Lately, I’ve been very interested in living a life of miracles, healings, and power encounters with the Holy Spirit.
I value them because I believe they are a vital part of mission in the world today, accompanied by the message of the gospel, as Jesus’ life demonstrated. And in that journey, here’s something that I’ve been learning…
Part of the reason why I feel I couldn’t operate in a level of spiritual power was because associated with these demonstrations of the Holy Spirit was a spirit of performance that was tied to it. Whether I said it or not, I had a mentality that these things were performed by the individual versus the grace of God working through individuals.
I found that the the evidence of this was in my fears.
There were many times I would be afraid to step out and pray and command something in faith simply because I didn’t want to look like a fool if it didn’t come to pass. For example, I would be hesitant to pray for a crippled person at Target because I would be utterly afraid if they weren’t healed on the spot.
But now I realize that inherent in that fear is the spirit of performance, which believes that it is up to me to heal that person. Of course I don’t believe that intellectually because I don’t have the power to heal, but I’ve realized there’s often a disconnect in our hearts to what we believe and and the way we operate in life.
And so, long story short…
I have found it incredibly helpful to instead adopt a mentality of grace and the goodness of God instead of a spirit of performance. I am realizing and believing in my heart more and more that miracles and healings are all of God’s grace and his goodness. I don’t have to have the pressure to perform because there’s no performance in grace, grace just gives because God is good.
And so when I pray for the sick, I find myself smiling a lot more, full of joy and full of confidence. Not because I’m confident in my abilities, or even because I’m confident that person is going to be healed, but because I’m becoming more and more confident in the goodness of God for that person whether they get healed or not. And that confidence in God’s goodness allows me to pray some wild and faith-full prayers!
