The Words of Jesus

If only we could hear the words of Jesus. In your life, in your problems today, just where you are, Jesus wants to say, "Don't be afraid, only believe." In your biggest crisis, in the time when you feel that your life is at an end, call upon His Name and He will answer. If only you would believe in Jesus, you would see the biggest miracle of your life. With Jesus there is no crying, no sorrow, no weeping. The very Name of Jesus brings hope: His Name means salvation. At the mention of His Name demons have to flee. At the Name of Jesus death is turned into life.

Do you have a promise that has not been fulfilled? Has every glimmer of hope been extinguished, are you weak and shaken by the absolute impossibility of what you see? - Don't let go, it's not a problem to God! If it 'can't happen', that just makes you a candidate for a miracle! God's Word works! Everything needed to fulfil your promise was contained within that promise the very first time the Lord made it known to you. The Word of God is not 'like' a seed - it IS a seed. Contained within every seed in nature is the life-giving DNA, written by God - the entire plan for the future of that seed!

If God has spoken to you, given you the seed of His Word, receive it, keep it, don't let it go! When the angel spoke to Mary, she believed it, received it, 'Let it be to me according to Your Word' (Luke 1:38). And Elizabeth recorded of her, 'Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.' - God will do it!

Is it hard for you to hold on? Don't abort the Word of God. Be like Mary, hold on to what God has said, keep it in your heart. God's promises are not worked out in the ordinary way, but according to His plan, His timing, His order. It may be impossible to you. But remember, the Angel said to Mary, 'With God nothing is impossible' (Luke 1:37). There is power in the Words of Jesus.

Listen to today's podcast: THE WORDS OF JESUS

When Heaven is shut

'And there appeared an angel unto Jesus from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.' (Luke 22:43-44, KJV)

All of us go through difficult times, circumstances that are hard to bear; often we have prayed and prayed, yet there seems to be no apparent improvement. The Apostle Paul faced similar feelings. In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 Paul repeatedly prayed that God would remove his 'thorn in the flesh', yet all God would say is, 'My grace is sufficient for thee'. In those hard times all you need to do is walk with Him one day at a time. It is for good reason that Jesus said, 'Take no thought for tomorrow' (Matthew 6:34, KJV). Don't worry about tomorrow's difficulties; His grace and mercy will carry you through today - and the good news is, there will be new mercies available to you tomorrow. Each day's mercies are tailored to that day's troubles.

When I was imprisoned for Bible smuggling I prayed each day that God would get me out. I imagined the various scenarios that God could use; I would tell God my latest idea; I would even 'plan' out the details. Yet that was not God's plan for me. After a few months of 'planning' I became disillusioned. We were always woken brutally, but this one morning, the appalling nature of what was happening finally hit me. The heavens were like brass. I had been praying for food parcels, but they were never allowed; I prayed for a visit from my wife, but there was none. I was praying to get out, but I was never released; in actual fact, I had been warned that the communist authorities were preparing a further case against me. I was in a depressed state. I was sitting on my stool, crying out to God: I can't pray! I said: If You don't answer me, what is the point in asking?!

I had done everything I could to get God's attention. I was in utter despair. The answer I got in my spirit was there came a time when the disciples had to turn to Jesus because of frustration over prayer. They said: Lord, teach us how to pray. Jesus replied: Say Our Father... As I remembered this, I began to argue: How can I say 'Our'?! Its me alone in here! It's 'my' Father! Suddenly I realised what I was saying: My Father! He is not just God, He is mine; the revelation of that relationship flooded my soul. For the first time I understood the reality of God's love; He loved His Son so dearly, yet He wanted to express His love for me. He sent His only Son to to go through what I was going through. The cross was Jesus identifying with me. In my utter despair, I realised I was loved. 

Suppose God had organised things 'extremely well' and got me out of prison on my timetable, I would not have the ministry I have today. The longer I stayed in prison, the bigger the miracle became. In the end it was the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who came to Czechoslovakia just to get me out! The whole miracle took one year to prepare. I didn't let go of God, even in the darkest days of despair, I knew, I believed, but it hurt and it was hard; the frustration of waiting for my answer even caused me to have a heart attack. 

Hold on. Don't let go of God! God WILL do it, even if it takes three months or three years. But in the waiting period don't become bitter and sour. Faith trusts God even when life doesn't make sense. The Bible says, 'The secret things belong to God' (Deuteronomy 29:29); not everything can be understood. The good news is, all things will be resolved and become apparent at the return of Christ. - At the moment we see through a glass darkly; but a day will come when we see in full (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

Be encouraged as you listen to this week's podcast: VICTORY

All will be well!

'Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them' (Is 3:10)

Time with God is so important. If only you and I knew the time that God has chosen, it would make so much difference to us! When Jesus was walking on the water towards the disciples in Matthew 14, it was the fourth watch of the night. This is the most dangerous and most difficult hour in the night - the time when most people die, when the body temperature is at its lowest. It's the time when some of the biggest fears and the biggest problems come, just before the new day dawns. It is so significant that when Jesus is walking towards the disciples in that storm-tossed ship, the time He chooses is the darkest hour, when the storm is at its highest. But Jesus is there! In your life and mine there are many times when we need the power of God to deliver us, but God's timing is perfect, coming at the darkest hour, when the storm is at its fiercest and our need is the greatest.

I have learnt after more than 60 years of ministry that God always answers prayer. And I want to encourage you. God never fails - He cannot fail. But to get the answer at the right hour we have to be ready, we have to be obedient, and God will answer - at the last minute. In my life God so often answers one minute before midnight. One minute before the crisis erupts. We have many kinds of problems, many different needs, but I believe in miracles. Do you?

You can't have a miracle without first having a problem. If the boat had not been in a storm on the sea, there would have been no miracle with Jesus walking on the water. If you want to see miracles, God is going to use your problem, your difficulty, your crisis in order to work the miracle. That crisis you have - that sickness, that cancer, that arthritis, that financial problem - God will use this to create a miracle. When I had lung cancer in 2003, my daughter said, 'unless the doctors prove you have cancer, you'll never be able to prove that God healed you!'

Every one of us can be in a storm, just like these disciples in the boat. When the disciples saw Him walking on the water their first reaction was fear. They thought they'd seen a ghost - they didn't realise it was Jesus. They were so afraid because they were convinced their boat was going to sink and they didn't believe they would last the night. In the darkest hour of your night, when your financial problems are the greatest, when your sickness is getting worse, when you're crippled with pain, in that dark hour, there is one person who will always be there - Jesus. And He chooses the darkest, the hardest, moment to come and walk towards in order to work your miracle.

I know many of you reading this face difficulties and sicknesses, those problems will soon come to an end. I want to show how in your trials there is an answer, but sometimes that answer comes through hardship. In Mark 5 a ruler of the synagogue came to Jesus because his daughter was dying. He pleaded with Jesus to come to his house, saying, "Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live." What a tremendous statement! Today, in your tragedy, in your battle to survive, reach out and find Jesus. He will answer. He has all power!

Make this your declaration of faith, as Vinesong sing: 'All will be well, the Son of God is on my side, all will be well!'

Listen to this week's podcast: All will be well!



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The regions beyond

I want to challenge you to go to the regions beyond - the regions beyond in your faith, the regions beyond in your service. The regions beyond in your prayer life. Don't be satisfied with your prayer life. Don't be satisfied with what you are doing. Let's go higher. How do you get up this 'mountain'? There is no chairlift and there is no cable car. There is only one way up this mountain. You do it by setting the pace and keeping it up step-by-step. So long as you keep moving, Jesus will guide you, leading you on, bringing to you hope along the way.

The regions beyond: We get stuck at the thought that mortal man could move anything bigger than himself! We agonise over the reality of moving that mountain - call our friends to stand with us in believing prayer - because this mountain is proving harder than we thought to move. Then when it happens - that miracle, that healing, or financial solution - we become so excited (as I experienced so many times personally), that we drop the real key down the drain in our excitement!

In Matthew 17:14-21, the disciples had missed the opportunity of releasing the greatest power into their lives - Jesus was putting a key in their hands, and if they would only use this key, their lives would never be the same again! For me, searching and hungry for more of God's power in my life, I saw what I have been waiting for - there is a spiritual 'region beyond'.

We need to realise God has a power and a glory far greater than anything we have ever seen yet! Are we, in our spiritual experience, ready to cross the barrier, to move into something so big we could hardly dream about?

Of all the gifts of God, faith is the greatest - it's the key to the 'normal' Christian life! There are nine gifts which you only receive after you have been baptised in the Holy Spirit (have you received... since you believed?): three VOCAL gifts, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophecy; there are three INTELLECTUAL gifts, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, and the discerning of spirits; and there are three PRACTICAL gifts - I love the practical gifts - healing, working of miracles, and the gift of faith, 1 Corinthians 12. These are the normal every-day gifts of the Holy Spirit to the believer. By the same power with which you speak in tongues, you also heal the sick and work miracles! Paul asks, does everybody work miracles? What a challenge! Does every church work miracles? But this is the NORMAL Christian life! Cry out to God that He will fill you with the Holy Ghost and power!

Faith is what you DO! Are you living a normal Christian life? Do you have the gift of faith? This is NOT an intellectual gift. Faith is nothing to do with your education OR with what you think – it's what you DO. Faith is ACTION. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as SUBSTANCE and EVIDENCE, something solid. It's not something intellectual, it's the most PRACTICAL gift God can give.

To listen to today's podcast 'The Next Level' visit
http://davidhathaway.podbean.com/e/thenextlevel/

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My 'mountain' was lung cancer

In December 2002, as part of the process of getting a resident’s permit in Ukraine, in order to prove I did not have TB which is endemic out there, I had to have a lung X-ray. But the doctors called me back, took more X-rays, and then told me I had a shadow on my lung and that I had pneumonia. Probably I had already had it for over a month, because I remember a fever had started on the last day of October while I was evangelising in Siberia.

Back in England I was treated with antibiotics, but after two courses of treatment I went again for X-rays and the patch on my lung was bigger. The doctors became extremely worried, they didn’t want me to travel overseas and they set up exhaustive tests in a hurry. They said bluntly, "It's not pneumonia, you have lung cancer."

I prayed about it, and I did go overseas to carry out my ministry, but the day after I got back the hospital process started. On the Thursday I had the CT (computer tomography) scan and it showed the cancer.

I believe in prayer and in a God of miracles. But I am faced with a challenge: do I really believe God or not? On the following Monday I had to go for a bronchoscopy when they would put a camera down my lung and take a sample of the growth. The doctors had already fast-tracked me into a process which would lead to an operation to remove all or part of my right lung – on the Wednesday I was booked to go in for the final verdict. The only question, how much of my lung they would take away?

I said, "Lord, how can I go back into Russia and preach like I preach and say that You are a mighty God of miracles who's got power to do everything, including healing cancer, if I have got half of my right lung cut out, followed by chemotherapy? If You have finished with me, if my ministry is over, then don’t heal me, because if I can no longer evangelise I might as well die, I have no other reason to live! But if You want me to go back into Russia and Ukraine and finish the work You gave me to do, then I want You to heal me completely!" But I only had a few days, from Thursday to Monday!

God said to me, "David, you've got a mountain in your life that you've got to move - and that mountain is to get that cancer out from your lung. If you can believe that without an operation you can be completely healed, then nothing will be impossible from there on." Now desperately seeking God's answer from Scripture, I was reading from Jeremiah 33:6, "I will bring health and healing"; and Jeremiah 33:20-21, "I will not break my covenant with David"; and Psalm 89:35, "I will not lie to David"; and "Is anything impossible with God?" - Jeremiah 32:17&27.

On the Monday I was in the hospital, tubes down my lung looking for cancer - but God had already given me the answer, I knew it was gone. The doctors looked at me in amazement and said, "You have no cancer!"

I didn't go to a healing evangelist, I went to the Word of God and God completely healed me - no operation, no treatment - I only had God and the Bible, and that's all I needed to confound the doctors. They were shocked, they didn't believe God - but I do, I believe in a God of power, of miracles.

The Bible is very clear. Isaiah 53:5 says Jesus was wounded for our sin, bruised for our iniquity and with His stripes we are healed. Matthew 8:16-17 says Jesus healed all that were sick to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. So healing is to fulfil Bible prophecy! I talk about Bible prophecy, I write about it in Prophetic Vision magazine, but part of Bible prophecy is healing the sick. I believe Bible prophecy. Some people say that healing was only for the time of Jesus. But this prophecy is not ended. Jesus only healed for three years. There are more miracles of healing today than at any time in the history of the church – all over the world!

If you are sick or know someone with a terminal diagnosis, this 'Healed of Lung Cancer' podcast will strengthen your faith as you believe for a healing miracle. 13 years ago God dramatically healed me of lung cancer, and He can do the same for you when you believe and stand on His promises! God is not a man that He should lie, nor will He change His mind, what He has said that will He do (Numbers 23:19). You can be certain of this one thing, God answers prayer!

Jesus said 'lay your hands on the sick and they shall recover'. If you are in need of healing put your hand where the sickness is and say this prayer in faith and with conviction. - Then do what you could not do! I know Jesus is alive! I believe the Bible: God cannot lie! Your Word says Jesus took my sickness and healed me - so by faith I take my healing. In Jesus' Name I will fight in prayer and in the Word of God until I am healed! I command you devil, get out of my body! My body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit. Devil, get out of my life, my home, my family! In Jesus' Name I defeat you! I will not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord! And I will live in health and victory until Jesus comes! Amen!

Listen to my testimony, and be inspired by the beautiful worship of Vinesong as together we declare God's healing power over your life.

http://davidhathaway.podbean.com/e/healed-of-lung-cancer-featuring-vinesong/

'God answers prayer' and 'Run to the Father' used by permission of Vinesong, www.vinesong.com

Don't let your praying go down a sinkhole

This year I have taken a lot of time to pray. I found myself asking the question we all ask, WHY? Why this? Why that? And I was asking, why is it that people pray and don't get an answer? Last year I read an unusual story in the newspaper: A family went to bed in their house at night, with their car outside on the drive. In the night the ground opened up, the car was swallowed, and in the morning they found the car 10 metres down at the bottom of the sinkhole! God used this story and said to me, "I'll tell you what's wrong when you pray. You start praying, and I'm over here waiting to answer. But instead of praying your way through, you stop in the middle, and the ground swallows you up! You stop praying just when I'm about to give you what you ask!!" We pray and we pray, and then we say, "Oh God isn't going to answer!" – And then we give up! And drop down the sinkhole! But God is there, waiting to give the answer and we've given up!

How have I learned how to pray? – Through trial, through tribulation! When I was just a young pastor, a man in my church was dying of terminal cancer. We prayed and God raised him, totally healed him, I saw the cancer coming out of his body! This wasn't healing – they had cut out parts of his body; God remade him! I was just a young man. When the son saw the power of God in his dad, God filled that boy with the Holy Ghost and he went on to preach the Gospel! That's the power of God – He changes men!

But what changed MY life a few years later was when I had throat cancer. I was a pastor and evangelist, but now I couldn't preach! I refused treatment, saying I believe in a God who answers prayer. I prayed three months, believed I was healed, so went back to the doctors. They said, "There is no God, there is no miracle, your cancer has become so big, on Monday we will operate and remove your voice." Did I say to myself, God doesn't answer prayer, God can't remove this, can't work miracles...? What kind of a God do YOU have?! Is He powerless? Or is He the greatest God in the whole world? MY God is the God of the Bible, powerful, glorious and who works miracles! There's no God like Jehovah! But I wasn't healed!! What did I do? I said, "Oh God, teach me how to pray!" I was a preacher, and evangelist, I had seen miracles of healing! Now I was on my face before God, "Oh God, is something wrong with me? – There’s nothing wrong with You Lord, it must be me! – Oh God, heal me!" Still nothing happened. Then I changed my prayer, saying "Oh God, if You want me to remain in my church, live in England – don't heal me! But I believe You are a God of power and authority, who can change the world! If You want me to leave my church, step out in faith, go to Russia, then I need a powerful miracle – HEAL ME!" That night God healed me! Next morning I went to the hospital, the surgeons examined me roughly, three times. And they were angry with me and accused me, "Who did it? What hospital, which doctor? We can see the scar where they cut the cancer out with a knife!" But I said, "His Name is Jesus! He can do what you can’t do!" But now I had made vows to God, so I went to my church and told them, "The good news is that God has healed me. The bad news is, goodbye..." I had made God a promise! How can we expect God to keep His promises, if we can’t keep ours? I stepped out in faith, and with no salary, no money, I bought a piece of land, built myself a new house – with no money – my own staff don't understand how I do this, nothing's changed in all the years – and I bought a brand new tour bus for the Bible smuggling – which cost two times the price of the house! Why? Because if God could work that miracle and heal me – now I had learned something – then nothing is impossible! Absolutely nothing!