Those who have such experiences are like the blind man Christ healed:
New Living Translation (©2007)
The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, "He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!"
Some of the Pharisees said, "This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath." Others said, "But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?" So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, "What's your opinion about this man who healed you?" The man replied, "I think he must be a prophet."
The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents. 19 They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?”
20 His parents replied, “We know this is our son and that he was born blind, 21 but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. 23 That’s why they said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”
24 So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this,[b] because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”
25 “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
26 “But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?”
27 “Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
28 Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! 29 We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”
30 “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. 32 Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”
34 “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.
Spiritual Blindness
35 When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?[c]”
36 The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”
37 “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”
38 “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.
39 Then Jesus told him,[d] “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see[e] that they are blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”
41 “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.
None are so blind as those who REFUSE to see--always for all the 'right,' 'honorable,' 'Biblical' reasons. . . . just like the Religious rulers who had the Bible memorized 2000 years ago.
I say again:
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD . . .
Trusting Him, obeying Him, doing the works that He did and enables us to do, by His Spirit.
END TIMES PING LIST PING
plus a few other friends and loved ones.
BTW, for those who missed it earlier . . . here’s
Curry Blake’s series . . . his course on healing:
http://spiritlessons.com/Documents/Healing/JGL/JGL_Ministries.htm
I have heard many times of people speaking in tongues, this is the first I’ve heard of there being someone who understood such speaking as being in their own language.
I don’t have any problem believing that tongues are a gift from God.
It’s Biblical.
I do have a problem with accepting almost anything that Kenneth Copeland teaches.
He has taught many many falsehoods over the years.
The account in Acts tell of the practical purpose of helping those who were foreigners hear the gospel in their own language and thus this gift helped to establish the Christian church.
Those speaking in tongues understood what they were saying and had control over whether to speak or not just as Paul later commented.
In the congregation if there was no one to translate then the speaker was to keep quiet so the event was orderly and restrained.
Finally those gifts , speaking in tongues and their interpretation, were to cease so in and of themselves they would not later serve as evidence of the operation of God's spirit.
What would would fulfill that role was those fruitcake's of the spirit Paul listed, love, joy, peace, etc. with the greatest being love.
It was by that love, not speaking in tongues, that Jesus said,
‘By this all will know you are my disciples, if you have among yourselves’.
So when I look for evidence of the operation of God's spirit I look for the practice of Christian love Jesus spoke about and the fruitages of God's spirit that Paul listed not the speaking in tongues.
Your baptism in the Holy Spirit is received by faith. Jesus said in Luke 11:13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” When you ask in faith, the Holy Spirit comes to live in you. And when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, as in the book of Acts, you speak in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is simply speaking in a language that only God understands—even you won’t understand it. This happens as the Holy Spirit prays through you about things you may not know about or may not know how to pray about (Romans 8:26).
The Holy Spirit was sent to be our Helper. So when you pray in tongues, what actually happens is that the Holy Spirit searches your heart and prays through you the perfect will of God (Romans 8:26-27). You actually utter the secret truths and hidden things which are not obvious to the understanding of your mind (I Corinthians 14:2, The Amplified Bible).
To pray in tongues, you need to realize that speaking with an unknown tongue is the voice of your heart. Speaking in a known tongue is the voice of the human mind (unless one of the vocal gifts of the nine gifts of the Spirit is in operation). The Holy Spirit of God will give you utterance, the same as your mind gives you thoughts to speak (Acts 2:4).
To speak in tongues, you must operate with the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 14:14, “For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays, but my mind is unproductive…” (The Amplified Bible).
Notice that it was Paul who did the speaking. Ask the Holy Spirit to take charge of your tongue, then yield your tongue to His use. You cannot speak in your own language and tongues at the same time, just as you cannot speak with English and French at the same time. When your voice and tongue begin forming syllables around the expression that your heart desires to release, you will also speak in tongues. It will be your tongue, your breath, your vocal cords and you will be actively forming words. You will supply the sounds, but the Holy Spirit will supply the words—words unknown to you. It may seem awkward to you at first, but continue. Like a child learning to speak, you will grow.
Finally, as you seek the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, you need not wait to get a word from God about it—you already have His Word—nor do you need to wait around for the Spirit. The Spirit of God entered His ministry on the Day of Pentecost and He has been here ever since. He has never left!
Furthermore, you need not be concerned over being deceived and ending up with something that is from the devil. When you ask your heavenly Father for one of His promises—as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit—you can be confident the gift given is from God, not Satan.
Remember, Luke 11:13 says, “…how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” So if you want to receive your baptism in the Holy Spirit, ask Him now.
“Heavenly Father, I am a believer. I am Your child and You are my Father. Jesus is my Lord. I believe with all my heart that Your Word is true.
“Your Word says if I will ask, I will receive the Holy Spirit. So in the Name of Jesus Christ, my Lord, I am asking You to fill me to overflowing with Your precious Holy Spirit. Jesus, baptize me in the Holy Spirit.
“Because of Your Word, I believe that I now receive and I thank You for it. I believe the Holy Spirit is within me and, by faith, I accept it.
“Now, Holy Spirit, rise up within me as I praise God. I fully expect to speak with other tongues, as You give me the utterance.”
Now begin giving sound to the expressions in your heart. Speak and hear the Holy Spirit speaking through you.
Rejoice! You’ve just been baptized in the Holy Spirit! You’ve been endued with power—hallelujah!
Do you agree with Rev. Copeland on this, that being baptized in the Holy Spirit always means speaking in tongues? What about Paul's admonition in I Corinthians 12:30, "Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues ? Do all interpret?"? I would also question the extravagance of their ministry and their lavish lifestyle with Rolls Royces, private jets, mansions, especially when an elder or leader of the church is exemplified by "not a lover of money". Again, no one is saying God doesn't STILL do miracles in people's lives, just that those who claim to have this special "anointing" these days are nothing at all like those who legitimately had those gifts in the first century. Nor do they preach the Gospel of our salvation as their primary concern. For too many it is a money-making scheme where THEY are the ones glorified instead of God. If they truly had these gifts (tongues, healing, prophecy) today, it would be an entirely different ball game. Sorry, I don't accept them or their motives.
"Kenneth Copeland got his start in ministry as a direct result of memorizing Hagin's messages. It wasn't long before he had learned enough from Hagin to establish his own following. To say his teachings are heretical would be an understatement — blasphemous is more like it. Copeland brashly pronounces God to be the greatest failure of all time, boldly proclaims that "Satan conquered Jesus on the Cross" (emphasis in original),26 and describes Christ in hell as an "emaciated, poured out, little, wormy spirit."
She went to the Doc for an already scheduled appointment the next day. He said there was no sign of cancer anywhere in her body and that he was dumfounded as he was never wrong.
I believe a person can be healed in the name of Jesus Christ.
That being said, I do not believe a doctor will claim that he is “never wrong”. Also, doctors cannot really declare that a person is free of cancer because it is impossible to check each cell at the molecular level. Doctors give credence to being cancer free after many years of absence of discovered cancer cell.
The ‘religious’ crowd rebuking the one who can ‘see’.
Gee, times haven’t change. Simple faith vs. the religious.