Category Archives: Spiritual Gifts

-Remembering Oral Roberts…

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I remember watching Oral Roberts on a 10” black and white TV screen as a kid in the 50’s and wanting to grow up as a preacher/healer just like him.

I get choked up all over again watching this video. Unless you lived in the early 50’s you really don’t have any idea how really terrifying polio was in those days. Thousands of kids were on crutches in America and there was no medical answers for it until the shots came along in the mid 50’s.

Oral was one of the last of the Pentecostal healing/revival evangelists that toured across America preaching in tents after WWII. He was the among first to take it to the next level with a regular program on the new TV media that soon was in every home across the country.

All the recent controversy with his son and all the stuff the media and late night comedians have said about him and a 900’ Jesus sort a makes us forget what a blessing his ministry was to millions of Americans in the 50’s and 60’s. Really the first major national TV evangelist and one which helped to take Pentecostalism from the other side of the tracks to the main street in America.

Here’s a statement made by Billy Graham in memory of Oral:

“Oral Roberts was a man of God, and a great friend in ministry. I loved him as a brother.”

Graham also told reporters that he had spoken to Oral Roberts three weeks ago by phone, and that Roberts had told him then that his “life’s journey” was nearly over.

-Jerusalem: An Interview with Heidi Baker, Part Three

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Here’s Chris Mitchell’s third and final with Heidi Baker in Jerusalem: Longing for Jerusalem and Jesus (Link NLA)

The following is part of the Mitchell’s intro to this video:

“What’s God’s Heart for Jerusalem? How does lasting fruitfulness in ministry happen? These are some of the questions Heidi Baker answers…

Heidi’s passion for Jesus rings out as she talks about the joy of spending time with Him.”

-Jerusalem: An Interview with Heidi Baker, Part Two

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Here’s Chris Mitchell’s second interview with Heidi Baker: “Back to Jerusalem”

The following is part of the Mitchell’s intro to this video:

Many of you may have heard of the “Back to Jerusalem” vision of the Chinese church. …

In this second part of our interview with Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries, she tells how they’re planting thousands of churches throughout Africa on their way back to Jerusalem. It’s all part of the fulfillment of the Great Commission…

Heidi also shares some of the lessons the church in the West can learn from the people who are “the poorest of the poor.” These are people dependent and desperate for God. As Heidi says, “if God doesn’t show up, they’re dead.” But she says He does show up, the God who is alive!

-Jerusalem: An Interview with Heidi Baker, Part One

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Chris Mitchell of CBN News interviewed Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries in Jerusalem a few days ago. This first video contains an update on the ongoing revival ministries of Heidi and her husband Rolland in Mozambique and Malawi, Africa where they have planted 10’s of thousands of churches, and run several orphanages and a school of ministry.

I have personally experienced their ministry several times in my home church during their visits back home to South Orange County California. Always an incredible experience.

This is what Chris Mitchell in way of introduction on his Jerusalem Dateline CBN website:

“Would you believe people are being raised from the dead? Or the deaf hearing? Even food being multiplied? Heidi Baker believes it and has seen it. …

What happened then sounds like stories straight out of the Book of Acts. But Heidi insists it’s happening today. She says it’s a story of miracles and Muslims coming to faith in Jesus.”

-Ramadan: A Great Time to Pray for Muslims

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In the last several years I have read many accounts of Jesus and angels appearing to many Muslims in dreams and visions especially during the month of Ramadan. This as a great time to pray for Muslims and for their salvation.

-The Gospel Demonstrated

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Here’s a great message and testimony from Ben Cerullo:

I will never forget that night. You could hear the astonishment in the people’s voices as they shouted with amazement. The woman they had known all their lives and referred to as “the deaf, mute woman” could suddenly hear!

It happened as I preached the message of salvation. This woman who had never heard, could suddenly hear the words from my mouth. All the people from the neighborhood were astounded. They knew her. They knew she was deaf. And now she could hear. It was a true miracle of God.

Not only was this woman’s life changed, but the entire neighborhood received hope by witnessing that miracle. In the worst neighborhood in Honduras, God poured out His hope to all those people—by healing that one woman.
That’s the incredible power of demonstrating the Gospel, that’s what we are all called to do—demonstrate the Gospel.

<<Read the rest>>

-An Incredible Creative Miracle

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Here’s the testimony of an incredible ‘creative miracle’. A creative miracle is when God does the impossible and re-grows dead or missing tissue-like a missing arm or in this case replaces dead lung tissue.

This is the story of a little boy named Jacob who was one day in bed with life threatening lung disease and cardio complications and the next weekend boogie boarding at the beach on a fine warm Southern California spring day.

It is also a praise report of provision for the whole family during the crisis, and a story of unseen prayers of regular folks like you praying for healing and provision. The following is a first-hand account from Jacob’s mother:

PRAISE GOD !!!

Jacob had his appointment with the Pulmonologist this morning at CHOC.  Dr. Y. was STUNNED by the incredible difference in his CT Scan!!!!

The prior CT Scan showed his left lung was 90% filled with Nasty Battle-Droids…I mean Pneumatoceles.  The Doctors could not see ANY healthy lung tissue.  They “hoped” if they did surgery to remove the dead lung tissue and the HUGE Pneumatoceles they may be able to salvage a portion of his lung and healthy lung tissue “might” re-grow. 

Also, the border of Jacob’s lung was so damaged that it was allowing his lung to push into his heart causing pain.  The Doctor’s were worried that Jacob’s dead left lung would damage his healthy heart.  That is why then called the heart and lung surgical expert, Dr. Palafox.  If they were removing the lung and the heart had been compromised he would be the best man to take care of them both while he was inside Jacob’s chest.  They planned to remove the “dead-lung” to save the heart.  You have two lungs and can live with only one…the heart is a non-negotiable. 

The healthy lung tissue is now THERE and the Pneumatoceles are NOT!!

God did not need to wait for surgery to clear anything out of His way… He just created NEW HEALTHY lung tissue just like HE did when he formed Jacob’s lungs originally 8-years ago!!  The border of Jacob’s lung is now strong and his heart is not being touched in any way.  Praise GOD!!

<<Read the rest of this incredible testimony>>

-John Wimber: “When do we get to do the stuff?"

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I ran across one of my favorite John Wimber quotes reading this article about his daughter-in-law Christy. I personally heard John tell this story on a number of occasions when I attended Vineyard CF Anaheim while Wimber was the head pastor:

“A professional musician who played the Las Vegas circuit for 5 years, John later signed with the Righteous Brothers. When John was gripped by God in 1963, he was a “beer-guzzling, drug abusing pop musician, who was converted at the age of 29 while chain-smoking his way through a Quaker-led Bible Study.”

He soon became a voracious Bible reader and after weeks of reading about life changing miracles in the Bible and attending boring church services, John asked a lay leader:”

“When do we get to do the stuff?  You know, the stuff here in the Bible; the stuff Jesus did, like healing the sick, raising the dead, healing the blind – stuff like that?”

He was told that they didn’t do that anymore – only what they did in their weekly services. John replied, “You mean I gave up drugs for that?”

Response: “Doin’ the stuff” became the marching orders at the beginning of the Vineyard movement.

Another famous Wimber quote: “Everyone gets to play”–which meant that all the members participated in “doin’ the stuff” not just the pastors and preachers. Those two quotes became part of the guiding foundation of the Vineyard Movement in the early years.

-Another Muslim Comes to Christ Via Vision

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I found this over at Persecution Blog, the original is from Reuters. Testimonies like this never really get old and bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart every time:

Amin said he became aware of Jesus Christ after dreaming that a figure dressed in a white robe approached him in a forest and handed him a Bible.

“When I told my father I had become a Christian he just stared at me without speaking. Then he said: ‘From now on, you are not my son. Go to those people, let them feed you and give you a home — we’ll see who cares for you’,” said Amin.

He left town, stopped his studies and now lives from translation work offered by a Christian missionary group.

Response: Thousands of Muslims are coming to Christ every year through dreams and visions. It is a radical decision for these folks when they come out of the closet and declare their new faith in Jesus. All are rejected by their families, most suffer some kind of persecution, and many even face death.

These folk really know first hand what Christmas is all about and received the gift of his Son Jesus regardless of the consequences.           

-The Story of the Bakers: "Miracles in Mozambique"

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Here’s an article posted in Ministry Today Magazine by Hope Flinchbaugh– “Miracles in Mozambique”. It tells the story of the revival started by the Bakers in Mozambique:

The deaf hear, the lame walk, the blind see, the dead are raised to life, and tens of thousands have surrendered their lives to Christ–all of this is happening in the southeast African country of Mozambique, a nation suffering the squalor of extreme poverty in the aftermath of a prolonged civil war.

When missionaries Heidi and Rolland Baker of California arrived in Mozambique in 1995, they struggled to begin a church and a dilapidated orphanage housing 80 children, a center previously run by communist leaders. Today the Bakers’ Iris Ministries (IM) cares for thousands of orphans and is approaching the point of having a church in every single village in large areas of central Mozambique and southern Malawi.

<<Read the whole article>>