Thursday, April 16, 2009

ELIZA

Nissan/Aviv 22, 5769 Fifth Day Yom Khah' mee shee

Dear Ones, The story below about Eliza is truly amazing but oh so true! Our God is alive! He will heal our bodies! We can trust in Him!
I told you about my broken leg but there have been other healings for me....I have suffered with a back problem for several years. I fell while staying with my daughter in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. Her husband, now ex, was in Iraq and I wanted to be with her while she was pregnant and after the baby came...which by the way is wonderful five year old Arrin.

I truly did not know how badly I had hurt myself but in just a few weeks the pain was almost too much to bear. I DID NOT go to the hospital or even a doctor, though. I suffered it out. I did my best to aliviate the pain. It did get worse, I could barely walk and at times I felt I might not be able to go on. But then I would allow my faith to kick in and pray and I would feel better.

So I have dealt with it for five years. Sometimes feeling better and most times feeling worse. I was awakened one morning very early and turned on the tv to see an informercial about an amazing back machine. i felt I was to order one. The LORD said.."You won't go for help so it will come to you."

The back machine has helped but in the past few weeks I seemed to get even worse than before. I had to start using one of the carts at the stores to ride in just so I could do my shopping. Then on Shabbat, the 17th of Nisan or April 11...as I played my music I began listening to Keith Green's version of 'the easter song' which I choose to call 'The Resurrection Song'....I played it over and over again and Holy spirit ministered to me and my prayers went before our King and my dear ones, I was healed.

Now, I was also given instruction with my healing. Yes, I had injured my back but it was also a stress related back ailment and also because I have not been as active as I should be. The LORD worked on me..I lay on the floor and He gave me an overhaul. I was instructed that I would be sore..but not in pain and I must stretch and use my muscles. I must exercise this now.

Well, I have been sore but not in pain. I can walk and I am not walking lopsided and I can lift my legs. The Divine Physcian did a work on me and in me and I give Him praise.

Be filled with Holy Spirit...pray in your unknown language in which Holy Spirit prays thru you and knows just what to pray for. Use Holy spirit in the most marvelous way.

BELIEVE! BELIEVE! BELIEVE! AND RECEIVE!!!!!

I love YOU and want only the best for YOU!
With love to YOU in and through our Savior and KING Yeshua HaMashiach, His servant, gloria


ELIZA by Harold Smith


He Shall Arise With Healing In His Wings

Her complexion was pasty, almost white, and her eyes had become glazed, having lost the luster that I had come to know. Her walk was halting, and slow as she tried to maintain her balance from one step to the next. I had heard various accounts in my life of people on the verge of death before, but there are just no words, really, to describe the different things you notice when you are up close to someone who is in that condition.



Slowly, we made our way down the long corridor, stopping ever so often to allow her a few moments to gather herself for the next leg of the journey to the doctor's office. When we arrived in the sparsely furnished waiting room, she collapsed in a heap on one end of the chair-bench. I was amazed at the resilience she showed, in spite of her weak and noticeably haggard condition, as she proceeded to fill out some forms on a clipboard handed to her by a nurse when we entered.



I had only come to know Eliza for a few short months before she had asked a friend and I to accompany her to the hospital. In her mid-fifties, she was fighting leukemia, a cancer of the blood, after having been diagnosed with it 12 years earlier. This disease had already left her at death's door several times previously and that she had remained alive this long was a miracle in itself! She had been getting progressively weaker and weaker, to the point where she was beginning to be unable to manage even the mundane things of life by herself. A solitary woman to begin with, she stayed in her apartment most of the time, paying a taxi driver to retrieve her phoned-in grocery order from the store to her when needed. Just to walk down a flight of stairs to her mailbox and back had become so arduous that it was sometimes the only adventure outside her door for several days at a time. A simple cold would put her in bed for a week or more.

A woman of faith, she had determined that she was going to see God heal her - no matter what - and she was a very determined woman. She would sit in her apartment, day after day, reading scripture, praying and watching Christian television, believing that she was as good a candidate to receive healing as all the testimonies of those people being healed on the television screen. It was only at the mounting insistence of some of her closest confidantes that she finally agreed to go to the hospital. I believe her agreement was primarily motivated to shut them up so they would leave her alone. She was not going to be found lacking faith - even if it killed her.



The tests showed that there was no blood in Eliza's body - only water

We sat waiting for her blood work to arrive back from being processed by the lab when the doctor, a woman, approached us very apologetically. It seems that the lab had made some sort of mistake, she said, and that they would have to draw some more blood to re-run the test. The tests showed that there was no blood in Eliza's body - that it was only water. "We know that can't be true," she animatedly quipped, "because then you would be dead. Right?" So, they drew more blood and sent it off to the lab for a second testing.

When the doctor reappeared, her face was as white as the lab coat she was wearing as she informed us that the first test was not a mistake. The second test confirmed that there was no blood in her body, only water. To which Eliza was promptly escorted into a room where they proceeded to intravenously inject two units of blood into her. The following day, we brought her back where she was given two more units of blood and was advised to come back another day for yet two more. After the first injection, I saw the life begin to reappear in her eyes and her complexion return to its rosy hue.

Eliza told us on the way back from the hospital that the doctor had wanted her to begin chemotherapy immediately to combat the leukemia. Eliza was determined however, that even though this had been a setback for her, Jesus was going to heal her and she was not going to give in to the unbelief surrounding her. I sat in amazement at this woman's faith in the Lord in the face of overwhelming circumstances and, at the same time, wondered myself at why she wasn't finding that place of healing.



She had become very disillusioned with trying to "keep the faith" about being healed

A few days later, as we were talking about this whole incident, Eliza said that the doctor, in the face of her adamancy about treatment, had told her that there was a less intrusive, non-evasive chemotherapy treatment in much lower doses that she could administer orally that had shown much success in placing this disease under control. Eliza confessed to me that she didn't know what to do - that she had become very disillusioned with trying to "keep the faith" about being healed and was very tired of trying. She began to recount all of the discouraging trips she had made to this place or that event where she was prayed over; of the numerous people who, when she wasn't immediately healed, inferred that it was according to her faith (or more exactly, her lack thereof) and of the perplexing disappointment heaped upon her that she had carried for all those years of not being able to "measure up" to everybody's expectations - indeed, even to her own - of what it meant to not have enough faith to "be healed" in the Name of Jesus.



I told her I wanted to pray and stand with her and asked her what the Lord had specifically said to her about what position she needed to take in the midst of these new developments. She said, "I don't know." Now, it needs to be stated that Eliza is well read in scripture, able to quote verse after verse, and in the ways of the Lord found therein. She had vigorously sought after Him about her condition these past 12 years and why she wasn't being healed. She knows the book front to back and can hold her own in just about any theological discussion. Consequently, I was rather dumb-founded when, after asking her if she had asked Jesus about this situation and what she should do about it, she answered rather meekly with, "no." But she believed God could heal her.

Jesus said that He did not do anything unless He first saw the Father do it and He did not speak anything unless He first heard the Father speak it. (John 5:19 & 12:50)

"Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:] Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained…" Philippians 2:5-6 (Amplified)

"For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as fatted calves of the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 4:1-3)



Variables vs Absolutes

Derek Prince, a valiant warrior of the faith, wrote a book in which he said that in the spirit walk there are variables and absolutes. Too often as believers, he went on to say, we tend to place our focus on the variables rather than allowing the absolutes to be the guiding pillars in our lives. There are many variables in this story, but only one absolute - the source of healing rests in the wings of Jesus (Malachi 4:2 above) and unless God speaks the word of healing as He did to create the universe, there is none. It becomes an issue of supreme importance, then, that we first hear what it is the Lord has for our life before we embark on a course that might cause us to land in a place different from where He wants us to be.

We know absolutely that God wants us to be healed because we are told over and over in the scriptures "…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." Acts 10:38. Where the religious folk of the day quarreled with Jesus was not in God's ability to heal, but the manner in which He was doing the healing. It didn't fit into their preconceived notions of how that should take place.



Since their traditional way of approaching healing rendered God powerless, they also didn't see much of it.

So, then, the question becomes HOW that healing is to occur and it is here that we run into all types of variables. The appropriation of healing is as different as there are individuals. There were some that He merely spoke to and they were immediately healed. There were others that some action was required on their part in order to obtain their healing. Since Jesus never healed anyone the same way twice, it becomes paramount that we should take our cue from His Way and first hear the voice of God in matters that involve our direct participation.



In Galatians 5:22, faith is listed as one of the Fruit of the HOLY SPIRIT and, like repentance, is a gift not to be wielded at our discretion but at the direction of WHOSE IT IS. Our faith (different from the faith imparted by the Holy Spirit), while important, is but one element in the process of healing and, traditionally, has been amplified way out of proportion from what it is intended to do.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, 'and was not found, because God had taken him' for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11:1-6)



The Essential Message of Jesus

The rest of that chapter in Hebrews goes on to list example after example of men and women who, after having FIRST HEARD GOD SPEAK, then went on to see the performance of that word because their faith was IN THAT WORD THAT THEY HEARD GIVEN AT THAT MOMENT. Their obedience to that word was the evidence of their faith in it. However, before hearing Him speak, they first had to occupy that realm of being pleasing to Him. Pleasing God means what? The pre-requisite to hearing God speak is to believe that He is and that He will reward us for seeking Him. But being pleasing to Him does not constitute the reward. Becoming pleasing to Him creates an environment that enables Him to operate because He can only operate in a realm of faith. That is what is known as the measure of faith that is given to each of us that allows us to come across the threshold of the doorway to the kingdom. Once inside the door, we can then receive the reward. What is the reward for seeking Him? That we will find Him and WE GET TO HEAR HIS VOICE! That was the essential message of Jesus - that if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, WE WILL BE FILLED (Matthew 5:6). That does not necessarily mean we immediately get what we are asking for. We too often mistake the place of merely believing that He is as that place of reward and fail to wait to hear His voice of instruction….and, unless He speaks the word FOR THAT MOMENT, all the believing in the world on our part won't make it happen. This is not to say that our prayers and petitions do not have an effect on the word that He speaks, for they do; but, ultimately, if the word does not come from His mouth there is no power released to cause anything to happen. Because we wish and hope and pray for it to happen does not make it so nor does it place any obligation on God to do anything.

Once we obtain a clear word from the Lord then the faith fruit of the Holy Spirit kicks in and becomes added to the measure of faith we were granted to enter the door. As we exercise our belief in the word by our obedience to that word, that is when the power of the Almighty is unleashed and we can then expect God to fulfill the Word He has spoken. This process takes all the emphasis off of us and, instead, places it onto the creator of the universe to do what He said He will do.

"You do not have, because you do not ask. (I John 3:15). [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and selfish motives." (James 4:3 - Amplified) One of the basic tenets of faith is listed in the Ten Commandments, "You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." (Exodus 20:7) The dictionary defines vanity as something that is used or done for selfish purposes. God was trying to say that when we attempt to force our will and desires into the realm of the spiritual, the atmosphere of faith he needs to operate in becomes nullified; hence, we can not be "pleasing" to Him because we have not sought after Him and His will first.

"Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases…" Psalm 103:3

Jesus touched Eliza. She has been healed and made whole. She is taking no medication and her last test results showed her blood count to be ABOVE normal. Hallelujah! So, what happened? What made the difference? As I said earlier, there are many variables in this story that are unique to her, but, ultimately, as she lay at death's door, she decided to wait on hearing His voice and His direction and then became obedient to it. When He spoke (He had been speaking all along - she just finally got to a place where she could lay down all her preconceived thoughts about how to hear Him and only Him) and she became obedient (the evidence of faith) to the action He had for her, the resurrection healing power resident in His Wings was released and engulfed her.

She simply quit running to this one and that one, this meeting and that rally, looking for someone else's touch; humbled herself before the Lord to wait only on Him and became obedient to those things He had given her specifically to do. If He does not speak the Word of Healing into our bodies, all the faith we try to work up won't do a thing. Since, as believers, God is more concerned in the eternal state of our spirit before He is interested in the temporal nature of our flesh, it is imperative that we "go to the source" to find out what He has to say about whatever condition we find ourselves in and leave all our preconceived ideas about how that is to happen behind. In scripture, He never healed the same way twice. We want formulas. "So faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God." (Romans 10:17) "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) The Word is not a book, it is the person of Jesus. The book only speaks of Him. "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." (John 5:39.40) When we lift our eyes off of ourselves and our problems and put them squarely on Him, it is then that we will gaze on the Source of Life. No one else can do that for us.

Today, there are many who want you to believe in this way or that way to obtain favor from God. There is only One Way, however, and that Way is the example set forth by the One who created the Way - Jesus - and that Way is to wait on God. That is why Jesus spent so much time alone with the Father, training His ear to hear God's voice. So should we. He is speaking to you now - are you hearing?

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