OUT OF THE BOX

When God arises issues are no longer left to the opinions of individuals. God pronounces sentence or blessing based on the reality of where people and things actually are. That which is of God will be blessed; that which is not of God will be judged. Saul and his house will fall in battle. Eli will drop over dead. The earth will open and swallow Korah and all that are with him. Shemei will face the sword of Benaiah. Alexander the coppersmith will be delivered to Satan to receive his just wages. The plaintiffs, the defendants, and the prosecuting attorneys will all have eloquently stated their cases, but God will arise to judge. All of them will be silenced together as He gives the verdict. The builders will be dwelling in the structures they have built. Then God will arise sending the storm to expose the nature of the building material down to the very foundations to test the building and the builders. When things become muddy, cloudy, and confused, when the enemy is entrenched and e

It was the summer of 1969. I was 20 years old. My friend Larry Rodeffer and I had just finished our second year of college at ORU and were preaching revivals during the summer in Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. On this tour we held a series of meetings for 9 nights in my home community of Longs, South Carolina. We used the Ebenezer Methodist church building. Though thriving and growing now, it was abandoned with no congregation at that time, but in good condition and maintained by a family who who hoped to see church activities revived again someday. Larry and I were granted permission to use the facility for our meetings. The little church building was filled almost to capacity with about 80 people attending our meetings nightly. The atmosphere was electric, and people came expecting to see the hand of God at work. Larry and I preached the Gospel, sharing the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was raised from the dead as Lord

“Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them….And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.”  Mark 10: 13-16   Claire Claire was 8 years old. She had two problems that troubled her—an embarrassing problem of bed-wetting and a wart that had been on the bottom of her foot for over a year. She had heard her brother Reuben’s story about the doctor cutting a wart from his foot and she did not want that. She determined in her heart that she would wait for Mahesh Chavda to visit to our church and let him pray for her. Claire, along with our other children, had come to love and respect Mahesh. They had heard him tell stories of the many healings that had taken place in his ministry around the world. And  we had friends who had experienced healings in his meetings. Therefore, little 8-year old Claire decided that Jesus would heal her when Mahesh came to minister. She entered the meeting with a child’s faith. She went up for prayer