get their thinking on what he said and get their thinking off what God said and what happened? The presence of unbelief began to short circuit their faith that had given them just the total, complete immersion in the presence of God.

See, it’s not that we are trying to be deep when we say; “you might not need to be around this, you might not need to listen to this, you might not want to look at that…” Why? Because the introduction of the contradiction is going to and could bring in the presence of unbelief.

If you find yourself – and this is what’s so wrong with the church – you see people wanting to put the scriptures in a certain place – “we are in church now and I don’t want to hear that.” Do you see the problem here? “We are in church and I don’t want to hear no scripture now.” You know what they are doing? Instead of hearing the scripture they are probably entertaining, contemplating, and bearing in mind the contrary to the scripture. You need to hear some scripture when you are acting crazy. Because what we are trying to do is stop the presence of unbelief.

Abraham focussed, listen… If you read Abraham’s life, if you read Romans chapter 4, Abraham looked like a perfect person, but if you go back to Genesis then you will see… You’ll try to figure how did they write that about Abraham? Because God is not recording a bunch of mistakes in heaven. You understand what I’m saying? So He is not trying to talk about all Abraham’s mistakes. Everything that it said in Romans chapter 4 about Abraham, it seems to contradict itself in Genesis. This man of faith – was not a man of faith at all in Genesis! They were laughing at God when He made promises, all of that stuff – you wonder where do they get that from. But this guy finally got it. I am only going to consider what God promised.

And you know what? In this economic time, don’t consider the decisions they made in Washington DC. You only consider what God says in His word; “You give and it will be given unto you, I’ll supply all your needs according to His riches in glory,” that’s what you consider. You don’t consider how much you make, you don’t consider how much your pay check is going to be, you’re not going to consider how much lesser your pay check is going to be.

You only consider what God said, you know what, when you consider what God says, and that is what you are contemplating, and that is what you are meditating on then that is what you are going to get! You will give birth to an impossibility! But that can’t happen, that can’t happen if you’re believing that God will supply all my needs and at the same time; “O, God is going to take care of me financially” but at the same time; “O dear God, did you hear how much my taxes are going to be…”Real Christians who want results are going to have to be willing to become more diligent about thinking and contemplating and reflecting on the promises of God ONLY.

That is why Jesus said, when Jairus’ daughter was on her death bed and a servant from Jairus’ house came in Mark chapter 5 and said; “your daughter is dead, why trouble the Master any longer,” and the Bible says that when Jesus heard that, immediately He said; “be not afraid, only believe.” Or another way is He said; “believe only.” In other words, don’t let an outside report distract you from where you are going. “You believe Me enough to come and find Me, to bring Me back to your daughter, and you are so focussed on I know…” This is what he told him, he says, “I know if You come and lay hands on my daughter she will be healed and she will live.” That is what he believed and then in the midst of him being focussed on that and contemplating and thinking that, there is somebody that came from his house and said; “She is dead. Don’t worry about it anymore…” And Jesus said, “wait a minute, if you just only believe, and not let this fear come in, you can have what we started working on before we met that woman with the issue of blood, she had it…”

There are too many miracles that we are reading about in the Bible for us to not know what we need to do to experience those things right now! How come we can’t experience it right now? I’ll tell you how come, because we keep letting the contrary come and counteract what we ought to be focussed on. I would rather have this many people as a member of Wor.ld Chan.gers Minis.try believe in God, than have 40 000 of them who don’t. I want to raise up some people who want to believe God, some people who will say; “You know, I know what you just told me, but I’m just trusting God!”

The Bible says about Abraham; “he considered not his body being dead nor the deadness of Sarah’s womb,” so what happened? As a result of Him not considering the contrary, notice what happened: “He did not stagger after the promise,” next verse, “he did not stagger after the promise in unbelief.” He did not stagger in unbelief; he did not stagger in unbelief! Why? Because he put a guard over his thinking – be careful how you think. Be careful what you hear. He put a guard over his thinking, and he refused to think anything except what the Word had promised him…

This is how we are going to get ahead ladies and gentlemen. It’s not much information, but its knowing how to practically function and operate in this information.”

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The spiritual world and the physical world:

Here is some more from the teaching of An.drew Wom.mack that I started yesterday:

“See God has already given, but we look at our experience – well, so and so died, it couldn’t be God’s will to heal everybody.  See here is the problem – most people interpret God’s word by their experience.  They say, “Here is what God’s word says, but here is what happened!”  What is the answer?  Well, they come up with all kinds of things.  “Maybe it wasn’t God’s will.  Maybe God says no.”

God will never say no to something He’s already said yes to.  2 Corinthians 1, I believe its verse 26 says, “All the promises of God in Him are yea and in Him amen unto the Glory of God.” That means they are all positive, they are already yes, anything God promised you when He says that it’s His will that you be in health and prosper even as your soul prospers then God has already said yes to that.  You don’t have to wonder whether God is going to say no.  It’s not God saying no, God said yes!

But here we’ve got a conflict – every one of us can probably see examples in our life where God’s word promised us something to the best of our knowledge, we did what God said, and we didn’t see it come to pass.  How do you harmonize the 2?    Well you start with the scripture that I used this morning, Romans 3:4 says, “Yea, let God be true and every man a liar.”  You can also put in there, let God be true and your circumstances be a liar.  Don’t interpret God’s word by your circumstances; interpret your circumstances by God’s word.

If you’ve got a circumstance that says, “well, I asked God, I believed with all of my heart, and yet it didn’t work…”  The natural conclusion is therefore, “it doesn’t work for everyone.  Not everybody gets healed.  It isn’t God will for everyone to be set free.”  That’s the natural conclusions.  You need to change that, you need to go to God’s word and say, “Can I find a scripture that says that God doesn’t heal every time?  That it’s not God’s will to heal?”  If you can’t find it, then you tell your circumstances that they are wrong…  Amen!

Here is an explanation of this:  There are 2 worlds, there is a spiritual world and there is a physical world, and most people aren’t really aware of the spiritual world and what’s going on in the spiritual world, but it does exist.  As a matter of fact the spiritual world created this physical world that we see.  It says in Hebrews 11, “We understand that the worlds were created by things that are not seen.”  It didn’t say things that don’t exist, they do exist but they aren’t physical.  Everything physical was created by something spiritual.  There is a spiritual reality for everything physical we see.

There is a whole spiritual world out there – did you know that the Bible says that there are angels assigned to each one of us?  Everyone of you have angels that are with you constantly, for your own protection, and I personally believe that in the Old Testament there was a 186 000 angels assigned to one person and if that is so, then what we’ve got makes that look like nothing in comparison!  According to 2 Corinthians 3, every one of us must have hundreds of thousands of angels to our disposal.

Now if you take hundreds of thousands and multiply it times the number of people in this room, then this room is crowded, Amen?  We’ve got all kinds of spiritual things in here but you don’t see it, and most of you, if you don’t see it you don’t think it, and you don’t believe it and you don’t know it exists and therefore you don’t draw on it.

Look at this in 2 Kings 6, this is an example of what we are talking about, this is Elisha, he was the successor to Elijah.  Elisha was a mighty prophet of God and the king of Syria was fighting against the Israelites and every time he would go down and set a trap for the king of Israel, Elisha would be told by God, and he would tell the king of Israel, the King of Israel would send spies out there and they would find that it was true and he would escape.  After a few times of this happening the king of Syria says, “one of us is a spy for the king of Israel.”   One of his servant girls, it was a captive that they’ve taken out of the land of Israel said, “it’s none of us, but there is a prophet in Israel that tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bed chamber.”  When this king heard that, he decided that he is going send his armies down and that he would capture Elisha.  So here is the story of it in verse 13, it says, “Go and spy where he is so that I may send and fetch him, and he was told, in saying, behold he is in Dothan, therefore send he forth horses and chariots and great hosts, and they came by night and encompassed the city about and when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold an host encompassed the city with horses and chariots and his servant said unto him, ‘alas my master, how shall we do?’”

That’s old English for saying, “Man, what are we going to do?”  And then he panicked – he saw these armies and he knew why they were there.  And look at Elisha’s answer.  He said, “fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

You know if you don’t understand that there is a spiritual world, and that it is real and it exists, just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it don’t exist.  Now if you don’t understand that, people would think that Elisha lied.  See a lot of people when it comes to confessing the world of God and saying, “By His stripes I am healed,” and any idiot can look at you and tell that you aren’t healed, Amen?  I mean you look sick, you feel sick; you act sick, anybody can tell that you are sick!  You’re just lying!  It’s just positive lies!

I don’t know if any of you have ever been taken to task for confessing the word of God when it didn’t look so, well, see people who would believe that way would say, “Well, Elisha lied!” He said that there were more with him then there were with the enemy.  And yet you could look out there and count the enemy by the thousands, 1000, 2000, 3000 and here Elisha was saying, one, two…  Amen?  And there was more with him than there was with the enemy?  How do you explain that?  The answer was, that there wasn’t more physically but see in the spiritual realm there were more.

It says in verse 17, “Elisha prayed and said, ‘Lord, I pray that you open his eyes that he may see.’  And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around about Elisha.”  Praise God!  He was speaking the truth.  A person that says that it is a lie to say that you are healed, when you don’t feel healed, what that means is, you’re only looking at the natural realm.  The only thing that you consider to be true is what you see, taste, hear, smell or feel – you’re 5 senses.  And if that is what you consider to be facts, then yes it’s a lie, because according to your physical senses there are times that you speak that you are healed and you don’t feel healed.

But see, one of the keys to walking with the Lord is recognising that you’ve got to walk in the spirit.  There is a spiritual world out there; there are spiritual realities you can’t prove in a test tube.  How do you know what spiritual realities are?

I mean if you want to see the physical truth, if you want to see if your hair is combed, you go look in a mirror.  I have no idea right now if my hair is combed.  I hope it’s combed, but you know I can’t tell by my 5 senses.  I have to look in a mirror and I’ve got to trust what I see in that mirror.  How do you know that mirror is telling you the truth?  You’ve never seen the top of your head, all you’ve ever seen is a representation of it, a reflection of it, you don’t know….  “Well, I’ve seen a reflection, well, I’ve seen a picture…”  You have to take by faith that what you are seeing is true.  Well, see the Bible says that John 6:63, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”  God’s word says that this is spirit, this is true.

What you read in the Bible is what spiritual truth is, so if you want to see if your hair is combed you go look in a mirror, and if you want to see what your spirit is like or if you want to see what is happening in the spirit then you hold the Bible up and look at it and whatever it says you just believe it.

The Bible says that Elisha had angels and chariots round about him and the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3 that, “What they had, had no glory compared to what we got.”  It says in Peter that, “They were longing for the day that we live in because what we got is so much better than what they’ve got.”  If Elisha had angels and chariots round about him, praise God, I’ve got at least as many as he had and more round about me!  If he was able to take an entire nation captive with the power of God, then praise God I can do the same thing.  There is a whole spiritual world that exists out there.

You know our sister that got born again this morning, praise God for seeing her today, I was talking to her before the service, and I said, you’ve now got Jesus living in the inside of you and the same works that Jesus did you can do also (John 14:12).  You can do all of these things.  She was just looking at me kind of stunned!  That’s the truth – she’s now got God Almighty on the inside of her and as much as she can renew her little peanut brain – I’m not speaking specifically about you – all of us have a little peanut brain – and as much as we can renew our little peanut brain, we can receive this life of God in the inside of us.

But see one of the things that limit it, is we only think in the physical realm.  We say the Bible says, “Ask and you shall receive,” “I asked and I didn’t receive…,” well how do you know?  “Well I didn’t see it!”  Just because you didn’t see it, does that mean God’s word isn’t true and that God didn’t do it?

I want to propose to you – and a lot of you never thought of this, that God can answer your prayer and you don’t even know it.  Because see, God is a spirit, John 4:24 says, “God is a spirit and those who worship him must worship Him and in spirit and truth.”  Did you know that when God answers your prayer He doesn’t give it to you in a physical form?  He gives it to you in spiritual form…  If you ask for finances, finances are material; do you know what God will do?  He will release the spiritual power that it takes to produce those finances into your life, and He will always do it.  If you ask, you do receive.  God gave it.  If you seek, God will give it to you.  God is faithful; God always, always, always answers everything.  If you prayed for healing – God gave you healing, but He gives it to you in spiritual form.  And God’s operation independent of you ends in the spiritual realm.

God is not the one that is going to manifest it into the physical.  Do you know what does that?  Faith!  Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance,” substance is talking about physical tangible reality. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith brings into physical tangible reality things that already exist in the spirit.  Faith doesn’t make things happen in the spirit.  They already happened by God’s grace, but your faith brings what God has accomplished into physical reality.  Is everybody following that?  God answers your prayers, but God gives it to you in your spirit and then your faith brings it from the spirit into the physical realm.  So if you’re praying for healing, God releases healing into you, but that don’t mean that you are going to see healing, unless you believe, unless you know how to co-operate.  Faith brings spiritual things into physical form.

An example of this is like radio.  Do you know right now we are using radio for you to hear me?  This microphone is a wireless radio, that’s what it is.  It’s broadcasting the signal over there and it picks it up and is broadcast over the speakers, but did you know that there is more than just this radio signal in this room?  There are literally dozens of radio signals and television signals in this room.  If you say, well, I don’t believe it, why?  Because I can’t hear it?  That doesn’t mean that they aren’t here!  That just means that you aren’t very smart!

There are things that exist beyond your capability to comprehend them with your physical natural ability.  You can’t hear radio and television signals even though they are in here and they are loud.  Do you know why you can’t hear them?  Because they are broadcast at a very high frequency, a frequency that is outside the human hearing range.  But they are in here and those signals are just as loud as this signal that we are tuned into.  There are many signals in here but the difference is that you can’t hear them; they are out of your range.  But they are here and they do exist and it is a physical, tangible reality.  But what happens is you get a receiver that can hear those things and it picks out an individual signal.  It can choose which signal it wants, it picks that out and then it re-broadcasts it, it demodulates it down a number of octaves and re-broadcasts it in a range that your ear can hear and that is the reason you hear me instead of all of the radio and television signals, but did you know they are also in here?

It’s just like God. God answers prayer, God will give it to you, but many people they don’t even know that God’s answered their prayer.  They aren’t able to perceive it, they aren’t able to get it and they aren’t able to put it down into the realm where they can perceive it and operate in it in their physical realm.  So they say, well, God didn’t do it.  Well, see the radio station is faithful.  The radio station – the signal is here – but whether you tune into it, turn it on, get it to the right frequency, whether you know how to make that thing work or not, has nothing to do with whether the power has been generated and whether the signal is released.

Did you know God has answered our prayers?  Anytime any of you have ever prayed for anything based on God’s word and you prayed in faith, God gave you your answer, but He gives it to you in a spiritual form, and whether you get it into the physical and whether you see it, is not dependent on whether God answers your prayer, it’s dependent on whether you can receive from God.  Amen?  That is important.

When I saw this, what it did – you see I had experiences in my life, like this girl I was telling you about that Jamie and I saw die, that really affected me.   And I guarantee you I had problems with it.  And I had a decision.  Was I going to get bitter and say, “God why didn’t you do it?”  Or was I going to hold on to, “God, you are faithful, You didn’t miss it, we missed it.”  I had a choice to make.  I just chose to believe that, “God I believe you answered our prayers, I don’t know why it didn’t work and it took me about 3 years before I began to find out some of the reasons why.

Every one of you have had instances where you have prayed or are in the process of praying for something and you haven’t seen it manifest yet.  You’ve got a decision to make.  Are you going to say, “Well, God why haven’t you done anything yet?”  The Bible says, “You’ve got to believe before you receive when you pray,” not when you see it, but when you pray.”

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Some explanations of common misunderstandings:

Recently I listened to An.drew Wom.mack’s teaching on How to receive a Miracle again and I realized there are some awesome explanations in there of things that are often misunderstood by Christians, and that it will help a lot of you who are still waiting for your miracles.  It was also a useful reminder to me, I must admit…

“Mark 11, this is where Jesus cursed the fig tree and the fig tree dried up from the roots, the next day the disciples saw it, they were amazed, and they asked Jesus about it and this was His reaction, Mark 11:22, “He answered and said unto them, have faith in God, for verily I say unto you that who so ever shall say unto this mountain…,” who so ever, that means that this applies to every person in this room, “Who so ever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he sayeth shall come to pass, he shall have what so ever he sayeth. Therefore I say unto to you what things so ever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and ye shall have them.”

This passage of scripture’s got so much in it that we can teach on this for weeks, so I’m just having to hit a couple of things but one of the points I wanted to show you here is verse 24, He says, “what the things you so ever desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.”  You’ve got to believe you receive now and then you shall – future tense – have it. That future tense may only be a second, a minute, a week, a month, but you got to believe right now. You don’t believe when you see it, you’ve got to believe when you pray. Now that is so simple, and yet this is where a lot of Christians stumble.

I’m teaching on how to receive a miracle from God and I’m just teaching a lot of it out of experience as I’ve dealt with people. What is it that hangs people up? And do you know most people, when I pray for them and lay hands on them, by the time they hit the ground, if they feel healed, then they are able to believe. Most people can maintain faith for 5 seconds, but the problem is when you pray and you walk out and you haven’t seen it manifest. 99% of even spirit filled, tongue talking word type people, have their faith just to start decreasing fast as soon as they don’t see a manifestation. Most people struggle with it.

And see the Bible says that you’ve got to believe that you will receive when you pray and then you shall have it, so what I want to share with you tonight, are some simple things, explanations, again I want to make this point, that the word of God and the kingdom of God is based on laws. There are rules, there are ways that things work and you don’t have to be ignorant of the things of God.

Paul said, “I’d not have you to be ignorant concerning the things of God,” in Ephesians 5, yet most of us are ignorant. Ignorance is a breeding ground for unbelief and for problems, there are answers to things, and there is a reason why you pray sometimes here and it’s only here before you see a manifestation.

What I’d like to explain tonight is why sometimes there is a period of time in between when you say “amen and there it is.” That’s the terminology Jerry Seville uses. There are things going on – if you understand this it will take away anxiety, it will take away worry and care and frustration, it will help you to stand and be able to believe and it could make a big, big difference in your life.

Look at Matthew 7, this is a familiar passage of scripture that everybody knows and doesn’t believe. It says, “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” This is an awesome promise in God’s word. Did you know honestly, if tonight we were just acting like we were brand new, like we have never heard this scripture before, or if this concept had never come to you, and if I was here speaking, “Thus sayeth the Lord, ask and it shall be given to you,” did you know most of you would say, “that’s too good to believe.” That would be hard to believe. This is an awesome promise, and yet most Christians know this, you can quote it, we sing songs about it yet we don’t believe it…

Do you know why? It’s because I asked and I didn’t receive, I sought and I didn’t find, I knocked and it wasn’t opened to me, and so we arrive at this problem – here is what God’s word says, here’s what my experience says… How do you harmonise the 2?

Most of us say, “I don’t understand and we just lose our excitement, our authority in the word of God and you wouldn’t sit there and openly say, “well I just don’t believe that scripture,” but in practise you don’t expect it to work like that, and we will develop an elaborate systems of doctrine to explain why it doesn’t work and religious systems come out and say, “well, not everyone that asks receives.” See the next verse, verse 8 that says “everyone that asks receives…” That’s not true! The Bible says that “everyone that asks receives,” but this person asked and they didn’t receive…

I remember a good example of a very good friend of Jamie and I, had leukaemia and I was with her when she died, and she believed God to heal her. She stood up and testified at one of James Robinson’s meetings, with over 4000 people that God was going to heal her and I mean it shook us when she wasn’t healed. We prayed for her to be raised from the dead for a long period of time and it’s a long story but I mean, we believed the best we knew how, and if you would have been there you would have thought that this girl believed with all of her heart, when she was dying she said, “It’s got to be soon… It’s got to be soon…”

She was expecting God to heal her at any moment, yet she strangled on her own blood as she haemorrhaged, and you look at that and you see that and I can tell you what her father’s reaction was. He came to me and he said, “Well, I think we were wrong. It couldn’t be God’s will to heal every time or she would have been healed.”

What he was saying was, she believed with everything she had. Well it looked that way, it really did and I guarantee you that at the time she died I didn’t have an answer. But I told people, I said, “look, God’s word promised that it was His will to heal her” and I said, “I don’t know what happened but God doesn’t lie. It was God’s will to heal her,” and I said, “maybe she missed it, maybe I missed it, maybe her family missed it, maybe all of us missed it, something’s wrong but it wasn’t God that was at fault. It was God’s will to heal her and I had people get mad at me, I had people reject me and it was 3 years before I found out what was wrong, but man, it was a miracle we got as far as we did!

God’s healing was in her body! It was supernatural and we short circuited it, we didn’t understand anything about how to walk in faith and we just allowed the devil to beat us on that one. Some of you are saying, “Well, that is terrible that you could do something that would actually cause a person to die.” Brothers and sisters it’s just the truth. You can go out here and fall asleep at the wheel and you can kill somebody. You do have responsibility in the kingdom of God. There is responsibility for us to believe God and God just can’t violate all of his laws.

Sometimes we think, “Then why didn’t God come down and intervene?” Because there are laws put down and God observes His own laws. He’s bound Himself by His own word, that’s gone out of His mouth when He says, “You have power to heal, if you don’t use that power to heal it’s not going to get done!” Again, people don’t like that. I had a Baptist pastor come to me one time and we were talking about this one girl that needed to be healed. He said, “Look if God wants her healed, she is going to be healed whether you or I pray for her or not.”

It’s not so. God’s will does not automatically come to pass. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:9, it says, “God isn’t willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” That is God’s will, but is every person going to come to repentance? No, because they have a choice in the thing, and also we have the responsibility to preach the Gospel, it says in Romans 10, “How can they believe if they don’t hear? And how can they hear except somebody preach the gospel.” Man, there is a responsibility on us. There are people dying and going to hell that were ordained, God loves them, He’s provided for them and yet, they aren’t going to receive because they didn’t hear.

People don’t like that so we make theology see, we just change our theology to fit the situation so that we will feel good but the truth is, God’s will doesn’t come to pass perfectly. Amen? I hope I’m getting you to think. Some of you are looking at me strange. “You mean God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass in my life?” People preach the sovereignty of God, which I may be stepping on your religious toes right here… Sovereignty literally means independent, such as the United States is independent, we have declared our independence from Great Britain, and so we are now a sovereign nation. That means nobody dictates to us, but does that mean that we are without control, that we are without laws? No, we’ve got laws, there are restraints, we’ve got a constitution that dictates what this nation is like, but nobody else wrote it for us, it is not imposed upon us by somebody else, we wrote our own constitution. We’ve got limits but they are self imposed limits.

When we say God is sovereign people will say that, “well, you never know what God is going to do. God can do anything He wants to, God may do it this way one time, God might do it that way, God can do anything. If God wanted to he can come down and just heal you, whether you believe in faith or not!” That is not so! God has bound Himself by His word; I used that scripture this morning, Psalms 89:34, He said, “my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone forth out of my lips.” When He says, “You resist the devil and he will flee from you,” that means that if you don’t resist the devil, he won’t flee. God cannot rebuke the devil for you. And it’s wrong is you are saying, “O, God get the devil off my back,” God can’t do it. God gave you authority over the devil; you’ve got to learn what God’s given you. You’ve got to start exercising what God has given you. It’s not God that’s letting the devil run roughshod over you, it’s you that’s letting the devil run roughshod over you…

We are the ones that need to be turned on! God is not the one that needs to get stirred up. It gets me about intercessors today man, they’re just in there shaking God’s cage until He does something, “God, move, move!” God is not the one that we need to get motivated. You don’t need to beg with God to move in the Denver area, God wants to do something – He is trying to rattle your cage! To get you going! So much of our intercession, 90% of it is trying to motivate God to do something, God is more motivated than you are! You don’t have to pray for God to send a revival, God sent it 2000 years ago, what you need to do is get in there in the line of fire, amen, let some of it rub off on you, and God flow through you…”

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Why is it so hard to believe in miracles?

This something that has been bothering me a lot, especially since I got pregnant. Because believe it or not the way a lot of people, among them Christians, have acted suggested to me that they do not really believe my pregnancy was a miracle. They nod as I tell them my testimony, but only a few sentences later they say something that proves to me that they just think we got lucky or something…

For instance, when we were organizing my mom’s funeral with our minister at church, I gave him a short version of our history, about how long we tried and what treatments we have been through and I ended up by saying, “but at the age of 40 God blessed us with this miracle pregnancy without any treatments or help from any doctor or any medication.” Do you know what he said a few moments later? “It’s not that difficult to get pregnant at 40, my mom had me when she was 40, and I’m the youngest of 5 children…” He could just as well have slapped me in the face, I had the same reaction. I’m sorry but getting pregnant at 40 after already having 4 children is not the same as trying for 11.5 years, doing many IUI’s and IVF’s and then getting pregnant naturally. There was something wrong with us before and we were healed by the grace of God – his mom didn’t need to get healed.

A lot of other people have said that we just had to wait for God’s timing – that eventually our time had come and implying that for some people it takes one month, for others maybe a bit longer, and for us it had to take 11.5 years. Too say this to me is almost the same to me as saying, “why don’t you adopt, then maybe you will get pregnant too.”

This saddens me so much, mostly because I can see that so many Christians just don’t believe in miracles anymore, and that makes me wonder, “what do they actually believe in?” But the fact is that God doesn’t get the glory He deserves, because He has just performed a miracle and people just explain it away with a few words, as if He never did anything…

But the absolute saddest part is when I meet someone who is struggling to get pregnant themselves and they cannot believe that God would do a miracle for them, or someone who is sick, with cancer for example, and they just cannot believe that God will heal them…

I never had any doubt that the miracles that are mentioned in the Bible aren’t true. I always knew I had to believe in the whole Bible, everything that is said there, or I can just as well not bother to believe anything in it, because if I believe some things and not other things, how would I know what to believe and what not? So in the 18 months that we took a break between IVF#1 and starting treatments again in June 2009, I fully believed that God could heal me, but I had a provision attached to it, I thought it was up to God’s will and I didn’t know what God’s will was, I believed He had a different will and plan for everyone. And today I believe that was the main reason why I didn’t get healed and pregnant then.

So when I started to look for messages of hope last year, I concentrated on teachings from people who believe that God still heals today, but I also looked for teachings about miracles. People who believe in miracles, who have witnessed miracles and who have with the help of God, have participated in miracles. One of the books I read then was “The hea.venly ma.n” by Bro.ther Yu.n, and I recently came across another book of his, called “Li.ving Wa.ter” and in there he talks about the many miracles they have seen in the prosecuted house churches in Chi.na and then when he came to the west he was surprised to see that the churches here were dead in comparison, and there were no miracles performed in almost all the churches he visited. He has some ideas about why that is and I want to share some of them with you.

“After I arrived in the West, it didn’t take long for me to realize that something fundamental was missing in the body of Christ. That missing thing was the power and presence of God. I don’t say this to condemn anyone, but rather I point it out in the hope that it will speak to your heart and help the church. Thousands of churches today do not preach the word with the authority and power that Jesus promised to all who follow Him. This is a tragedy as such powerless churches end up relying on human wisdom to see “results”. The fruit of such half-baked gospel invariably produces a harvest of half-baked believers, most of whom will fall away at the first sign of trouble.

Countless churches, missions and families are full of deadness. This is a terrible stain on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the living God. Everything He does produces abundant life. Jesus said that Satan “comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) Jesus never attended a funeral where the person remained dead. The same applies today. If He turns up, our homes and churches will be dramatically changed.

The good news is that Jesus has not changed! All our human methods and techniques will result in failure and amount to nothing if God is not with us in His power and glory. When Jesus comes in, He breaks off the shackles and people’s lives are instantly reformed. You never have to look for help from big-name preachers when the glory of God is present! It is all about God, not man. One second in the presence of God’s glory can achieve more than years of human endeavour!

These days there are many preachers who have attended seminary and learned how to speak in public, but if that is all they have, you will do well not to listen to their messages. If the words being preached are empowered by mere human wisdom, they will not benefit the listeners in any spiritual way. The apostle Paul was a very smart, highly educated man. Yet he was careful not to rely on those attributes when he shared God’s Word. Pay careful attention to what he told the Corinthians: ”My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor 2:4-5)

Did you know that it is possible for your faith to rest in the wrong place? Paul wanted the Corinthians’ faith to rest on God’s power and not in the wisdom of this world. When this sound advice is followed, it produces strong followers of Christ who will not fall away when tested. In Chi.na most people come to Christ after they see a demonstration of the power of God. Perhaps they are healed from an illness or set free from oppression. After people experience the power and authority of God for themselves, they have no trouble believing the gospel and giving their lives to Christ. Not to do so would be to deny the reality of their experiences.

Do you believe that God can work through you in such a way? Can He use you to do miracles so that Jesus Christ may be glorified and many people experience salvation? The apostle Paul issued a challenge to some of the believers in Corinth: “I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” (1 Cor 4:19-20)

Satan wants people to think that the sustenance they need to live a successful life can be found inside themselves or in the things surrounding them. They search for substitutes in a bid to procure the true joy and peace that only come by knowing Jesus Christ. The moment people fall for the lie that they can prosper without God, they cut themselves off from His presence and power, for “the mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” (Rom 8: 6-8)

During the times of strongest revival in Chi.na, miracles were so commonplace that we didn’t even think about them much. They were as natural as breathing the air. They helped thrust millions of people into the kingdom of God and strengthened the faith of all who experienced such miracles. Even young children went out and shared the gospel with other children, and mighty miracles of healing, deliverance and signs and wonders accompanied them wherever they went. This was not considered strange, because the Lord Jesus promised us, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:16-18)

When you present the gospel to somebody, it needs to come with demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. This may occur in a variety of different ways, such as through a healing, or a word of knowledge about a person’s life, or the working of another gift. The demonstration of God’s power convinces unbelievers that the message is true and that Jesus is alive today! When the power of the gospel is truly demonstrated, only the most heard-hearted of people are unwilling to respond to the claims of Jesus Christ upon their lives.

Miracles and signs and wonders are not just for within the walls of your church building. No! They are to be demonstrated among the people, in the marketplace, on the bustling city streets, and in the homes of those who are trapped in darkness. This is where Jesus and his disciples did most of their miracles. They knew nothing of scheduled “healing meetings” inside church buildings. The power of God accompanied them wherever they proclaimed the good news that the kingdom of God is available to all who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

Christianity without the power of God is no Christianity at all! Power is a fundamental part of God’s workings with humankind throughout history. On every page of the Bible, you can read about God’s miraculous power in operation, beginning with the very first verse of the Bible, when “God created the heavens and the earth.” It continues throughout the Old and New Testaments, right up to the conclusion of the book of Revelation when Jesus declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Rev 22:13)

Did you ever wonder that God is so powerful He didn’t even need to create the universe with His hands? He simply spoke, and it came into existence. Our God is not just powerful. He is all-powerful. In speaking of the majesty of our Lord, the Bible records that “earth and sky fled from His presence, and there was no place for them.” (Rev 20:11) His power is beyond compare!

What kind of message does your church preach?

Is your faith based on men’s wisdom or on God’s power?

The Bible warns us that in the last days there will be some people “having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” (2 Tim 3:5)

Many Christians have developed a warped view of God. They think He only works the way they want Him to, according to their own plans. Such thinking is terribly sad and dangerous. God can never be limited. He is God! When we lose a proper perspective on God’s power and love, we harm ourselves and those around us. Such limited thinking becomes like a cancer, devouring our spiritual life and bringing death where God intends there to be life.

If you are a Christian I encourage you to examine your heart and ask God to reveal those areas of your life where you have placed limits on Him.

You may know in your head that God is powerful, but have you allowed Him to use His power to break you free from the prison of sinful habits and attitudes?

You may know in your head that Jesus said, “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18), but do you ever pray in faith for someone to be healed or to be delivered from demons?

You may know in your head that the historical Jesus is powerful, but do you realize that He wants to share His power with you so that you can be His ambassador to a lost and hurting world?

The time is short and God is looking for people who are serious about His kingdom. He wants to empower you to walk in purity and to proclaim the gospel throughout the earth.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, it’s time to wake up and stop living in a weak and pale way that denies the power of God. Repent from such a narrow, impoverished view of our Lord, and ask Jesus to reveal His power in your life.”

The main reason I brought this topic up today, is that I learnt about two miraculous pregnancies yesterday, so I want to share them with you, so that you can know it does not happen to a select few, God can, He wants to and He will help you if you just let Him! Both of them were posted on Fertilicare:

First Daryl shared a testimony of friends of hers: “I just heard yesterday that 2 dear friends of mine are finally pregnant after 7 years of prayers. The DH has basically no sperm, but didn’t want any treatment as they believed God would answer their prayers, and He has.”

Then Believe posted her good news: “It is cycle day 36 today. I usually have 28 day cycles with a few 30 day cycles when I have been on meds… So the question that myself and DH was asking, was what is wrong now that my cycle is suddenly a week longer than usual…

Over the weekend we thought about buying a HPT, but due to so many negatives in the past, we decided to leave it a few more days. I am currently on a slimming programme and another treatment was scheduled for today, but I did not want to go should there be a very small possibility that there may be a little miracle growing inside me. Then again, how many months have we been hoping and praying…for our miracle…

Soooooooooooo this morning before work, I decided to go and buy HPT’s. I have never bought HPT’s ever before. DH always does this for me, as I do not have the energy of bumping into someone I know and them then thinking that I am expecting when they see the HPT in my basket.

When I reached work I went to the ladies with two tests. And what do I see after a few seconds…My very very very very first two lines. I decided to test on another test, and jip, there it is…2 lines…Could not believe my eyes and sent DH a photo via BBM of the test results. He was crying when I spoke to him as he is soooooooooo very very very very happy. He will make a fantastic dad.

I went for a blood test during lunch time just to make sure that this is really happening, and yes, we have a healthy beta, and will be testing again later this week, and have our first scan scheduled for the beginning of November…

This is still so unreal. As I am typing here I still cannot believe that there is a miracle growing inside me. And that we finally have our BFP!

God has performed a miracle – Praise him, praise him, praise him.”

Here is her signature, just for in case you thought it might be co-incidence that she got pregnant:
ME: 31(possible egg quality issues) * DH:31(sperm issues)
TTC: 3 1/2 yrs * Married: 6 1/2 yrs * Together: 11+years
2009
4 x Timed cycles – BFN
IVF/ICSI #1 – BFN
ICSI # 2 – BFN
2010
5 x AI – BFN
ICSI #3 – Cancelled – Slow response – resulted in AI
DS ICSI # 4 – BFN
(P)ICSI #5 – BFN
2011
Hysteroscopy – Small septum removed
IMSI/ICSI #6 – BFN
DE IMSI/ICSI #7 – BFN
POA – Praying for a miracle – Taking Royal Jelly and Staminogro
October 2011 – Natural BFP
Aan die kinderlose skenk Hy ‘n huisgesin, sy word ‘n gelukkige moeder van kinders. Prys die Here! – Ps.113:9
Ek is tot alles in staat deur Hom wat my krag gee – Fillipense 4:13”

I hope those ladies don’t mind me sharing their stories, but I just want to prove that it is possible to get pregnant, no matter what is wrong with you. God is good and faithful and nothing is impossible with Him. I’m nothing special that I got my miracle, as a matter of fact I think that is why it’s so difficult to believe for some of those who know me, because I am as ordinary as can be! I think most of you might even be disappointed if you should meet me in real life. I could not do it on my own, never – it was God who did this miracle for us, and for the above mentioned people.

It really warms my heart to read testimonies like this and I hope to hear of a lot more soon!

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Midnight revelations:

A few nights ago I once again had trouble sleeping. It took a while to get to sleep and only a few hours later I was awake again, and then it felt like hours passed before I fell asleep again just as the birds woke up. But that time was not wasted, because I was thinking about quite a lot of stuff, especially Shumi, and where I’m failing, and I got another revelation. I know it already, but sometimes one doesn’t see things clearly, especially when it concerns yourself… I think God has been trying to tell me this for a while already, but somehow I just didn’t listen, or didn’t want to listen maybe… I’ve realized there were signs or hints, which made me realize I had to attend to something, but I just brushed it away, and went on with what I was doing. Until that sleepless night when I had lots to think about and I could follow the trail until I got to the revelation, and I want to share that with you today – maybe someone else will also benefit from it.

There were 3 separate incidences that I can identify as signs or hints, because they all had to make me think about the same topic. I can’t really recall which happened first, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. One instance was a comment made on this blog about salvation and keeping the Law of Moses. That comment was in response to me saying that I know God does not want to punish me for every wrong thing I do, because I know that the punishment was already fully taken by Jesus through His sacrifice. I answered on that comment, but there was a lingering feeling that maybe I didn’t follow the trail of thought through fully and answered completely, but I brushed it off and forgot about it.

Another thing that bothered me a bit was a comment DH made to me once. At the time I didn’t realize it, but I’ve had some unresolved anger building up in me, especially lately, and I think it has to do with my mom’s death and Shumi’s illness. I tried to suppress it, and generally I never take out my frustrations on loved ones, so it came out in other ways. One way was when I got so upset about my new debit card not working – I really got so angry, like I haven’t been in a long time, and I let the call centre operator hear it! There is one other person though, someone I get to deal with on a weekly basis, that somehow rubs me up the wrong way, and I never let her see it, but later at home I can’t help making comments and sometimes they are nasty… DH heard me mutter something, and immediately he said, “What has S done this time…” I immediately felt bad, because I realized that I was complaining a lot about this person, especially lately, and maybe I’ve been too hard on her, but I once again did not think about it for very long.

The last message was the fact that I started reading the book of Romans since last week in my Bible study time and really a lot of it has to deal with the law again, and how we are saved by grace through faith and not through works like keeping the law. During the night while I was lying awake I realized that I’ve been focussing on how God does not want to punish us, because Jesus already carried the punishment for us, long before we even sinned, but I conveniently ignored the law. I knew it was still important to keep the law, but why?

For some reason I thought back to my last IVF last year, and how I did not understand things so well then compared to what I know now. Because I did a mini IVF, I didn’t get my stimms from my fertility clinic like I did with my other IVF’s. I bought it at Dis.chem since their price was a bit cheaper than what my clinic would have charged me. They didn’t have all the injections that I needed, but they did have a few and enough to get me started. Somehow the pharmacist made a mistake and charged me for 1 less injection than she gave me. When I paid I realized that the total was less than what I worked it out in my mind, but I paid and left the shop.

All the way home it bothered me and I couldn’t figure out where a mistake was made. When I got home I looked at the slip and only then did I realize what had happened. I immediately felt guilty and felt like I stole that one injection. The second thought that came into my head was, “I hope God does not punish me for this by ensuring that I don’t get pregnant.” Like I said – I still had a lot to learn.

The fear of punishment prompted me to phone the pharmacy and speak to them and rectify the mistake. The poor pharmacist was so happy I phoned and pointed out her mistake and she made a note on the computer that I must pay for the other injection when I come to fetch the last few. I’m sure she would have been in some kind of trouble if I hadn’t come forward and offered to pay, because she kept on saying, “thank you so much for calling and rectifying this.”

While I was lying in bed thinking about all this, I realized – “No, God would not have punished me by giving me a BFN.” I was totally sure of that fact, but then something else struck me. It could have ended in a BFN, but it wouldn’t have been caused by God. I would have given power over my life to the devil and through me handing him that power, he could have killed our embies and caused a BFN.

That was when I realized that the only reason we shouldn’t sin is because that is one way of giving power to the devil. We might believe that God has saved us, we might believe that God has healed us, but if we keep sinning we will never defeat the devil. I saw so clearly that I need to let go of certain sins, and if I do that the power of the devil will decrease. It’s all things that I knew, that I’ve practised a while ago and even had some victory over, but I got lax and I let small things slip, and then it got worse and worse again…

We had one victory, our pregnancy, and I just assumed that the rest will fall into place as well. Then my mom passed away and that shocked me so much! I lost some confidence and I let the devil lie to me again, believing that cancer is different than infertility and much more difficult to get healed, when it shouldn’t be. It’s the same principles that apply, and that works for every kind of illness, but my faith was shaken.

I also gave power to the devil in another way – fear. By being fearful I allowed things to get even worse, I got upset and at that point was where I was tearful at even silly things that should not have upset me at all. I felt like I could not deal with normal daily challenges that usually don’t upset me at all. That was when Shumi’s swelling was at its worst.

Fortunately the swelling has come down a lot, it’s not gone completely, but Shumi looks a lot better again, so much so that I do not contemplate euthanizing him. He is playful again, and he is interested in what goes on around him, he eats well and he just wants love, love and more love from us.

The devil is defeated – Jesus defeated him, and he cannot take Shumi’s life without my permission or co-operation. I’m sure he tried to convince me that euthanizing Shumi would be best, and then we would do the work for him, but I’m not co-operating with that! I keep on reminding myself that God is good, He wants Shumi healed and He has made provision for it already. I must just receive it on Shumi’s behalf. I know it does not look like Shumi is healed, but I don’t have to go on what things look like, when I know that God’s word is true, and when I know what His will is. I must just keep on believing in God’s promises, and not let circumstances sway me or weaken my faith.

I also like to remind myself that the vets gave Shumi a couple of months to live more than a year ago. His life expectancy is already like that of a dog who has received radiation therapy for the cancer, even though Shumi has not received any treatment. So that means that the devil has been hindered in his job – he couldn’t kill Shumi in the normal course of the disease so far, and I fully intend to make it even harder for him from now on.

Satan also tried his very best to make me feel incredibly guilty for my mom’s passing, but I’ve realized that with my mom, it wasn’t just dependant on DH’s and my own faith, because we believed, until the very end. The hard reality is my mom couldn’t believe in her own healing – even when I spoke to her about my miracle pregnancy, I could see in her eyes that she could not believe for the same thing. I gave her books to read, messages to listen to on CD and in MP3 format on her phone, but today I’m sure she didn’t do any of it. Yes, I think I must have discussed it more with her, but an old school friend of my mom’s told me at the funeral that my mom phoned her about 2 weeks before her death and that she could hear my mom had given up on life. That was before she even went in to hospital and I had no idea of any of that!

At the hospital itself we were also surrounded by people who believed the end was near, from the nurses and doctors to visiting family and friends, and no matter how many times DH and I tried to say, “but we have faith that my mom would get healed”, we were met with resistance and comments like, “but you have to be realistic!” Our faith was just too little compared to all the unbelief surrounding my mom…

Fortunately with Shumi’s situation, it’s different. It’s mostly just up to DH and I to believe in Shumi’s healing. We don’t get to deal with other people’s unbelief so much and then only when they come to visit us at home and they see Shumi. I keep on telling people that he is doing well, and what the vet’s diagnosis was over a year ago already, so that helps a little to get them to believe that maybe he will be healed. A lot have had theories like, maybe the diagnosis was wrong, (even our own vet has also wondered about this aloud, that maybe he has a benign tumour), and there was even one theory where they believe his problems are because of a tooth that needs to be pulled. Unfortunately it is very hard for people to believe that God still heals in this day and age, they always try to get some other explanation as well…

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We’ve been under attack again:

I am so sick and tired of the devil attacking us! Thankfully I recognize his tactics and I know that it comes from him.

It all started last week with my new debit card I got from a new bank. I barely had it for a few days and when I was in the store buying groceries my card was declined. I knew it couldn’t be because there were not sufficient funds as I had just the previous day deposited quite a large amount into the card, and I was buying for less than 20% of the available balance. So I insisted they try again, and it was once again rejected. Then they phoned for authorisation and it was rejected a third time. By that time I felt like the earth should swallow me up, out of embarrassment, since nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I used to work at one of the largest banks in the country for more than 14 years, so I know pretty much all about what can go wrong with cards like this and I could not think of one single reason why it would be rejected. When I got home I phoned the bank immediately and it seemed they froze my account, because apparently they never received my proof of address and identification, yet I gave it to them twice, once when I applied and then again when I received my card. When I told them that, the lady suddenly said, “O, here it is, yes, we have received it, I am so sorry!” and it took her less than a minute to locate my documents and remove the hold on my account. There was absolutely no reason for this to happen, except to get me upset, and at that stage I didn’t realize yet that the devil had his hand in this…

The next thing was on Tuesday morning I took a bath, got out and felt quite good. I started to blow dry my hair and within 5 minutes of standing there I had an incredible pain in my lower back and right hip, so bad that I had to lie down immediately and it felt like I would pass out if I didn’t. After a while I felt better and went to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. I let the dogs into the house and I saw there was a swollen lump over Shumi’s left eye and on the left side of his head. That is the side where the tumour originally started. It upset me quite a bit to see that…

From there I limped around the house to get ready for the feeding Scheme I volunteer at, but I noticed I could not stand for long. So I went, but I sat down on a chair and told them that my back is really sore. I only stood for the 20 minutes or so that it took for me to hand out the bread, and then I had to sit back down again… I went home from there and by the time I got home I just felt like crying and falling down on the bed. Fortunately I made an appointment with my Chiropractor for later that afternoon, since my back was a little sore the day before already. Then I started to get cramps in my tummy and the devil tried to convince of terrible things happening, but I refused to believe that. Fortunately a while later I recognized the cramps as cramps in my colon, and not related to our baby, and it was due to a typical pregnancy symptom, constipation.

The treatment at the chiropractor helped a lot, and she said it was another typical pregnancy related symptom and not due to sciatica that I used to suffer from. She advised I wear a pregnancy support belt around my hips especially when I stand or walk for a while.

Yesterday morning Shumi looked a lot worse than on Tuesday morning. The swelling looked about double from what it was the day before. I felt a bit better, but I decided to wear the support belt, since we were going shopping for a mattress for the cot we bought last week and for materials to make a mosquito net to cover the cot. I was fine at the first shop but at the second shop I was starting to feel the same again as the previous day, and I told DH that we must finish up so that I can go home. So DH looked for a shop assistant to help us, since we made up our minds about what we wanted to buy. He got one and when she was almost where I was a lady interrupted her and asked her to help her instead and this shop assistant stopped, turned around and started helping this other lady. By that time I was sitting on the floor of the shop since I could not stand any longer. I was upset, but I didn’t say anything, and DH decided that he would find me a chair to sit on. So we found one and I told DH that I’m not moving until he found someone else to help us. Well, I barely sat when one of the shop employees tried to tell me that I was sitting in her way, and that I had to move, so I just moved the chair a bit out of the way, and she saw from my face that I was not feeling well at all, and about to burst into tears, so she left me alone after that. Eventually the other lady was finished with her shopping and the original shop assistant was ready to help us, and a few minutes later we were able to go home.

By that time it was well over an hour later than my usual lunch time and I was feeling very hungry and weak and I think I my blood sugar was also low by that time. We got home and found a letter in the mailbox from the municipality stating that they haven’t received a deposit from us to connect the water and electricity, which is nonsense off course, since they never connect it without the deposit. I wasn’t worried about that, but I asked DH to go sort it out after lunch since I didn’t feel up to standing in any queues. A few moments later we realized our electricity was disconnected and we could not make the lunch we wanted to, so DH just ate a sandwich quickly and got into the car with our proof of payment. I was so upset by then that I just went to lie down and felt like crying and crying. And then I suddenly realized what was happening – all this was happening just to upset us. So I got up again out of bed and decided the devil is not going to get what he wants from me…

I made myself a sandwich, I hung the laundry I did earlier on the line and about half an hour later DH was back saying that they don’t know how or why it happened as the computer system says that we have paid our deposit and it was never supposed to be disconnected at all. Apparently the lady at the municipality was so embarrassed and could not stop apologizing for the inconvenience and another half an hour later our electricity was connected again.

By last night we saw the swelling on Shumi’s head and over his eye was much bigger than yesterday morning and he could almost not see out of that eye anymore because it was swollen so much. So DH sat me down and said that we must now discuss the one thing I have been avoiding for almost a year and a half now, euthanizing Shumi.

I feel like a failure, that I failed Shumi and my mom, because I believe that God can and wants to heal, and that He’s made provision for it already as a matter of fact, yet my mom had to die and now Shumi will probably have to die too…

It feels like I’m throwing in the towel, that I’m giving up on Shumi, and that I should have been able to get a breakthrough. I mean I got pregnant didn’t I? Why couldn’t my mom and Shumi be healed too? I know the fault does not lie with God, so then it must lie with me, and I just cannot figure out what more I can do, or what else I should have done, or where my weakness lies…

All I know is that the devil attacked me so much more lately to weaken my resolve, to make me tired and get me to sin so that he can gain power from that, and to get me to give in so that he can once again steal, kill and destroy what I don’t want him too… I know the fact that Shumi got cancer is all my fault. In between my second failed IVF and when Shumi got sick a few months later I can distinctly remember saying so many times aloud, “Nothing must happen to Shumi, because I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to cope with that too…” You see the failures of the 2 IVF’s and a little bit later the failed FET was getting to me, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer also just after my second IVF and it just felt like almost everything was going wrong and I started to fear that something bad will happen to the closest thing I had to a child at that stage and that was Shumi. Saying those things and my fear opened a door for the devil, and allowed him to make Shumi sick…

I slept very poorly again last night, upset about Shumi, and trying to think what else I can do. I know that my faith has wavered a bit since my mom passed away, and that I’ve probably limited God again, by thinking thoughts like, “cancer is so much harder to get healed than infertility.”

All I know is that God has helped us a lot with Shumi – two vets we saw gave Shumi maximum 3 months to live around the middle of July last year. I’ve quoted this before, but I want to share it again:

“What is the prognosis for dogs with nasal cavity tumors?
One study of 139 dogs showed that without treatment, the average survival time is 95 days. Another study showed that dogs who underwent surgery alone had median survival 3-6 months, which is comparable to that reported for no treatment. Prognosis of dogs who show symptoms of nose bleeding appears to be worse (median survival of 88 days) compared to those without it (medial survival of 224 days). The median survival time after full course of radiation treatment alone ranges from 8 to 19.7 months, and 43-60% of dogs are alive 1 year after radiation and 11-44% 2 years post-radiation. The use of CT imaging to plan radiation treatment can increase the survival range to 11-19.7 months. Although radiation therapy alone is able to provide local control of nasosinal tumours for approximately 10 months, and thus prolongs the patients’ overall survival, most dogs will eventually die as a result of local disease progression. New approaches to control these tumours need to be developed to further improve the response and overall survival.

Several characteristics are associated with poorer outcomes (shorter survival) in dogs with nasosinal tumours such as being over 10 years old, having a tumour-induced facial deformity, presence of lymph node or other organ metastasis, or lack of resolution of clinical signs after radiation therapy.”

Now if you take into account that Shumi’s nose started bleeding last year in April already and this study said that dogs who had symptoms of nose bleeding had a median survival of 88 days then Shumi should have died somewhere in June or July last year already. That was only when we got the diagnosis of his nasal tumour, and it’s been more than 17 months since his nose bleeds started. I know both vets that have seen Shumi have been baffled as to why he has survived this long without treatment and I really believe it was God, so I will praise Him for that.

I knew facial deformity is one of the symptoms, but I’ve never thought that it would happen so fast. In 2 days his face has swollen up to this:

(I took this picture this morning)

I am scared to take Shumi to the vet and that he will say that we have to have Shumi put down, but I cannot bear to see him suffer either. I had hoped I would never have to make a decision like this. I just cannot take him on my own, I would break down if I have to leave him there, and DH cannot take him today because he has work commitments. Shumi does seem to be uncomfortable and somewhat unhappy about his swollen head, and he definitely does not like it when I touch it, even if it is ever so slightly, but there are also times when he comes to me with a ball in his mouth, wagging his tail with an expression of, “Please mommy, please come play with me!” and then he seems way too healthy to be euthanized…

O, this breaks my heart!

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How to mix God’s Word with Faith

I really like this message, because it shows how all people go through doubt, fear and struggle with faith, yet it is still possible to get a breakthrough and get pregnant. It wasn’t easy for me either – I also had times when I thought it would never work, but don’t give up, don’t be too harsh on yourself and just never give up on your dream of a baby of your own! You can do it too!

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More on my mom:

Yesterday morning when we got to the hospital, my dad got a message that the oncologist wanted to see him immediately.  So he went to the consulting rooms while I waited with my mom in her room.  She was asleep and not aware of me at all.  When my dad came back he was quite upset.  The doctor told him that they are giving up with all treatments as there is nothing they can do for my mom anymore.  He said that they will keep her comfortable, but they cannot give her anymore chemo or radiation because she is just too weak.

My cousin J was also there and she wanted to know if my mom could get a different drip that would feed her as my mom was looking skeletal and since she was just sleeping she could not eat at all.  The sister came to talk to us to explain that the saline drip is sufficient for her in her state and that we must basically must make peace with the fact that is going to get worse and worse and that we must start thinking of letting her go.  She said that she will be home with Jesus soon.  After hearing that so soon after my dad’s news all of us were quite emotional and upset.  So the nurses and doctors have given up all hope of her recovering from this.

A lot of family came to visit and among them my one cousing T who is a medical trauma doctor.  She said that my mom will go into a coma and that she will soon just slip away painlessly.  That was so hard to hear!  She also said that my mom will not wake up again.  I did not like hearing any of these things and I just said to myself that I will not accept that as a final decision!

Moments later we went back into my mom’s room and guess what happened!  For the first time yesterday she actually woke up!  She looked around at each one of us in the room and I could see her recognising each person!  My cousin was speechless, but I’m sure very glad to be proven wrong.

Today she was awake a bit more than yesterday and although she still looked very weak and asleep most of the time she did look a bit better to me.  When she woke she again looked at everyone and she even smiled a little once, and seemed to be interested in some of the conversation in the room.

My mom is one of 8 children and the third youngest, and all the others are still alive and well.  Her 2 sisters live in the Netherlands so they cannot come and visit, but all my mom’s brothers live here in South Africa.  All of my mom’s brothers came to visit her except 2 who live in the Cape, but they will see her tomorrow.   The one is flying in tomorrow and the other one apparently drove up today – I hope they came here safely because I heard a lot of roads and mountain passes were closed due to snow.

A lot of my cousins also came to visit and some of them I haven’t seen in years, so it was so good to get to see them again!  But like my DH says it’s sad that we get together at terrible times like these and not in happy times.

Although a lot of people think my mom is dying, I just cannot accept that at the moment.  I still have hope that my mom will recover.  I believe in Jehovah Rapha, I have experienced one miracle already so I know another is totally possible!  I know it’s not God’s will for her to be so sick, and I know its not His fault or that He caused it.  I also know Jesus paid the price a long time ago already so I will anticipate things to get better and better and that she will be healed.  Some people say I must get realistic, but I just cannot give up on my mom!  With God nothing is impossible and I will rejoice and praise His name, because I know He is faithful!

Thank you all for your prayers and messages of support – I realize that I have made some absolutely awesome internet friends who are such a great support to me!  You have really helped me over these last few days and I needed it soo much!  You are all awesome!

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What a terrible weekend:

My mom has deteriorated so much in 2 days it’s unbelievable.  On Friday I spent the whole day with her, my sister and my cousin J were also there with my dad, and although she could not walk much she could still talk to us.  Thursday night two ureteric stents were placed between her kidneys and her bladder and she got a catheter in the hope that it would help with the swelling.

This morning my mom could not speak anymore and she can barely move her arms.  She cannot feed herself anymore and they took out the catheter and she’s on adult nappies now.  When I said earlier this week that my mom was thin I could not believe that she can get any thinner, but at the moment har face is so sunken in that you basically just see eyes and teeth when she opens her mouth.  I was able to encircle her upper arm with my thumb and index finger, so thin is her arms.  She looks like she is just skin and bones in her upper body, yet her abdomen and legs are more than double what they normally were.  She needs oxygen to help her breathe and later in the day it even seemed she could not swallow her food anymore.  I cannot explain to you how drastic she has deteriorated in 2 days.  It is incredibly scary, and my poor dad could barely sleep last night because he kept on expecting the hospital to phone with bad news.

We still don’t know what is going on – why she is so sick and deteriorating so much.  I don’t even know if the doctors know, and they don’t really tell us much.  As far as I can tell they have only given my mom some pain medication, some more blood and some medication for the swelling, and she is still deteriorating.  I cannot see how they can save my mom’s live with what they are doing.

My only hope is with God – I know He can and wants to heal my mom.  But it is so hard to believe for healing if you see your own mom looking so bad.  I need help here, please, please believe with me for healing for my mom.  That is all I can trust in at the moment…

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Receiving Through Grace and Faith:

I heard this message from And.rew Wom.mack and I want to share it because I think a lot of people really don’t know how grace and faith impact their life.  I get the idea that a lot of people think that to have faith means that you just say you believe and then you sit back patiently and wait that God will move in your life.  Or others believe they must do things for God, to prove that they are good people so that God would reward them.  I certainly thought that was how it worked for many years, and was guilty of both, first with passivity and later works of the flesh.

When I still did not get pregnant, I made excuses, like “maybe it’s not God’s will for us to have children,” or “maybe God has a different plan for us,” or “God is probably teaching me something…”  I did not have any idea how wrong I actually was, and I am so grateful the Holy Spirit gave me revelation on this not long ago.

And.rew Wommack says: “Faith does not move God.  All Faith does is appropriate what God has already provided by grace.  If grace hasn’t provided it Faith can’t get it.   Faith doesn’t move God – God moves totally by His grace, and that means unmerited, unearned, undeserved favour.  God provided things for us completely independent of our performance, but does that mean our performance has nothing to do with our receiving?  No, you performance does because your performance is how you release faith. But faith just reaches out and appropriates what God has already provided by grace.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV):  “⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹ not by works, so that no-one can boast.”

This verse says that you are saved by grace through faith – you aren’t saved by grace alone, and you aren’t saved by faith alone.  You are saved by a combination of the two – grace through faith.

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NIV):  “¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them— yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Paul, here, was talking about how he was not even worthy to be called an apostle, because at one time he had actually persecuted Christians and put them to death and he says, “I don’t deserve anything, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his Grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.”  He is implying that just because God extends grace towards you does not mean that you are necessarily going to prosper, because you have to mix faith with that grace, and so therefore he said, “I laboured more abundantly than they all.”  In other words it was just totally the grace of God that called Paul to be a Christian and then enter into the ministry instead of killing Christians.

Justice would have demanded that God kill him, but God by grace extended mercy to him, but God’s grace had a greater impact in Paul’s life and through Paul, than many people, because he laboured, he also added to the grace of God his faith, and this is what it’s talking about in Ephesians 2: 8.  It is God’s grace that saves us, but your faith is how that grace impacts your life.

Here is another way of saying it:  Over in Titus 2: 11 (NIV):  “¹¹ For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”  It says that, “the grace of God has appeared to all men,” now if God’s grace alone saved you than every single person would be saved because God’s grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  Now this right here ought to prove to you that it’s not just up to the grace of God, whether you receive or not.  God by grace provides things, but then faith reaches out and takes hold of what God has provided by grace and faith brings what is real by grace into physical manifestation.

God by grace has already accomplished everything He is going to ever do, but it doesn’t automatically come to pass in your life, you have to access God’s grace by faith.   Romans 5:2 (NIV):  “² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”  So you aren’t saved by grace alone, you aren’t saved by faith alone, you are saved by a combination of the two.  God, before you ever had a need has already provided everything by grace, but that grace won’t release its power in your life until you appropriate this grace by faith.  See, if it’s a true step of faith in God’s grace that it’s already done, then you will see a supernatural supply.

So this scripture I was using of Ephesians 2:8 that says, “you’re saved by grace through faith,” not one or the other but a combination of the two, now if you go back and apply this to Titus 2:11, it says, “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,” if grace alone saved, if it wasn’t necessary for us to have a positive response of faith on our part, if it was just the grace of God that whoever got saved, then you know what, every single person on the face of the earth would have been saved, because the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared onto all men. But we know through Jesus’ own teaching that He said that there would be more entering in by the broad gate of destruction than onto the narrow gate of everlasting life…  Jesus said that the majority of people are not going to receive salvation.  Why, because God hadn’t provided it?  No, the grace that brings salvation has already appeared onto all men.

The atonement has been made for every single person.  In 1 John 2:2(NIV) it says, “² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”  Jesus has paid for the sins of the whole world, the grace of God has already paid the debt, the grace of God has purchased salvation for every single person, not only those that God foreknew would accept Him, but every person has had their sins paid for.  The grace of God has bought that salvation and appeared onto every person, but not every person receives, as a matter of fact the majority of the people don’t receive, not because God’s grace isn’t there, but because they didn’t put faith in God’s grace.  Man that is one powerful truth!  This teaching has changed my life.

I don’t know if you are getting this because the things that I’m saying it’s so easy to say but it seems that it’s harder to comprehend because we don’t have a real example of grace and faith in our world.  Really the only person who treats us with grace on a consistent basis is God. There is nobody else that does this and so because there is not a role model, a physical person that we can see, most people just can’t grab this.

You have to meditate in these truths, take the word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to just show you these things by faith and you have to grab hold of this but most people struggle with this because it’s just so contrary to their normal existence, but God has already done everything by grace, before you were ever born, Jesus died for your sins, before you ever got sick, Jesus bore the chastisement for your healing in His physical body.  You were healed 2000 years ago, before you ever existed, before there was ever a sickness to be healed of.  Before you ever have a financial need, God has already made Jesus poor so that we through His poverty might be made rich (2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV):  “⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”)

God has moved through Jesus, through Jesus by His own free choice and volition, He chose to provide healing, prosperity, salvation, deliverance, all of these things.  He’s already done it; He’s already released His power, that’s grace – independent of you.  It didn’t have anything to do with your goodness or worth because you didn’t even exist when Jesus came and provided all of these things.  So does that mean that by grace God has already provided it, that everybody is going to be prosperous or everybody is going to be healthy or everybody is going to be saved, everybody is going to be delivered?   No, because you have to appropriate God’s grace by faith.

Now if you can understand this, this is tremendous, because I used to think that, “well I’ve got to speak the word of God, I’ve got to pray, I’ve got to study the word, I’ve got to do these things and when I do enough good things then God sees that and my faith moves God and God will respond and grant me my finances, my prosperity, my healing, deliverance, whatever…”  But no, that’s not true – God has already done it and what I have to do is study the word not in order to affect God’s grace or His heart, I study the word to affect me, to make me more sensitive to God.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying right here, if this doesn’t make sense to you, this is one of the reasons that you aren’t seeing the power of God manifest much more.  If this is like speaking a different language, it’s not communicating to you, then that means that you haven’t really got a working revelation of the grace of God and you’re still under this mentality that you do one, two and three and then God responds and does this.  I’m telling you God does not respond to your faith – here’s another way of saying it – that true faith is not something you do to gain a response from God, but true faith is your positive response to what you believe God has already done by grace.

Now, if you ever get that confused and if you ever start feeling like, man, I’ve got to start confessing the word and I’ve got to pray, I’ve got to go to church, I’ve got to pay my tithes and if I’ll do these things then maybe God will do this… See that’s not true faith, what you call that scripturally is legalism, works mentality and that will not release the power of God, as a matter of fact that’s really about the only sin that will stop the power of God.

Your sin of not paying your tithes and not reading the Bible and lying and stealing and any of these kind of things – that doesn’t affect God’s grace – grace means it’s independent of your performance – but the one sin that will stop the power of God is the sin of self righteousness, the sin of trusting in your works and instead of trusting in the Saviour and looking at what He’s done for you.  You are going to try to make it happen, because “I paid my tithes!  Now God’s got to give it to me!”  That’s not faith – that’s works!  That’s legalism and I guarantee you that will stop the flow of God quicker than adultery will.

Now those are some strong statements – I know that I just bumped into some religious traditions, that there are probably people very upset, but that is the absolute Gospel truth… That is the truth!   That God loves you and He’s already provided all of these things by grace, but they don’t just automatically come to pass, you need to study the Word, you need to pray, you need to live holy and do all of those things so that you can be in faith, instead of fear and unbelief and then that faith will appropriate what God has already provided by grace.

But don’t ever make the mistake, don’t get this confused and think that, “my actions caused God to do this,” because that is no longer faith, if you think that.  God does what He does by grace, your actions have zero to do with what God has provided.  By grace God has already provided your need before you ever had one, but faith is just a positive response, it’s things you do in order to receive what God has already done, not in order to get God to do something.

If you ever get confused on that issue, and if you start thinking, “well if I pay my tithes, now God’s got to bless me, because I paid my tithes.”  You know what, in a sense you are trying to manipulate, to control God, you’re using faith like a pry bar, a lever on God that will force God to do something and that will stop the power of God in your life in a heartbeat.

You know I get people coming up to me in the thousands saying things like, “well, how come God hasn’t healed me, I prayed, I studied the Word, I pay my tithes I’ve done this and this…  How come God hasn’t healed me? ”  Well, you told me why God hadn’t healed you, because you didn’t point to what Jesus did for you by grace, but you’ve pointed to what you’ve done and you have the mentality that this is going to make God heal you…  “If I do enough right things…”

See you think faith is something you do to move God, I’m telling you that is absolutely wrong.  God has already moved by grace, He’s already provided everything and your faith just reaches out and appropriates what God has already provided by grace.  This concept is something that I find missing in most people’s life, they just haven’t figured this out, and I’m not trying to criticize anybody else, it took me a long, long time – decades before I got this figured out.”

I can testify that shortly after I got the revelation that Jesus already paid the price, that He already finished it and that I am healed, even though it didn’t feel like that or look like that, and once I started praising Him for healing me and making me pregnant, I actually got pregnant.  When I prayed, I didn’t beg or ask for anything anymore, I just thanked Him and praised Him for already making me pregnant, even though I wasn’t yet.  Every time I said things aloud I spoke about how it’s all been done, how Jesus work is finished!  I totally assumed that I would get pregnant, and that it would happen soon.

The month we found out I was pregnant – that whole cycle – I just knew in my heart that it would work, because it was so much more than a belief by then…  It was reality – I knew Jesus paid the full price for me, by grace.   I wasn’t bothered much by what I had to do, and I was totally waiting in anticipation for the proof of what I believed, that I would get a positive pregnancy test.  I was almost like a child before his birthday, counting the days before I could test and to get proof of God’s mighty works.

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