I was in a certain city in 2010 on a business trip with my eldest daughter and as is our custom, while away from our home church on Sunday morning, we asked the Lord to direct us to the church of His choosing. The Lord sent us to a small friendly church of about 50 saints Sunday morning; while on the way there I felt the unction of the Holy Spirit come upon me. I asked my daughter to record down what the Lord was saying. He began to speak to me about vision and about, as He put is, “The Second Great Commission”. He began to speak to me (I feel in preparation for the great revival of the Last Days) to not forget the responsibility of leadership is to set a vision before the people and to teach the people making them ready for the day they shall stand before the Lord. In brief here is what He spoke to me:
1) The First Great Commission, Mark 16 – go and tell the world about Jesus
2) The Second Great Commission, Luke 1:17b – make a people prepared for the Lord
When we arrived at this little church we soon discovered the entire vision on this church was for healing; healing is a wonderful gift but it is not a vision. In this church the only vision they had was that Jesus wants to heal you; they turned every truth around to point to healing. Their website was about healing; the message was about healing and even the license plate of the Pastors car said “Healing”. We are at a time in our history when we could definitely use much more healing and deliverance than we are seeing; however, we could feel in the Spirit that there was a distinct deficiency in this place. They were not getting washed by the water of the word, they were not being given a vision for something greater than the blessing of healing. Healing is not a vision that you lead people into but rather a blessed experience you go through along your journey. Arriving at Zion, that is a vision; that is a place you can lead people to and on that journey healing is part of it but not the ultimate goal.
Many years ago, as a senior Pastor, I taught the book of Acts. During this time God dealt with me using Peter. It was during the event of the healing of the man at the gate beautiful. There the power of God was wonderfully manifested in the healing of this poor man. But as I was teaching this the Lord began to speak to me and said: “Watch Peter because in the years to come you are going to see the power of God manifested but I do not want you to just focus on the act of the miracle but I want you to follow the example of Peter”. I want to now turn our attention to Acts 3.
Acts 3:1-2 Peter and John approach the temple as was their custom. Acts 3:3-5 The lame man fixed his eyes on them and began to beg. Acts 3:6-9 Peter, through faith and the power of God raised up the beggar! Acts 3:10-11 Take note of this verse… they that looked on starred in wonder and amazement! This is where the Lord began to speak to me, what did Peter do next? When he realized that the crowd was spellbound by this manifestation of the power of God he did not stir the people up into a healing frenzy but rather he took advantage of their wide open spirits and he preached a sermon (Acts 3:12-26). He took out his sword and he drove it straight into their hearts, they practically had no choice but to believe since none could deny this was of God.
In Gods timetable we are coming very quickly into a period of the power of God; we are most likely going to see unparalleled healing and deliverance. The burden I have, however, is that we always remember it is wonderful to be healed, it is an amazing blessing but healing will not fulfill the “Second Great Commission” to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, let us seek the Lord as never before for the release of His power to heal and when He is healing the people let us take every advantage of hearts wide open and preach and teach the word of God!
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