In our little Vineyard Church, we have been covering a wonderful subject which was cleverly titled ‘Outimacy’ – which is the visible outworking of Intimacy with God.
We need to firstly be Intimate with God, and then we need to tangibly show this love to others. And this can be called ‘Outimacy’.
We need to aim to live lives that are filled with the Spirit of God so that we can be a light to the world.
We need to love ‘outwardly’ and show the world how great our God is and how absolutely and completely He loves us.
In Luke 4:14-19, we can read Jesus Commission to us, before He returned to be with His father in heaven.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that captives shall be released and the blind shall see, that the downtrodden shall be freed from their oppressors, and that God is ready to give blessings to all who come to him.”
God’s love is tangibly seen when He reaches out from heaven and brings healing to our hearts and bodies.
Right at the end of our ‘Outimacy series’ a Vineyard pastor named ‘Brian Blount’ came to visit our Church while on a ministry trip from American. Because he is Vineyard, his preaching style is one that we are all very much accustomed to. He shared his testimony of miracle after miracle that he had witnessed and been privileged to be a part of. What was most astounding is that these miracles were seen not only in a service or out on the mission field but at a local restaurant while he was out to dinner with his family, or in a hotel lobby when on holiday.
His message to us was a reminder of the Great Commission. Jesus has sent His Spirit so that we can share the good news, bring healing, set free the captive and bring hope the hopeless. We can and should do all these things, all by the power of the Holy Spirit, whenever we feel prompted.
But we need to be willing – and the Spirit will make us able.
After the message, we went into a time of ministry. He first called up all the woman over the age of 50 who may have felt previously shunned from having a voice in the church. He asked the Spirit to release them into ministry with a gentle boldness.
Then he called up any people who had specific ailments which he believed the Lord had brought to his attention – lower back problems, neck and shoulder injury and another which I cannot remember. I was so busy thinking about whether I should go up for my lower back. I had slipped a disc in my back years ago which I believed God had already healed, to the extent that I was able to run a multi-day trail race of 75km in total, when I was told my body would never handle more than 10km’s. I am so thankful to God all the time, for that miraculous healing, but I do still suffer from back pain when I stand for a long time. I don’t know if this is a result of the injury or something else, but I decided to go up anyway.
When it came to my turn and he asked where my issue lay, he quickly grabbed a chair and asked me to sit down, and to push my backside right against the back of the chair. We could all see that my one leg was longer than the other. This would have been a result of the slipped disc as the physiotherapist had said that the muscle had tightened due to the injury and I should do special stretching exercises to loosen it up.
He prayed for my leg to grow and I literally felt it stretching out from deep within the fibre of my being. It was not at all painful but it felt ‘released.’ It stretched a bit longer than the other leg, and then it came back to line up with the other leg. It was absolutely incredible. A ‘spiritual’ journey to the greatest physiotherapist ever, and it was all sorted out – in an instant. God truly is the great physician.
Then I was asked to pray for the next person that had come up for healing. And that is how he encouraged us to become active. I had experience a touch from the Lord and now I was to pass on this touch and see someone else touched.
What a beautiful, blessed morning we had. We too witnessed healing after healing both physical and emotional.
And we were all encouraged to go out and to keep our eyes open to what we see God doing, to keep our ears open so we can hear where He wants to lead us and to be willing to act on what we feel let to do.
What an exciting and privileged way to live.