Tag: Hope

Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope, Miracles, Spiritual healing

Faith is like a muscle – it has to be exercised

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Last week, I shared some stories of the incredible miracles which have been happening at my brother’s church in France. We felt that God started to move in the church about two years ago during our first missions week. A lady came asking for prayer for pain in her hips, which was caused by deformed bones. She was completely healed, and this opened up a door for God to do more.

Over the last two years, we have heard many more incredible testimonies: a man healed of complete deafness, a woman healed of paralysis in her leg, another lady who had severe pain and even discharged herself from hospital for an hour to come to the service. She was completely set free and later declared free of disease. Others have been restored from tumours, depression, restless leg syndrome, chronic insomnia, and addictions. There are so many stories I could share, and in the future, I hope that some of these people will write guest blogs and tell you their stories themselves. There is so much to thank God for!

I have been asked a question which is close to many people’s hearts – why are some people healed and others not? I do not have all the answers, but I can share from my own experience what I believe is true. I wrote last week about the need for expectancy and how we should approach God believing that He will do something.

Here is an illustration: if one of us was sick, we would go to the doctor for a check-up. Often, we will not know the doctor, but we will take their advice, and when they give us a prescription for medication, we will then take that to a chemist. At every stage, we usually trust the doctor we do not know, we trust the chemist we do not know, and we trust the pills, even when we do not understand how they work. But when it comes to trusting God, we often struggle, and we question if He is capable of giving us what we ask. We have no trouble believing that He could die for us, save us, and give us eternal life, but we do struggle to believe that He could do the miraculous.

I believe that faith is a muscle, and just like any other muscle in our bodies, if we do not use it, it will eventually become weak and useless. As believers, we are children of God’s kingdom, and just like being a citizen of the United Kingdom, we have certain citizenship rights. If something was wrong in our country, we would have the right to take a petition to 10 Downing Street, and in the same way, we can take our petitions to God.

As citizens of God’s kingdom, we have a constitution (God’s Word), and we can stand on that and petition God to do what no one else can do. Just as with politics, we don’t always see answers right away, but we should keep standing on God’s Word, believing His promises, and asking Him to bring about a miracle. God’s Word is the instruction manual for life. If you or I bought a new mobile phone, we would go home and start reading the instructions to make sure that we got the best use from the phone. If we pay that much care and attention to our phones, how much more attention should we give to our lives? God’s Word is the instruction manual – without understanding it, our lives do not work properly.

Now it is true to say that not every one gets healed, but I believe that God is sovereign, and we are not here to dictate to Him how He should do things, but to be obedient to His Word. However, I have also seen great things happen when a person didn’t get healed.

Last year, a lady came to a meeting during the mission in France. That very day, she gave her life to Christ and asked us to pray that she would be healed from terminal cancer. We prayed for her, but sadly just five days later, she died.   When the church went to visit her family (they were not Christians), her husband said that in the days before she passed away, he had never seen his wife so happy and peaceful since he had known her.

He said: she spent her final days praising her Jesus, and she left this world in total peace, knowing that she would soon see Him face to face. So although she did not see physical healing in this life, she was healed when she stood before Jesus and was given a new body, free of disease. There is no sickness or ill-health or cancer in Heaven. Praise God!

If you are trusting God to heal or set you free, can I encourage you to persevere? Stand on His word, trust Him, and practice exercising your faith muscle. Whatever happens, you can be sure of one thing: your life will be changed for the better. I have never met a person who wasn’t changed by spending time with God. Follow God’s instructions and wait to see what He can do in your life.

David-Blog7

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Evangelism, Hope, Miracles

God is still working around the world

Posted on by David L'Herroux

I was in Florida a few weeks ago to attend the Hope Celebration with our long-time friends and ministry partners OneHope. OneHope is a wonderful organisation which is reaching millions of children and youth around the world with the Good News of Jesus. They produce a lot of resources, including Book of Hope and the Bible App for Kids, which has been downloaded over 10 million times.

The Hope Celebration was a time for leaders to gather, pray, fellowship and hear what God is doing through the ministry. One of the speakers was Pastor Andrew, who works in the Sahel region of Northern Africa. The team there is working in a very difficult context where the practice of Voodoo is very common and the terrorist group Boko Haram also has a lot of power. Boko Haram is the group which kidnapped over 270 young girls in 2014 and is regularly involved in horrific violence across the region. Despite these many challenges, God is working powerfully, and the Good News is still being shared in many creative ways.

Pastor Andrew shared a story about a day he came face to face with some terrorists deep in a forest while he was travelling. Ahead of him, he could see a group of heavily armed men advancing toward his car, and so he started to pray. Eventually the group surrounded him and demanded that he drive them to the nearest town. As some of the men got in the car with him, Pastor Andrew said he felt the presence of God come and (very boldly) he decided to give each man a Book of Hope. There was silence, but Pastor Andrew could see that each man was reading the book. After about 10 minutes, he asked the men if they understood what they were reading, and they said they did. He then asked if they would like to give their lives to Jesus! The men agreed and they stopped the car right then and each prayed to receive Jesus as their Saviour.

When the group arrived at the nearest town, Pastor Andrew was able to show them a nearby church – and today (over a year later), those men are baptised and part of a church.

Stories like these fill me with such hope as I hear how God is moving around the world in extraordinary ways.

As I wrote recently, it can be easy to look at the world’s headlines and think that God is silent. But I am reminded of the words of Jesus in John 16 where He says:

‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’

Praise God that no matter what our newspapers say, we still believe and know that through His death, Jesus has indeed overcome the world.

Please do pray for the vital work of OneHope in reaching children around the world.

DLH BLOG - APR 16

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Forgiveness

Finding hope in the middle of terror

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Last November I was at home in France in the middle of an exciting week of mission and evangelism at my brother’s church. We were being blessed with God’s manifest presence and seeing many people commit their lives to Christ and be healed and set free. As we rejoiced in God’s goodness, the news hit our TV screens of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris. We had been celebrating what God was doing through the mission, but now our hearts were broken for all the families who had lost a husband, a wife, a parent, a son, a daughter. Whole communities were left devastated, confused, numb and torn apart by grief.

The Sunday following the attacks, it was the last day of our mission, and my brother Daniel stood before his church, which was packed with people who were shocked and devastated at the events of the week. It is difficult to know what to say in the face of such a terrible situation, but my brother began to read from Psalm 37:

Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong. (v 1 & 2)

Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes. (v 7)

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him. (v 39 & 40)

I have been thinking back to that moment this week, after seeing the news of the horrific attacks in Brussels (and the many acts of terror we see around the world). As believers, these cruel and violent acts can seem so overwhelming, and sometimes we can feel unsure of what to say or even how to pray. I believe that God’s Word shows us how to pray in these circumstances.

Firstly, let’s consider people. Let’s pray for those who are fighting for their lives. Let’s pray for the families and those who have lost someone they loved. Let’s also pray for those who witnessed the attack and for the local residents who have to come to terms with this enormous tragedy. Let’s pray also for the medical centres who are working with the injured.

Secondly, we need to pray for wisdom for Governments as they discuss and debate what happens next. Proverbs 14: 12 says: there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. We should pray for wisdom for world leaders – that they choose ways and responses which are inspired by God and not necessarily their own intuition.

Thirdly, what I am about to say may seem unthinkable, but we should also pray for those who plan and plot such evil acts. We can pray for God to change their hearts. Just as He did for Saul of Tarsus, God can change the hearts of these terrorist groups and their leaders.

Is it possible to have hope in the face of such unthinkable terror and hopelessness? It is easy to feel as though the world is an increasingly dangerous and unstable place, and if we look at the darkness around us, we can easily lose hope.

But we need to continue going to God’s Word for our answers. His Word (John 1:5) says that the darkness in the world will get darker, but that darkness will never extinguish light. In fact, that light (His light) will continue to shine brighter and the darkness CANNOT overcome it. That is where I get my hope.

Let’s pray with passion for our world and all those who are suffering and grieving today.  And may God’s light, His in-extinguishable light, shine ever brighter in the middle of the darkness we see.

 

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