Out in a local city high street this lunchtime, I saw a group of Christians being refused permission by the local wardens to play their music or speak using a loud speaker. It seems that new restrictions are being enforced in public spaces and it was disappointing and frustrating for this team. They were undaunted, though, and just spoke out loudly with their own voices! Neither was this setback going to stop Jesus working in miraculous ways!
While standing and talking with them as the situation unfolded, a jokey kind of guy and another younger man came past and the jokey guy made some wisecrack but harmless remarks. The others ignored him, but I made a bee-line over to him and asked if he had any aches or pains in his body that he would like gone! He said he didn’t but his younger friend definitely had. Time to introduce myself - and Dr Jesus!
The young man is called “Rees”. He has a troubled story too long to share here and has only just come out of prison. Here he was now in this new, completely unknown city knowing no-one. He was homeless. My heart went out to this poor lad who can’t be more than in his early twenties. He had a couple of medical issues but today the main problem was his right foot, which was swollen, very painful and unable to weight-bear. It was a flare up of a previous fracture 4 or 5 years ago and had been troubling him now for several days. He scaled the pain today at 9 out of 10. It was bad.
Rees was happy to accept my offer of prayer though he said he didn’t have any connection with “all this “kind of thing”. You can hear in the following clip what happened for him both physically – and spiritually!
What was interesting was that after the second prayer commanding healing, Rees’pain level went down to a 2 and seemed to “stick” there for a time. But, as we chatted about a couple of things with one of the team who had come over to see what was happening, the pain completely went away – to zero! He kept saying “this is weird! This is actually freaking me out” but in a good way! He also said that he had never known anyone help or care for him like this. Someone in the team also came forward to give him some lunch money. It was a lot for him to take in. After talking with Rees about why Jesus came to earth and died for us (he knew next to nothing about the Bible) it was a beautiful moment to then pray with him for that same Jesus to come and live permanently inside his heart, to save him and begin to heal his whole life. Oh Hallelujah – what a Saviour!!!
As you read this now, would you pray for this dear young man “Rees”? He faces many daily challenges and needs a lot of help and support. Please pray for his protection from the scheming enemy who will want to claw him back into his old kind of lifestyle. Rees wants a new start and today he became a new creation but he needs so much more than we were able to give him today. Please also pray that Rees’ testimony of healing will impact many others to put their hope and trust in our wonderful Saviour Jesus.