Testimonies of Faith

By Janet Jantzi
(30 November 1997, Schenectady, NY)

[For a printable version click here.]

Hallelujah!

I wasn’t going to do this at first, but Mark encouraged me to do it, because of how God works in one life is different than how He works in another life. And yet God places us together for a purpose and a reason. While Mark was in Europe, the Lord began to speak to me to share on faith. And I did not know what he was going to share.

But this morning I want to kind of go on a little bit and I want to share the testimony that God has placed in my life. And we know that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). It’s a learning process, a learning process of walking with God, and calling upon His name and asking God, you know, to do His will, His plan, His purpose in your life. And the whole time that God is working, the whole time He is molding you and changing you to bring you up higher in Him, and revealing Himself to you; it is because He wants you to know Him. He wants you to trust Him, because you’re not always going to have someone else there with you in a crisis. But He lives in us and He’s come to dwell in us and to live in us so that we have somebody to call upon. He is the author and He is the finisher of our faith.

I’m going to share the word, but I’m going to share my testimony. The first time that I really encountered a manifestation of the Lord, before He had done a major thing of healing in my life, was when I was 19 years old and I was a college student (at the State University of New York Agriculture College in Cobleskill, NY). And I was very shy; I was very withdrawn. And the Lord had come to me then “physically” (in a very strong open vision in which He clearly manifested Himself to me). I was a student. I had gone to college on a shoestring. And I just did not know how I was going to meet a college loan. I had worked in the New York telephone office and I had been able to save some money, but I did not realize that come January I was going to need a student loan and then I was going to have to apply to the college. I put it off and I put it off. I was very shy. I didn’t want to have to go and ask, because it reflected something of my life that my family did not have the means to help me. I was shy, but I was embarrassed about it. And so this particular day, I kept calling on the Lord, and this had been going on for several days. I had been working in the Kindergarten in (downtown) Cobleskill and I had to go down to the Kindergarten to work in a lab, and then to go back up in the afternoon and take my classes. And so this particular day, as I headed back up to school, I got to a corner in the center of Cobleskill. On the corner to my right as I was headed back up to school, was a bank. In the corner of the window, it said “Student Loans.” And the Lord stood on the corner.

Now I was not yet baptized with the Holy Spirit. Ok? I’m born-again, but this is not something I learned in Sunday school. It’s not something I learned in church. I saw the Lord standing on the corner, and I just didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what to do with it because I thought, “Is this of me or is it the Lord?”

To be honest with you, I was a little bit… I wasn’t sure about this. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. And so I turned around and walked the other way. And I kept talking to the Lord and kept saying, “Lord, is this really you? Is this really you?”

And I thought as I came back to the corner that He’s going to be gone because it’s going to be me (my imagination). And I got back to the corner and His presence was still there. And He would not let me cross the street. Finally, I said to Him, “Lord, what do you want? What do you want? What are you trying to tell me?”

And the Lord said to me, “I want you to go into the bank and ask for the president of the bank. And I want you to give him your testimony.”

You’d have to know I was so shy; I was so withdrawn within myself that what He was asking of me was like asking me to jump off a bridge. I mean, it was the last thing that I really felt in myself that I could do. But, you know, when we begin to walk with God, He places something in us; and that is a desire, a real desire to follow Him and to be obedient to Him. And there’s a verse (in Acts 5:32) that says He’s given the Holy Spirit to those who will obey Him.

And so I went into the bank and went up to the first teller I could find and I said to her, “Is the president of the bank in?” hoping she would tell me, “no.”

But she said, “Yes, Mr. Chase is in. Do you know him?”

I said, “No, I’ve never met him, but may I see him?” And I thought to myself, “what an idiot you’re making of yourself.” The enemy, you know, comes against you because what God asks you to do is not something you can do in yourself.

And so Mr. Chase came out. And I introduced myself to him. I told him who I was and I said, “I’m an Ag student. And may I see you for a minute.”

Well, he said, “Absolutely,” and that he always had time for an Ag student. And he invited me into his office.

And I went into his office and I thought, “O Lord, help me! Get this over with.” And I didn’t know where to start. What does it mean to give your testimony? I didn’t know what that meant. I had not learned that in church. And so he wanted to know why I was there.

I said, “Well, I’ve come to college on a shoestring.” And I said, “I knew that I was supposed to have my loan for January, but I’ve applied at the college and all the loans are spoken for. And I don’t have the means to pay for my fees.”

He said to me, “Well you know, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this.” And he said, “Maybe you could leave school and come back.”

And I said, “You know, if I leave I’ll never get my degree.”

And he said, “Well, just about all the loans here are spoken for, but, you know, there’s just something about this.” And he said, “I can’t promise you anything, but I will try.”

And I said, “That’s all I ask of you.” And I thanked him for his time; shook his hand, and I left and I went up to school.

I thought, “Boy!” I am telling you, when I got out of there, I shook. I mean, I shook! My legs could hardly carry me up to school.

So this was like on a Tuesday. And so again, I had to go down past the bank to go to the Kindergarten. And I was tempted every day; I just wanted to go in and say, “Do you have it yet?” Because my fee had to be paid by Friday before 4:30 or I was out. And I didn’t even have a dime to call home. I didn’t have a dime in my pocketbook.

And so Wednesday came and I went down to lab and class and I went back up the hill. Still nothing!

Thursday came. I went down to the lab and I was discouraged. I was really discouraged. So I got back up and I went to my afternoon classes and still nothing. I said to my housemother, Mom Grace, “have I received a phone call?”

She said, “Nothing, Janet. But when it comes…” She said, “Are you expecting a call?”

I said, “Yes.”

She said, “When it comes, I’ll be sure to track you down.”

Thursday came and I began packing my books. And the Lord spoke to me, and it was very clear. And He said to me, “Stop packing.” He said, “You’re not going anywhere.” He said, “You are going to graduate and you are going to get your degree.”

Now, it’s a pretty scary thing, because you say to yourself, “Is this of me or is this the Lord?” Because, I didn’t learn this in a church. You learn the way to salvation. You learn the Word, but walking in the Spirit is something completely different.

So I stopped. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I stopped. I left everything because I didn’t want to disobey.

So Friday morning comes and I get up and I go to lab. And oh, what a temptation it was to me coming back from lab to stop at the bank. Oh, it was just that I had to know one way or the other; and I just went on past the bank. Mr. Chase had not called, so I figured, “This is it, Lord. How are you going to work it out,” because I didn’t see any answer?

So I got up to the dorm. I checked the bulletin board, and there were no messages. So I said, “There’s no sense in me going to class. Forget it! I’ll go over to the Teepee. I’ll get a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s over for me. But Lord, you’ve got a reason. You’ve got a reason.”

So I went over to the Teepee to get a grilled cheese sandwich, and one of the girls came in and said to me, “Janet, did Mom Grace find you?”

I said, “No, I didn’t know she was looking for me.”

She said, “Oh yeah. She says it’s urgent. You had better go. She wants to see you immediately.”

So, I got over to the dorm and here’s this notice with my name written on it, “See Mom Grace immediately. Urgent!”

So, I tracked her down. And she said, “Janet, Mr. Chase called from the bank, and he wants you to call him immediately.”

Now, this is in the afternoon. The banks then closed at three o’clock. I called him and he said to me, “Ah Janet, I have your check for you.”

And I was just overwhelmed. I said to him, “I really appreciate that, but I don’t know if there is enough time to get down into town and get back up to pay my fees. I’m not sure I can get there before the bank closes.”

He said, “Janet, don’t worry about it, I will wait here until you get down here.”

So, I went down and I got the check. And I am going to tell you, I was so humbled. I got up to the school, I bought my books, I paid my fee, I got my meal ticket and everything; and I turned around and it was twenty minutes after four.

I went back to the dorm. That was the first time that God had so moved and worked; but, you know, you get a taste for it. You get a taste for it. The thing that always marveled me was that I wasn’t baptized in the spirit at the time. But God used it. He used it to take me further on. And I graduated, and I got my degree.

And then time moved on. And I experienced the first real healing and miracle. Now, I believe healings and miracles go hand in hand, because a lot of times when God does a healing in your life there’s a miracle involved. Now, of course, by this time I had Jean, my first child; but I had had complications. And the doctor had said to me, “You are not going home with a baby.”

And I learned then that you don’t listen to what is said to you. You can’t, but when it was the negative there was something else within me and I realized that it was the spirit of God. I felt, “no way!” (would I give in to the negative). I’m expecting a child and I’m going home with a child. I was very sick because I had toxemia but Jean was delivered without further complications, and I thought my problems were over.

Well, then I found out I was expecting Dana. And again there were complications. I had toxemia. I had it very, very badly. And I was very, very ill. Although I didn’t realize how ill I really was, because you figure other women go through this, and you’re going to go through it. And I did not realize the seriousness of the complication. And so my blood pressure was sky high. And, of course, every time I went the doctor he was very concerned. And I kept praying in myself. I’d come out and I’d be so discouraged because I had been gaining weight and the added weight made the blood pressure go up.

And finally the doctor said, “There’s nothing I can do except put you in the hospital.” And I had seven more weeks to go.

So, I went in the hospital and I did not realize that it was God’s hand that put me in the hospital, because I was living in Glens Falls and when it came time I would have to travel all the way down to the Albany Medical Center. So, He put me in the hospital and I was not happy. He put me there, because I kept calling on the name of the Lord. Well, while I was there, I started to hemorrhage severely. Had it started in Glens Falls, I would have had a long hard trip to Albany Medical. And so a nurse came in; they thought that I had delivered and I said to them crying, “I have not had my baby yet.”

So everything started to move quickly. They moved me down to the labor unit. I was down in the labor unit three days. And they couldn’t touch me. They couldn’t touch me. I had toxemia, for which they were concerned about convulsions and kidney involvement. And at the same time they couldn’t give me certain medications because I was allergic to medications. So they didn’t know what to do with me.

Finally, after the third day they had a consultation, made a decision and they took me to the operating room. And of course I kept asking about the child and I was given no hope, none at all! So, I went up to the O.R. and the last thing I remember, was the doctor saying to me, “If we knock you out, it’s because we’ve got to get in and get the baby and get out because your life is on the line.”

I wanted to talk to him about the child but he wouldn’t talk to me about the child. He said to me, “First of all, it’s your life we’re concerned about.”

So, the first thing I knew, they were working on me and I died. I literally died! And my spirit left my body. I had five doctors. Five doctors! And I could feel my spirit go up and it went up in the corner of the O.R. And it lingered there. And I could see this woman (myself) that the doctors were working on. But you know what? I realized for the first time that I was free of pain. I was free of pain! And I wanted to cry because I wanted to see my child, Jean, and I wanted to see my husband, but I was free in the spirit.

And my spirit lingered there. I can’t tell you how long it lingered there, but then I became aware that I was going up higher. I went through the roof of the hospital. I went somewhere up in the atmosphere. I can’t tell you where. I can not tell you where, but the thought came to me, “I want to see God. I want to see God.” But then the scripture came to me, “No man has seen God and lived (Exodus 33:20),” and I thought, you know, “Lord, what does this mean?” And you have all this conversation going on within you.

And then it seemed that I was waiting to stand before the Lord. And I heard Him, and He spoke and He said, “Send her back! It’s not her time.” But then He said, “She shall be a witness unto me.”

And at that point, I began to tumble down in what seemed to be a great big tunnel of light. And I was traveling very quickly. But when my spirit came back into my body, it seemed like someone had taken their hands and slapped them right over my ears. That’s how fast I came right back in my body. And then all of a sudden I heard someone calling my name. Calling my name, you know?

When I came out, I said to the nurse, “Thank God, I’ve had my baby.”

She had tears. She said, “Honey, you haven’t had your baby.”

And I thought, “Oh, no.” I got all hyped for my delivery.

Then my doctor came in. The blood pressure was absolutely normal. Hemorrhaging had absolutely stopped. The baby was in the right place and position. Nothing was the same! It was like God had done something. So, when the doctor came in to talk to me, he said, “You’re in higher hands than mine.” He had tears. He had tears going right down his face. He said, “Medically speaking, you should not be here and neither should this child. And we have a good strong heartbeat on the baby.”

He was born seven weeks early with the cord around his neck three times. This is a documented miracle because I’ve gone back to the doctor and he always says to me, “You know, medically speaking, you shouldn’t be here.”

That was the first time in my life that God had done a major healing, but at the same time a miracle. For the doctor had said to me, “But if you don’t have the baby by midnight, we are going to have to take you up and we are going to have to do a Caesarian.” And then he said, “After what you have been through, I really don’t want to have to do a Caesarian. Dana was born at 11:30 at night. And, you know, it’s given me a confidence about his life, because I know God’s hand is upon him. And, you know, God is faithful; but I realized that when the Lord sent me back, He sent me back with a sensitivity to the Spirit that I had not known before. I had not known it before. And there was a walking with Him. There was a sensitivity.

You know, there were things that He would tell me and some of it, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to hear. You know, one thing had to do with my mother’s landlord. He’s known me since the time I was three and he came to visit me. He heard about the birth of the baby. We had purchased a new home, and he wanted to come and visit us. And he came through the house and down over the back porch. And the Lord spoke to me, “I’m going to call Gramp home.”

There was like sensitivity in the Lord and I didn’t know how to handle it. And within a week’s time… I was supposed to go down home and spend time with my family. And the night before I was supposed to come down, my mother called me and she said, “Gramp is gone.”

I struggled with that. Why does God show us that? Why does God tell us that? But it got to the point where the Lord began to instruct me and began to teach me the things of the spirit, so that when God shows us things like this He wants us to pray. He wants us to pray.

I’ve never had the Lord work a healing in the same way ever. What He wants out of us is an openness to walk with Him, that we would be ready in any way that He would ask us.

The second major healing that the Lord gave me was this: I was very, very sick. I had gall bladder trouble. I had gallstones and I had gall bladder trouble. And I was very young and I was very fearful of surgery because of my drug allergies. And I struggled with it and I ate toast and tea. I lived on toast and tea. And I had a woman doctor, Dr. Voelker. And she knew my faith. She didn’t chide me for my faith. She didn’t come against it. It was part of me and she respected that.

And so, this one particular day, I was in the Word and I was reading. And I had prayed about it. I had prayed about it and I didn’t know what to do about it. Again, I’m still not at this time baptized with the Holy Spirit. But as I was reading the Word, I happened to be in James. And I read the verse, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray (James 5:13).” So, I thought, “This is good.” I prayed. And then it said, “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him (James 5:14-15).”

It was like that scripture was just electrified to me. And I immediately put the Word down and went to the phone. Then I called the pastor and read him the scripture. I said, “This is what it says. I’m sick. I want the elders to pray for me and anoint me.”

He said, “Alright, Janet, we’ll do it Wednesday night when we gather together for Bible Study.”

So, I went in. The elders anointed me and they prayed for me. And I went back to the doctor. I shared the scripture with her, and I said, “You know, I just believe that God can heal me.”

And she said, “Alright.” She said, “But Janet, we’ll do another set of x-rays before we set a time for surgery.”

So, I went. I went for another upper GI series and x-rays and whatever, and she called me. She said, “I could give you the report over the phone, but would you come to my office?”

And I said, “Yeah, I’ll come to your office.”

So I went to her office and she put the x-rays up; and she showed me my old x-rays and on my old x-rays I could see my stones. Then she showed me the new x-rays. She said, “I called the x-ray department to see if they sent me the right ones.” She said, “Do you see this? There are no stones.”

God intervened. I was let off from surgery. But I want to tell you this: you can lose the healing. You can lose the healing if you do not walk in what God has told you. You see, God had told me how to eat, but I wasn’t eating that way. And fasting was a part of my life; it was a weekly part of my life and I had gotten away from it. I believe that my life got so busy with stress and so many things that I had forgotten the instruction that God had given to me. I had lost it and that’s why I had to have gall bladder surgery later because it came back upon me.

But soon the Lord was stirring me to come to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I went to my pastor because I went with what God was telling me. The Lord would bring the Word about being“…baptized with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 1:5); He would bring this to me.

I went to the pastor and he said, “Our stand on it is, ‘seek not, forbid not.’ ”

But I said, “ ‘Seek not, forbid not’? But the Word (in Luke 11:9-13, 1 Corinthians 14) says, ‘Seek’. So how can you believe that, when this is what the Word says.”

And then I began to realize that with what the Lord was telling me, that you can not go to just everybody. Whether it’s a pastor or whether it’s an elder, they can only give you as much and as far as they themselves have come in the Lord.

So I took it back to the Lord. I was really grieved, because if God had something for me, I wanted it. And fortunately, that pastor left. And another younger one came, so I went to him. I said, “Paul, this is what the Lord has given me.”

Paul was excited. Praise God! So, before I knew it, within a couple of weeks Paul brought a message that “…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). But I sat in the pew and I struggled with God. I said, “God, I want it, but don’t give me tongues. I don’t want to pray in tongues because if I pray in tongues, there are going to be people in this fellowship, in this church, that are going to come against me.”

I struggled with it terribly, but the Lord kept calling me, kept wooing me. And before I knew it, I had to respond because I knew He had something for me. So I went up and Paul prayed for me and he kept saying to me, “Just go ahead, just speak it out.”

Oh man, I wanted to speak it out, but I just didn’t dare. So, I got home and I just kept saying to the Lord, “I want it.”

You know, I’d go to pray and I’d pray in my understanding and it was like I couldn’t go very far in my understanding. And so, finally one day, I had been fasting and the Lord just kept calling me to prayer. He kept calling me to prayer, and I was by myself in the house. He ministered to me out of John 14-15. But He kept wooing me by the spirit. Finally, I went upstairs and I went to my bedroom. I figured nobody’s in the house, and I shut the door and I began to pray to the Lord.

I began lifting my hands and when I began lifting my hands, it was like something electric slapped my hands. And it so took me by surprise that my mouth dropped. When my mouth dropped, I was speaking in tongues. I was praying in tongues, and it was a river. It was a flood that came forth and I hurried through dinner so that I could go off and be alone with the Lord. Do you know for three days and three nights, I would wake up in my sleep at night and I would be praying in the spirit. I had no idea how God was going to use it. You know, when God does a healing and a miracle in your life, then He’s going to start using you to pray for others; because He’s quickened faith to you; because you’ve experienced something of God by faith.

Now Chris was little. Chris (my third and youngest) was little. And I had gone down (to Catskill) and visited my sister. She had a black Lab and the dog had been hit by a car. So as Chris had gone to walk past the dog, he knew the dog had been hit. He just wanted to kind of…“poor dog.” You know, “…nice dog.” And the dog went for him. He went right in his face, and got him near the eye. But you know what the dog did? It took all of his skin off near the ball of his nose. And I had to take him to the emergency room. But I said to him first, “Chris, Mommy’s going to pray. You’ve got to settle down with the crying; but Mommy is going to pray and you agree with Mommy.”

He was just about Liza’s age (about five). And I took him up to the Catskill Hospital and the surgeon came out and looked at it and said, “I don’t know what to tell you because there is nothing on the nose, no skin. You know the only thing I can tell you is that when you go back home, you take him to a plastic surgeon.”

And my heart was down in my shoes. I thought, “a little kid this age…?”

So Chris and I began to pray. I said, “God heal him.” And the thing that we prayed was, “God give him new skin on his nose.”

Well this little fellow went home with me and he had a great big bandage that was like this. And he was instructed, “You don’t get it wet.” “You don’t get it wet.” So Chris was upstairs. I had put him in the tub. I went down in the laundry room to get dry pajamas, or whatever, for him. He’s upstairs and I can hear him. He’s like a whale in the tub. I’m thinking, “How is he not going to get this wet?”

So, all of a sudden I heard him scream. And I said to him, “What’s the matter?”

And the bandage had fallen off. And my heart went to the pit of my stomach, because you know what the surgeon has told you. You’ve come home, you’ve made an appointment with the plastic surgeon. But when Chris turned and looked up at me, he had all brand new skin on his nose.

I took him out, I dried him off, and I looked in the mirror. And there was a fine line, it was like a white thread. And do you know, to this day, if you get Chris in the light, the ball of his nose is different than the rest of his skin on his face.

So, I called my doctor and told her what happened because it was through her that I had to go to a plastic surgeon. So, she said, “Would you bring him in?”

I said, “Oh yes, I’ll be glad to bring him in.”

So, I took him in. And she said, “This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen because it’s like a thread.”

So, I said, “What should I do? Should I oil it a little bit?”

She said, “No, just let it be.”

But, you know, it was a testimony to Chris. It was only a matter of a few months later, I got up in the morning and God began to teach me to walk with Him in the spirit. And that means to go to Him for your morning devotion; and I was going through a hard time and I found out that if I left off doing this until the end of the day, it was like mopping up the mess after the problems that would come up. And I didn’t have the faith and the strength when they came up during the day.

You know, I was trying to run to the Lord. I was trying to hear Him, and I didn’t have the faith because I was in the middle of a crisis. And it’s hard to hear Him in the middle of a crisis. So, I got up this particular morning, and I had gone to the Lord in prayer, and the Lord began to teach me to submit the day to Him. And to give Him all my cares, all my problems, everything that came up during the day; to give it to the Lord and say, “Lord, you take care of it for me.”

And so, after He had baptized me in the Holy Spirit, on this particular day He began to teach me prophecy. And Paul said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” (1 Corinthians 14:15). And I fell into this. Nobody taught me, I fell into it in the Lord. And I realized that morning as I was praying in the Spirit, that the Lord started to give me a word. And the word was that if I would walk with Him, if I would put my trust in Him, that that day “I would see His glory.” I would see Him move and work with “the eyes of faith.”

I thought, “This is wonderful.” I got down to the breakfast table and about an hour or two passed. I went to the Lord and said, “What are you really saying?” Because, you know, we don’t understand sometimes when He speaks to us. We think we do, but we don’t. And I thought, “God how am I going to see this thing? What are you going to do?”

So, I hung my laundry out. I did my housework. I started to prepare dinner. I had a pair of slacks on. I had a bandana. I had been mopping floors, doing work. And all of a sudden the Spirit of the Lord told me to go upstairs and change. And I said, “Lord, where are we going?”

You know, this is the conversation you have with Him, as you walk with Him. So, I thought, “Alright, I’ll go up.” I took a shower. I put a dress on. I got dressed up. When I say “dressed up,” I’m just saying, a clean dress.” And I’m coming down the stairs and here comes a man across my porch with Chris.

Chris is crying. This man, I don’t know, I’ve never seen him before in my life. And Chris’s arm is just hanging and his elbows and his knees are one skinned up mess. So I asked the man to come in, and I thanked him for bringing Chris home. And I looked at Chris and I’m going to tell you, my heart was in my throat; but I remembered the word that the Lord had given to me.

So I sat him down on the couch and propped his arm with a pillow. And I said, “Chris, listen to Mommy. Calm, down. Listen to Mommy. We are going to pray.”

By then, when I said that we were going to pray, he would listen. So I laid hands on him and I prayed that God would heal his arm. Now, that wasn’t anything I had real confidence in because when I said, “Amen,” his arm still hung. But still God kept bringing the word back. And do you know what I realized? I didn’t have the eyes of faith. So, I thanked the man and the man left. But he kept saying to me, “Ma’am, aren’t you going to take him to the hospital?”

I said, “I really don’t know what I am going to do, but thank you for bringing him home.”

And I said to Chris, “You stay right on the couch. Mommy will be right back.”

I ran upstairs, shut myself in, and I cried to God. And I said, “God, give me the eyes of faith to see it. I can’t get by this broken arm.”

I was scared. I was really scared because I felt bad for Chris. So the Lord gave me a peace. I prayed in the Spirit. He gave me a peace. He gave me an assurance.

I went downstairs. I said to Chris, “Come on Chris, you’re going with Mom.”

“Where are we going?”

I said, “Mommy’s going to take you to the hospital.”

So, I took him into the hospital and as I was going into the hospital, my pastor was going out. And he said, “Jan, what are you doing here?”

I shared with him the Word the Lord had given me in the morning. And I told him about Chris. He looked at Chris. He knew the arm was broken, but you know he never spoke against the faith that I had just expressed. He stayed silent. So, he said to me, “I’m going to stay with you. Do you mind?” I said, “No, I’d be very glad if you would stay with me.”

So, we went in. They got Chris. They checked him. They cleaned all the abrasions on his arms, on his knees. And they said they were taking him to x-ray. So John stayed with me. We praised the Lord. We thanked the Lord. John was very quiet. They brought him out and the doctor came out. They said, “Who is the mother of this child?”

I said, “I am.”

He said, “Lady, I can’t figure it out.” He said, “I know that arm was broken when he came in, but the x-ray says that there is no broken arm.”

On the way from the house to the hospital, God healed him of a broken arm. And I thought, “God, thank you!” But, you see, it wasn’t just building faith in Chris. God was using it to build faith in me.

And you think we come by this easily. We don’t. There’s a process that God has to work in our hearts, in our lives.

Another time, Chris had a friend over. And one thing that Chris was told that he could not do, was that he could not play with golf irons or golf balls. He could not play with them. He was too little. You know, when you whack a ball you know a ball’s been whacked. And I scolded him and I said, “Don’t you disobey me!” (Chris incidentally wanted to come this morning. I said, “You stay home. You stay home; I don’t want to embarrass you.” So, he said that he’d come another time.)

But he had a friend over. I was sitting in the dining room. I had a kitchen, living room, dining room, and right off the dining room was a hallway down to the cellar and out the door to the yard. And my kids always had to play in the yard. I had to know where they were going, but the main thing was they could always have a friend. I would feed the friend; they could stay for supper. They could stay, but I wanted to know where my kids were.

So, Chris went down in the cellar. And I was busy sewing something. And he went out into the yard and bang went the door. I hollered to him, but he was off. The window in the kitchen was open. I could hear the kids out in the yard playing. And all of a sudden, I heard a blood-curdling scream.

And I went out that door and Chris said that John was hurt. He had hit John. He didn’t mean to hit him. And he said, “He’s going across the road, Mom, to go home.”

I ran after this little kid. He’s about six years old. And when I turned him around, the eyeball was hemorrhaging. Chris had whacked a golf ball, and this kid had got it right in the eye. And I’m going to tell you, my arms and legs were like rubber. I thought, “How am I going to explain this? How am I going to get this kid in the house?” And I didn’t know what to do. I began immediately to pray in the spirit to quiet myself down, and right from here the Lord said, “Ask in my name.”

So, I brought the kid in. I sat him down in the chair. And I said, “John, we’re going to pray. We’re going to pray for you, John. John, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

And I began to lay hands on him and pray in the spirit and that’s the first time the Lord began to minister to me to take authority over what the enemy has done. So, I began to bind it. So, I began to pray that God would begin to heal the eyeball and keep the retina clear. I did not want to be responsible for a six-year-old going blind. And then after this, I prayed and prayed, “God heal it.”

And so I called his mother, and I said, “There’s been an accident.” She said, “I don’t’ have a car. Can you take us to the hospital?”

So, I took them to the hospital. And I walked that hospital corridor like you would not believe. I had a neighbor stay with Chris. And I kept praying and I kept praying. And I stayed outside that emergency room where John was. I could hear John saying to the doctor, “I’m going to be okay. I got the whole world praying for me.”

And I thought, “Praise God!” It was a child’s confession. And I stayed there. I stayed there about three hours, and all of a sudden I heard a helicopter. They flew up an ophthalmologist from Albany Medical. And do you know what he said? He went in and he checked John, and he said, “The eyeball is already healing.” And he said, “The retina has remained clear.”

This young man never lost his sight. Never lost his sight! It was a testimony not only to John, but also to his mother to bring her to salvation.

I could go on. You know, I could go on of the many times when the Lord would give me a word of knowledge. You know, God works in mysterious ways. I had a neighbor. She didn’t know the Lord, but God laid her on my heart. This girl had a hard, hard life. She lived with a family; they were cruel to her. They were mean to her and she was to clean the house. And she was to take her meals in her room. And the Lord laid her on my heart. She was bitter. She was awfully bitter. I’d see her go by my door and the Lord would say, “Pray for her.” And I began to pray for her. I prayed for her for a whole year. And when I would see her, I would say to her, “The Lord is good.”

And she’d say, “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it.”

And I thought. And I prayed. I’d pray. And the next time I’d see her, I’d say hello to her. So I began to pray, “God, what is the key to her? What is the key to her? How are you going to reach her for salvation?”

So I had a five-day club (Bible study for children in your home, sponsored by Child Evangelism), and I’d had these kids at my house. The children are wonderful to minister to. You know why? They believe everything you tell them. They are so open; they are like sponges. I had a little girl that came to the five-day club. Her mouth was full of canker sores, and she couldn’t even take a cookie. And you know what the little ones said. “We’ll pray for you.”

And you know what? They gathered around and prayed. The next day, this little girl came and the sores were all gone. And you know what? Her little brother, who is four years old, came crying to his mother, asking if he could go too. She called and said, “Will you please take him because he thinks if he comes he is going to see God.” And I said, “Let him come. Let him come.”

So this woman took care of these two little kids, and one day she called me and she said, “Janet?” She said, “Little Sherry has a kitten and her father came in and found it on the table eating food, and he took his arm and swatted the cat and the cat has an injured hip. Will you come and pray for the cat?”

And I said to the Lord, “This isn’t you? This can’t be you? You want me to go pray for this cat?”

And the Lord said, “Go and pray. I’m going to use it to bring her into the kingdom.”

And I thought, “God, how are you going to do that?”

So I went across the street. And Iona opened the door and here comes this cat limping. It’s a little skinny cat. It looked terrible. And you know what? I didn’t think the thing would live long enough for me to pray. When we prayed for it, we laid hands on it, and I thought, “God, I have to get a hold of myself,” because I thought this thing was going to die.

And I went home, I sat down, and I could have wept. And I thought, “God, was this really you?”

A week went by and I didn’t see Iona. And I figured this is good news because if the cat had died, Iona would have been the first one at my door.

Two weeks went by, and still no Iona. So, this one day, I go out the door and here’s Iona coming up the front steps. And she said to me, “Do you have a minute?”

And I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “Will you come across the street with me? I have something I want to show you.”

And I said, “Well, what is it?” Because I thought if it had to do with this cat again, I wasn’t going.

So, she said, “I just want to show you something. And bring your Bible.”

And I thought, “What is she up to?” So I took my Bible and went with her. I kept praying under my breath, “God help me.” You know, He answers that prayer, “God help me”. He answers it a lot.

So, I went in the house and here comes this cat; sleek, black, glossy; and its hip was completely healed. And she said to me, “You know what I said the day that you prayed for the cat? I said, ‘God, you heal that cat and I’ll listen to the plan of salvation.’ ” She said, “Now, I’m ready to listen to what you wanted to tell me for a year.”

And that day, I led her to salvation. She prayed the prayer. And the Lord said, “Stick with her until she has established a home of her own.” She had never held a job and she needed to be baptized by water and the spirit.”

So, I stuck with her. I took her to Bible Study. I took her to church. And this one night she called me and she said to me, “I’m moving out. Will you help me?”

I had just walked in. It was 10:00 at night. I had just walked in from a Mother/Daughter Banquet, and I said, “Iona, I’ll call you back, but I need to do something.”

And I stopped what I was doing and I went to the Lord and said, “God, is this really what you want me to do?”

And He said, “Yes. Yes.” And there was an urgency of the Spirit. I didn’t understand the urgency.

And I went over and we made trips. We loaded the car. We went from the street behind my house to the street on the other side of my house. We made about three trips. I kept praying about it and there was an urgency of the Lord that I didn’t understand. And so finally we finished. And I got home and I said to the Lord, “What was all this about? I don’t understand, God. Help me to understand.”

He answered me, that I was to keep her with me. She was to be baptized the next morning in water, and He said, “Don’t let anything interfere with that.”

So I said, “Alright, Lord.” So I got up the next morning and took her up to the church where they were having a water baptism in a lake up in Lake Luzerne.

So on the way going home, the Lord kept saying to me, “Keep her with you.”

So, I said to Iona, “I have to do a little grocery shopping. Do you mind staying with me? And when I come back, you know, you can have a cup of tea or something with me.” And that was no problem.

We had a cup of tea, and all of a sudden the Lord released me. And she was ready to go home. I took her home to where she had just moved. And as I went to pull in, a car pulled around me and parked in front of the house just in front of me. And a woman got out and came to the door. It was the daughter of the couple whose house she had just moved out of the night before. And she said to Iona, “There’s been a suicide and a murder.”

The son, who was on drugs, came home Saturday morning and picked a fight with the father. He shot the father in the face and turned the gun on himself. And God got her out of that just in time. And when Iona had heard it, she was concerned about the mother of the boy, and do you know what she said? These people were horrendous to her, but she said, “Janet, I’ve got to go to the hospital. That woman needs salvation.”

And I thought, “Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.”

But, you know, there’s a “walking in the Spirit.” And the Lord has done many other healings in the time since I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. I remember one particular time, He had called me to fasting. He told me exactly how much to take and to eat. And I had done a pot of lasagna and boy it smelled good. It was my only meal before a total fast. And the Lord said to me, “You take just so much and no more.”

And I took it and I ate it. It tasted so good, that I disobeyed Him. I wasn’t sick, but I went back for a little wedge and I ate it. And within an hour, I was so sick to my stomach and I couldn’t figure out what hit me. So I’m stretched out on the couch and I’m lying down and He begins to minister to me. He said to me, “You disobeyed me.”

And I said, “Oh God, forgive me.” I repented. And just like this, He raised me up and said, “Now go and minister to someone else.”

You know He never does it in the same way. I had a woman call me and she said to me, “Janet, there’s a woman God wants you to pray for.” I didn’t know this woman. And one thing that God really put into me is that, “Unless the Lord sends you, you do not go.” You do not go; and I said to this woman, “Well, I’ll pray about it.”

The next morning she was at my house, all ready to go, and I said, “I can not go. The Lord will not release me to go. But if the Lord has spoken to you, you go. You go. You pray and I’ll pray here for you. I’ll know.”

And she started to come down on me, you know, that I was “rejecting the Word.” That I was “disobedient.” I was…whatever. It was really bothering me and I said, “Look, I’ll really pray about it.”

And when she left my house, she left angry. She really left angry. A couple days later, the Lord spoke to me, and the Lord said, “I want you to go pray for her.”

So I tried to get a hold of Sarah. I couldn’t get Sarah, so I called Judy and I went down and I prayed for Judy. Now Judy was very, very ill. She had severe colitis and she was facing an ileostomy. And when I walked in, this girl was sick. She was on steroids; she was sick. I thought, “God, I’m glad I waited.” He told me to come and He gave me a scripture to take to her. I gave her the scripture. It was a scripture the Lord had given to her that morning. So we prayed. We prayed, and in the prayer she said, “Lord, save my husband. Save my mother. Save my father. Bring them to salvation.” I prayed with her and then I left.

One morning, I was mopping my kitchen floor, doing dishes, working; and the Lord told me to put my mop aside and go to the hospital to see Judy. Judy had called. And I walked into the ICU and that girl was dying. She was dying. And when I got in there, she said, “Janet, why has the Lord forsaken me?”

I said, “Judy, He’s not forsaken you. It says in the Word that He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you.” And so I prayed with her again until she had a peace.

And when I walked home, I couldn’t even see the sidewalk because my eyes were filled with tears. I did not understand what God was asking of me or what God wanted me to do. I wanted to be obedient to Him, but you’ve got somebody’s life and you can’t toy with someone’s life. So I went home and I continued to pray for her.

So I called the hospital this one particular day and I couldn’t get through. I just could not get through. So, I thought I should go to her (I was stirred by the Spirit), and I went back down to the hospital and into the ICU. I just walked into ICU and they said that she just left by ambulance to Burlington Health Center. Her kidney’s had failed twice.

So I went home and I was discouraged again. And I began to pray and pray. One night I went down on my knees and the Lord said to me, “You don’t have to pray for her anymore.” And you know what? I didn’t even have the courage to ask Him why. I didn’t. She was so sick. My faith was so low.

So this one particular Sunday, I went to church on Sunday morning whereas I usually went to church on Sunday night. This one particular Sunday night, the Lord wouldn’t let me go. At eleven o’clock at night, I got a phone call. The Lord had worked a miracle and had healed Judy, and she had gone to the church that night and she had given her testimony of how God had raised her up and healed her. But you know, God won’t let you glory in what He does either. He may use you, but that’s all you are: a servant. That’s all you are, and an “unprofitable servant” at that. And when He says that He wants to use you, He is to receive the glory and honor. And it’s to be their testimony, not yours. She testified that night that God brought her father to salvation. God brought her mother and God saved her husband. What a testimony!

When Sister Massie (an older sister from England, since gone on to be with the Lord) was here, I woke up one morning and I went to kind of brush my hair, and my wrist just hurt. I couldn’t grab anything. I couldn’t grab a fry pan or anything. And I looked at my wrist and I had a big ganglion cyst. I had never had one before, but if you have ever had them, they are very, very painful. I had gone to many services, but I would never let anyone lay hands on me and pray that I would go and fall down. I just didn’t believe it was of God. I believed it was very misused. And I struggled with it. And I said, “God, I’m never going down unless it’s you. You know I’m not going to give myself over to that.”

So this was when Sister Massie began to come into our midst and minister. And I went over to a Methodist church basement where this group met midweek to hear her; and she gave an invitation for healing. Now, I had already gone and sought a doctor. I had prayed about it, but I wanted to know what do you do about this sort of thing. He said, “Well, you can do two things. You can take a big book and really hit it hard and smash it to break it up, or you can have surgery.”

Well, I wasn’t ready for surgery or the heavy book. So I went to the service that evening. And I just didn’t know. I kept praying to the Lord and I just didn’t know what God was going to do, but it was getting bad. And it had just got to the point that to do your hair, brush your hair, pick up a fry pan, or whatever…you don’t realize how much you use your hands and your body to do these things; and when it hurts and it’s a problem, you’ve got a big problem.

So I went over there and Sister Massie was speaking and she said, “There are people here that need to be healed.” So I figured I’m going to respond to the word. So I went up and I wanted healing. But you know what, I never had a chance to tell her what I wanted healing for. She came up to me and she put her hand out. She never touched me. And I went down. I went down so fast that I don’t know how I got down there. And when I got down there, it was like I was one with the floor and my spirit was rising. And Mark came over to help me and she said, “Don’t touch her, leave her alone because God is doing something.”

So I was down there. I don’t know how long I was down there. I was down there longer than I needed to be because to me, it was not what I wanted. But it was the way God chose to deal with me at that time. So I got up and I went home. And the next morning after I got up, I was doing dishes and I had used a fry pan, a big old iron fry pan. And I picked that thing up off the stove and I thought, “Man!” And you know what? I was almost scared to look. The cyst was completely gone! Completely gone!

I just want to bring it down to the last couple of weeks, because God continues to do His healing. God continues to do His healing. God will not only heal you, but you will have the faith. I think God wants you to stand in your family for your children, for your grandchildren.

I want to take it back to a couple of weeks ago. Chris said something to me. “Why is it that every time I pray and I’m in trouble, you show up?”

And I thought, “Praise God. Praise God.” That’s the one thing that I want God to answer in my life, seriously, that when I’m gone that my children will have looked at my life and say, “It wasn’t Mom. It was the Lord through Mom.” That’s the one thing I long for.

At any rate, Chris called me. He had been out to the house, and he had been pinching, you know, a pimple on his knee. I said, “Chris, don’t do that!”

“Oh, Mom!”

Well, he did it. And instead of it coming outward, it went inward. So the next week, Chris came out, and his kneecap was swollen. He had a swelling on his knee that was double the size of his knee. It was right on top of the kneecap. And I said to him, “Chris, that should be hot-packed.”

“Oh, Mom!”

I said, “Chris, sit down. Be quiet and pull your pant leg up. It’s going to be hot-packed.”

Well, he submitted. I was surprised. So I hot-packed it. So he came down. I prayed. Mark and I kept praying. And I kept binding the enemy in this. And I said, “You’re not laying anything on his body.”

I came to Bible Study and I asked prayer; I asked prayer Sunday morning. I asked prayer again on Wednesday night. You know, I went home and I did not have a peace. I kept saying that there was a real stirring of the Lord to keep binding, keep praying. But I didn’t have a peace. And I had a couple of people say to me, “Oh Janet, you’re not moving in faith.”

And I thought, “No! Wait a minute! There’s something different going on here.” There was an urgency of the Spirit. I went home and I called Chris Thursday morning and he said that he had to go to the doctor. And I said, “All right, Chris, you go to the doctor. Mom’s going to be praying, but you let me know how you made out.”

And I prayed. I bound the work of the enemy. I kept praying and binding. He called me and he said, “I’m on the way to the hospital.”

And I was really a little bit shaken by it. The doctor had taken a syringe and he went to draw the infection out, and he said, “It was yellow, but it was milky.” And he said, “This is serious.” And he said to Chris, “You’re not going home.” He said, “I want you to go to the hospital immediately.”

They put him in and they put him on an intravenous antibiotic. And we went over to the hospital and the specimen was sent to the lab because they had to see what kind of infection it was. And the surgeon went up and said to Chris, “Look, this thing is beginning to go into your calf and up into your thigh.”

And I had bound it and I kept binding it, that it couldn’t spread; that it couldn’t cause a more serious infection, and couldn’t go through the rest of his body. And the doctor said, “If this does not improve in 48 hours, we are going to lay the knee open and you are going to have to lay with it open for four to five days.” And he said, “Son, I don’t want to scare you, but you’ve got a serious problem.”

So I kept praying and I kept binding. The next day we had a snowstorm. I couldn’t get up to Chris. And Annie gave me a word. She gave me a word and said, “When you go and lay hands on him, the Lord will heal him.”

So, he was in the hospital several more days and finally the doctor, within another 48 hours, said that it began to stop. He said, “Chris, I have no idea why the infection began to stop, but it stopped growing, it stopped spreading.”

Chris knows why, because we were binding the enemy and saying, “You’re not doing this.”

And he said to Chris, “I’m going to put you on an antibiotic. You can go home, but you’ve got to stay off your leg.” So, little Liza knew he was sick. So on my way out of morning service, I grabbed the oil, and we went up to pay Chris a visit. Well, you know what? These little kids were very eager to pray for him; lay hands on him, pour the oil on him; they were very eager to do it, Liza and Ben. So we did it; we surrounded him, we laid hands on him, we anointed him, and they all prayed.

He had to go back Tuesday to the doctor. Now the swelling had gone down very much, but his leg was itching. The doctor said it was a good sign, but you still need to stay off it. Chris went back last week and do you know what the doctor said to him? He said, “I’m going to tell you, I’ve never seen an infection stop like this. I still can’t figure out what made it stop spreading, but I was very concerned because do you know what the ultimate option was? Amputation! It would have been amputation if that thing had gotten in the bone and had gotten any further.” He said, “It was more serious than what you knew.”

Last night we had another opportunity. Liza and Ben were out and they were sliding downhill, and she conked her head. She came in and she had one bad headache. And she was sick. You know what this little girl has learned? “Grammy, pray.” “Daddy, pray.”

You know I have been saying how we should minister to the little ones. So we prayed. And the headache started getting worse. It was going to her stomach until we took authority over it and said, “You’re stopping! Satan, we bind your power. We speak to the headache, ‘You’re going to stop! You’re not going to progress!’ ”

After we prayed that, do you know what happened? She fell asleep. I stayed with her and I thought, “I’m not going to say anything to Chris. Chris has got to come into this but I’m not going to say anything to him,” and I kept praying in the spirit. Finally, Chris woke her up. She had to have a little something to eat. And he began to pray for her. And it was gone. It was gone.

But, you know, I shared this with you because there’s a “walking” in God. But in the walking in God, there’s a learning in God. And He wants us to be pliable like clay in His hands. He wants us to be clean vessels, and He wants us to be willing vessels.

And I said to the Lord, “What is the one thing that I can go and use (as an example)?” Well, you know, our lives are like a glove. But God wants to put His hand and His power in us. But He can’t do it if there are things in our lives. It’s got to be removed. It’s got to be removed! These are things in the immediate surface of our lives. And He wants to fill us with His power and His Holy Ghost. He can’t do it if there are more things deeper, and so they have to come out as well. And He’s got to go down to the very core, because what He really wants us to do is to be empty so He can come with His power, with His Holy Spirit. And so, we’re like a glove. He fills us with his life, with the Holy Spirit, with His power, so that all we are is a shell. This flesh has no life of it’s own. And you know what? Neither do we. But if we allow the Lord to do this, then it’s God in us. It is God through us; and by Him, of Him, for Him, and for His glory. And you know what? You don’t get any glory. Once in awhile, God will let it (a report) come back to you, that so and so was healed, or so and so was delivered.

Do you know deliverance is a part of healing? Deliverance is a part of healing. If you need deliverance, it is because you’ve taken on an unclean spirit, and it is going to hinder you and cause sickness if you’re not delivered of it. But deliverance is a part of healing. Deliverance, healings, and miracles are the bread of the children (“…the children’s bread” (Matthew 7:26-27)). But the thing that God has shown me recently is… I want to be in that place in God, that no matter what comes up, I can call upon His Name and get an answer. And I can’t do what other people can do, because I’ve committed my life to the Lord. God has separated me unto Himself. I’m dedicated to the Lord. How can I say that? It hasn’t happened in the church, but it’s happened in my walk with God. “Lord, I give myself to you.”

When I was a graduate of high school, my aunt and uncle gave me a bible. In the front of the bible they wrote, “To Janet with our love.” And they wrote two scriptures. One was out of Philippians 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” and the second one was out of Romans 12:1-2, “…that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

And you know what? It didn’t mean anything to me. But, you know, it was the key to my call and my walk in God. And one thing that I learned this summer in Europe is that when you go to Europe, it’s not to the state or denominational churches. It’s got to be to the people that God is working in. God is speaking to them. They are hearing the voice of the Lord and they are moving and they are working with you, because God has gone before you to prepare the way.

The Lord showed me this (an example of His perfect timing) when we were coming back from Hungary. We were going down a main highway in the Czech Republic. We can’t speak Czech or any other language. And here’s a car going by and it’s flashing its lights and I thought this guy was acting strange, waving his hands. Mark says, “Maybe the guy is trying to rob us.” He keeps trying to say something. And I thought, “What’s he saying?” And he kept it up, so finally we pulled over.

And the guy came out and he came up to the car. And he said, “You’re Mark and Janet from America?” And so, here is a young man we had ministered to four years earlier in the fellowship in Prague. He heard that we were in the area, but he was not able to attend any of the current meetings because he had since married and moved away from Prague. And he just happened to see us on the highway.

Another example of God’s perfect timing is the time we went to a certain house when we were coming out of Romania into Hungary. It was out of our planning, but there we met a little old Romanian man that we had ministered to in Hungary about a year earlier. He knew we were going to be there, but could not come because he lived three hours from the meeting in Kiskunhalas. He does not drive, does not have a car, couldn’t get to the meeting; but he kept praying, “God, don’t let me miss them.” He didn’t want to miss it. Not us, as servants; but the fellowship, the sharing of the Word, the praying one for another. And how it worked, is that on the way back, out of Romania, our driver, Elud, knew this guy, a friend of his, and he wanted to stop at this house just over the border into Hungary. And here’s this little Romanian brother at the house, and this is where we stayed and had four hours of fellowship and prayer. You see, Holy Spirit sets it up, but you have to be walking in the Spirit.

I want a clean life. I want a separated life. God says you cannot do what the people of the world do. You cannot, because when you pray for somebody, you may think you are on a higher plane when you’re not. You’re not if you are down in the mulley grubs of sin. You’re not going to lift anyone else higher either, and God wants you to reach out to them. As vessels of the Lord, we take their hands and bring them up out of the miry clay. It’s not that you do the work, but are just a vessel for Him to use.

I want to close with this, because I think it’s very important. And that is, that He wants our lives emptied out like a glove; because He wants to come in His power and Holy Ghost to fill us, so that it’s God in us and through us.

In Zephaniah 3:2, it says that Israel obeyed not the voice of God.

“She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the LORD; she drew not near to her God.”

There’s a voice of our Saviour that God wants us to be obedient to. It’s an anointing. It’s a presence of the Lord. He wants you so sensitive and tuned in that you know what God is saying to you. If you don’t, then go back to Him and ask Him. It’s not a big secret. If you’re going to stand before Him accountable, He’s going to tell you what He wants you to know. He’s going to tell you how He wants you to move, where He wants you to go, and what He wants you to say.

Do you want it said of you, “She obeyed not the voice. She received not correction”? She received not correction! There’s a correction in the spirit of God, and if you’re not open and you’re going down the road, He’s not going to be able to change the direction you’re headed. I’ve had Him do that and avoid a car accident. I’ve had Him do that to me spiritually too.

How sad to hear, “…she trusted not in the Lord,”and “…she drew not near to her God.” Now if that was true of Israel then, what is the truth for us today? It is more so, not less.

I want to tell you that faith is a person. Faith is trust in a person and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ; and He’ll never tell you or instruct you anything contrary to His Word. And if you have a hard time with what He says to you, ask Him, “Lord, confirm it to me in your word.”

And then wait upon the Lord because He’ll do it. He’s faithful! He’s faithful, but remember, He’s looking for a clean vessel. He’s looking for willing vessels. Not clever vessels, but “willing” vessels. Remember He takes the despised things of the world, the low things of the world, to confound the wise.

You know it’s not work. It’s not works. What I’ve shared with you today is not works. It’s faith in a person. It’s your walk in God in faith and what you say to Him and He’ll bring it as a confirmation to you. He’ll show you what you should pray. The interesting thing with Chris was that Chris was sharing some things over the last five days with me that he has no idea what I have prayed and asked God for. He has no idea, but in the bits of conversation that he has given to me there were the very things that I prayed for. You know why God does that? Not that we are clever, but to encourage you. It’s to encourage you to pray for your brother and your sister. Why does He give us a word of knowledge? Why does He show us something in someone’s life? It’s because He wants you to intercede. Remember the word that Brother Campbell brought, about the book in Revelation 5 that they brought out? And only the lamb was to open and look in the book. You know, we are not to look into one another’s lives. We’re not to judge what’s going on in one another’s lives. We are not to do that. Why? Because I believe there is a lot of victory that you’ll never see in somebody’s life because it’s between them and God. It’s between them and God. It’s up to the Lamb to open up the book. It’s up to the Lamb to look into the books of your own personal life. And it’s up to me to be sure that I’m submitted, willing, and obedient to the Lord. And we’ve got to love one another. Because you know what? You are not going to see the miracles without the love. You’re not going to see it. You’re not going to see it. And the love… I’ve been sorely criticized, I’ve been criticized a lot, but you know what? In this hour and in this day, I’ve got to guard my heart. I’ve got to carefully guard my heart. Because it’s not what somebody thinks about you, because thoughts don’t count. But God knows you, whether you’re guilty or whatever. But He sees your heart and knows your heart. We’re living in a time for Him to reveal himself to us and I want it. I want it! I want to know Him better than I know Mark. I want to know Him better than I know Mark! I want to know Him better than I know my children. And when the day comes and I’m gone, I want my children to look back and say, “She stood with me, but it wasn’t her. She prayed for me, but it wasn’t her. She did what she could, but it wasn’t her. I got a glimpse of God.” And that’s what I want.

And so, we press onto “…the mark of the prize of the high calling,” and you zero in on the Lord in your life and you walk with Him because there is no good thing He’ll withhold from you. And I’ve discovered that when you’re in need, you pray in the spirit. You pray for one another in the spirit. Do you know why? When you pray in the spirit, God will show you how to pray with your understanding. You won’t miss it and you won’t pray amiss if you pray in the spirit, because He’ll show you how to pray effectively.

So I pray what I have shared with you is an encouragement. And now press onto God because what He’s done for one, He’ll do for all. And healings, and miracles, and deliverance are done by faith and our faith is in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the author and the finisher of our faith. And may God bless you. I pray that you are stirred up. I pray that you are so stirred up that you will go to the Lord, to walk in the spirit. Yes, there’s warfare, but you know what? There’s nothing like it! Because when you see God move and you see Him answer, you know what it does? It makes you thirsty. It’s a little taste, and you want more, you don’t want less.

So let’s praise God.

(Note: In January 2003, Sister Janet went home to be with the Lord.)