Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
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Honest Christian Conversations
Unlocking the Secrets of Prayer and Healing
Discover the transformative power of prayer with Dr. David Chotka, a pastor renowned for his global prayer ministry and profound insights into spiritual healing. Dr. Chotka shares the incredible journey of his wife's miraculous recovery from muscular dystrophy, a healing experience that stunned medical professionals and deepened his faith. This episode challenges conventional beliefs about miracles and invites you to explore the mysteries of faith, divine intervention, and the human spirit's resilience.
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Welcome to all my new and returning listeners. I am so excited for today's episode. My guest, dr David Chotka, is an excellent storyteller with amazing healing stories in his and his wife's lives that even science couldn't refute. He has developed a deep and rich prayer life through his journey and will share his heart and passion for prayer with us. By the end of this episode, he will be just as fired up to go further in your prayer life as I was Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Thank you, dr David, for coming on today to talk with us. Please give us an overview of who you are.
Speaker 2:Oh my well, I was bored. You know what that? So I'm a pastor in the Christian Missionary Alliance of Canada and I'm married. I have two kids and one of them's married. I was the chair of the Alliance Pray Team, which teaches prayer equipping across the planet, and I've written five books. Actually, one of those books is what started all of this. Somebody read the book and it got distributed to all of the international workers of the Christian Missionary Alliance across the planet and, as a result, I wound up finding myself teaching prayer principles and healing prayer principles, and I wound up doing deliverance ministry.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to start off by talking about the amazing healing that your wife had, because I heard your story on my friend Johnny's podcast and it was very impactful for me and if anyone's listening, they really need to listen to Refugee Freedom Stories podcast with Johnny Taverner because that is a very good podcast and a lot of my guests that have been on have also been on his podcast. That's how I found them. But your story was very impactful, especially when you were talking about how your wife was healed from it was multiple sclerosis right Muscular dystrophy.
Speaker 1:Muscular dystrophy yes.
Speaker 2:So let me give you some medical background here and I will tell you that the end of the story is. I have a medical doctor's note verifying that what happened was in fact real and true. And the thing is that doctor knew us for five years before she was healed and then waited three years after she was healed to write the medical note. Very, very, very competent physician. He actually trained interns from the local university up the street. So anyway, the bottom line is just this she had muscular dystrophy. I noticed it from the moment that we first met. She could not raise her arms higher than her shoulders, her face was sagging and she was physically not very strong. She was weak. And FSH muscular dystrophy is comprised like this you get it genetically and your face sags. Your muscles don't work properly, your shoulder blades go out of position, you're in chronic pain between 16 and 20. If you try to, if you damage a muscle, you lose it forever. Sometimes there's scoliosis in the back spine. You don't die young, but you die in a wheelchair and you're constantly losing muscle tissue. The interior core of your abdominal region gets weaker and weaker and those are the muscles that you have to use to stand up. Her mother had it, her sister has it, her niece has it, she had it, et cetera, et cetera. It's in the family, it's in the family life. So when I married her I knew that my last years I'd be helping her pushing a wheelchair, that kind of thing. She was the first girl to laugh at my jokes. I had to marry her.
Speaker 2:This is how the prayer ministry with her began. There was an orientation on the first day and, of course, I've spent 10 days with this girl. So I know what happens when you start to get to know each other your first friends become your year-long friends in the school. And so I was standing out on the grass and there was a lady who sat next to Elizabeth. Her name was Margaret, and Margaret said I want someone from my denomination, a pastor from my denomination, to pray with.
Speaker 2:I got an issue. She said well, there's one over there, his name's Dave. He walks her over to me and Margaret identifies that she's from my denomination and she wants prayer. I said well, don't pray with a female alone. Could you assist me, elizabeth? She said yes, and so we started to pray and the power of the Lord landed on that girl, and we're talking about landed on that, she experienced tremendous consolation in her spirit. She made a major decision, she sensed the pleasure of the Lord in this thing. And then, well, I didn't know, margaret was a social butterfly and she went everywhere and she said, oh, if you want prayer?
Speaker 1:ask David and Elizabeth to pray for you. Word of mouth is so important. I didn't know she was doing that.
Speaker 2:So I walked into the school and somebody said oh, David, you're here. I said, yeah, Would you pray with me? I said, well, sure, Where's Elizabeth? I said I don't know. They bring her over and then we'd start to pray together and the next thing you know, somebody else would experience some kind of miraculous thing. Sometimes it was divine appointments, Sometimes it was physical healing. Sometimes it was divine appointments, Sometimes it was physical healing, Sometimes it was relief over some major decision, whatever. Every single time we did this. So we formed a prayer meet and we began to grow together. And here's what happened Often, when we would pray, someone who was physically afflicted would either experience emotional consolation, partial improvement and sometimes complete healing.
Speaker 2:And every time I was with this girl, I was smarter and sharper in the Lord than I was without her. I thought, well, this is amazing. When she's not there, it feels like my right arm's not there. So this was the call If somebody brings you closer to Christ and that's what I say to young couples how do you know you found your life partner? If they distract you from the Lord, you're in trouble. If they drive you closer to the Lord, take a second look. And that's what happened with her and we married, but she was getting weaker and weaker. Her mom was able to be propped up to walk down the aisle on our wedding day and she never walked again and her sister is now in a wheelchair and her niece is losing mobility rapidly. It's called FSH musculoskeletal humidor. In fact it's now known in the United States because the founder of Lululemon has the same affliction and it's begun to manifest. He made a $100 million donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association because he had some medical cure.
Speaker 2:Anyway the point when this story happens. We had a house with stairs going upstairs to the bathroom and to our you call that a restroom the restroom into the bedroom next to it, and she wanted to go upstairs. She had to actually physically take hold of the rail, pull herself, grab her leg and lift it with her hands, steady her foot on the step and then balance and then do the same with the second leg and then repeat the procedure until she could go from the bottom of the stairs to the top. And, of course, the medical community was very helpful to us and gave us adaptive therapies. But there's no cure, and so we were doing our best with what we could do, and I made a trip to overseas to help the Ugandans rebuild.
Speaker 2:In the middle of that, some miraculous acts of power. That was just impossible. My elder board invited that man to come and speak in my church. Now you got to know something African tribal culture and individualistic Canadians don't think the same way. Yeah, completely different culture. And the issues of witchcraft and polygamy and violence and who's in charge, that's endemic to Ugandan culture. It's a whole different world.
Speaker 2:This guy, he has this amazing, astonishing, astonishing, miraculous anointing for prayer for you and they said well, bring him, and just wore the church three weeks in advance and my first thought was I'm gonna get fired. Strange thing he comes into my I mean at the airport and he speaks to me and I've been praying and fasting and crying out to god for, you know, mercy on my congregation as a airport, and he speaks to me and I've been praying and fasting and crying out to God for mercy on my congregation as a guy, and he looks at me and says now, david, every time I pray about your church, the Lord has told me I'm supposed to be really gentle. Does that make sense to you? Anyway, he's in the pulpit and I don't know if you know much about Uganda history. He's in the pulpit and I don't know if you know much about Ugandan history, but that nation had been ravaged by two madmen, two horrible, awful, evil men. One of them was Idi Amin and of course there's all kinds of books written about him and there's a movie called the King of Scotland about him. And there's this horrible madman named Joseph Kony, who was the guy who was responsible for creating the child soldier movement. Now this man and four other pastors belong to something called the Fellowship of Born Again Churches, which comprises 10 million people across Uganda, and they formed a partnership to pray against the wickedness and the evil of Joseph Kony.
Speaker 2:And there's a whole backstory to the amazing things that happened and it includes a relationship with the Ugandan army and the Ugandan parliament. And here's what happened If Kony's army was being attacked by the Ugandan army, the Ugandan army would have a witchcraft curse thrown at it. They become terrified, they drop their weapons and run and Kony's men would resupply with fresh ammunition. So the prime minister of the country asked intercessors to pray and these four pastors organized get this 300,000 intercessors to pray in real time in the streets of Kampala while the soldiers were fighting Joseph Kony. And every time the intercessors prayed, kony lost the battle. If they did not involve the intercessors, kony would win the battle. And so there was this. This is a window of history unlike anything I'd ever heard before. The parliament would contact the four pastors, the four pastors would contact the Fellowship of Born Again Churches, the intercessors would hit the streets, they would hold candles and they would seek the Lord all night and all day until the battle was done and Coney would lose and that's how he was kicked out of the country.
Speaker 2:So this guy's telling these stories, you know, and he was one of the leaders. He's one of the four guys he's in my pulpit. There were 650 people in that sanctuary. Now my wife would always come early and she sat two rows from the front because she had to make sure she could get there and of course, she's unable to raise her arms higher than her head and her face is sagging and she's in chronic pain and all around her are friends who have helped her clean our home because she's unable to move the vacuum. This is how bad it is. And while we're sitting there, this bishop is in the pulpit and he's telling one of these stories and I am actually sitting on the steps looking at the congregation because there's no seats, and so he stops in the middle of a story where somebody's life is in peril and is about to be delivered he hasn't told it to the punchline and he stops and he looks down at me. He said David, david, what is? M-a-m-a, master of Arts? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could have been so many things no.
Speaker 2:I've got something wrong. I've got something wrong. I haven't heard right. And he put his head on the pulpit and he waited 60 seconds, 65 seconds, it seemed a lot longer than it was. Then he looked up and he said this he looked at me and he said David, it's a wasting muscle disease.
Speaker 2:It starts in your head and causes your face to sag, your shoulders become rounded, your shoulder blades go out of position, you're in chronic pain between the years of 16 and 20, and it's a plateau-declined disease. The stomach muscles in your stomach start to hollow out and eventually you can't stand. You don't die young, but if you lose a muscle, you lose it forever. He gave a perfect medical description of FSH musculodystrophy, fascioscopy, or human or musculodystrophy. As he's saying this, I'm realizing he's describing my wife's condition. I am looking at her two rows from the front and now I am waiting to see what's going to happen. And then he says whoever has this, jesus has just healed you and her arms went above her head in front of 650 witnesses for the very first time in more than 20 years and she began growing muscle tissue Now.
Speaker 2:Right after that, we had guests who had come because we were taking teams to Uganda to teach pastors and to help build projects. We built a latrine, we built a library, we built a school and I taught the pastors.
Speaker 2:I wrote my first book on prayer to give to them, and so we had guests. One of the guests was deaf. His deafness vanished while this man was speaking and I had them come over for our meal and the plan was that I would go on the top shelf and take down the heavy pots and pans so that my wife would be able to cook the meal for the guests that we had in the house. She pushes me aside, she stands on the chair and she takes down the heavy pots and pans. Now, dizziness was also a factor with that. She's not dizzy, she's physically strong, she's laughing, she's joyful and she's raising her hands above her head to take down heavy pots and pans for the first time in 20 years. So here's the kicker was a week later when the event was done. I have these two kids, and my daughter is ordinarily a very sweet, kind, gentle, soft-spoken little girl and her brother is six years older and she decided that she was going to push every emotional button in that kid.
Speaker 1:Sounds like my kids.
Speaker 2:Well, it really came on her. Thank you very much. Anyway, yeah, she's usually not like this, but for some reason she was in this awful state and she starts to poke at her. And you know, we first of all, of course. You gently correct.
Speaker 2:And after that you get a little more stern and I just I was about to lose it when my wife lost it before I did. She said, jessica, that's enough. And she stomped her foot and she grabbed my daughter by the hand and she ran her up the stairs and made her go into the bedroom and knelt down beside her to pick up all the toys and make her bed. When she took her by the hand and raced her into the bathroom and made her brush her teeth and wash her face, then she ran her down the stairs and got her in the van and drove her to school.
Speaker 2:We were so mad I realized my wife had just run up the stairs, knelt down beside the bed raced down the stairs, knelt down beside the bed, raced down the stairs, got her to school, didn't have any pain and didn't have pain memory. She was completely restored. And here's what happened Before she was healed she never grew muscle tissue. After she was healed. If she got a bruise or a bump, her muscles would grow back naturally. Now our doctor had known us. We arrived in that town in 2005. This event happened in. It really was four years. This event happened in February, the 22nd of 2009. So he had known her for four years and then he waited until 2011 or 12. And he wrote in the note all traces of FSH muscular dystrophy have gone. And so this was a miraculous world changer because it's genetic transformation. It wasn't just you're a little better for your physical condition. This was not even let's ramp up your immune system so that you beat that flu bug. This was genetic transformation.
Speaker 1:God, only God, Only God. Who doesn't love free? I know I do. That's why I created a free seven-day devotional for those who want to go deeper with God. It's a short devotional full of encouragement, guidance and impactful Bible verses related to everyday struggles we all go through. I know you will love this devotional as much as I enjoyed writing it, and since it's digital, you can do it anywhere, anytime, Perfect for the person always on the go. Get the free devotional when you sign up for my mailing list. The link is in the show notes. This is like in America and most likely Canada, places where this doesn't happen all the time. It's hard for people to hear these stories and not think, oh, they're just making it up or oh, maybe it was just a in the moment kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And I think it's very.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I love that for several reasons. You can't refute what people feel in a moment. You can't say, oh, that's not true, that's what they're feeling, somebody who's experiencing the healing you just said. Your wife ran upstairs, knelt down, did all these things that she was never able to do before. You got to witness that and you lived with her, so you got to see if that was a continual thing or if that was just something that had happened for a week or whatever. And your doctor and his skepticism. Someone might say, oh well, he just doesn't believe or he's narrow-minded. No, he's a doctor, he's got a specific training involved and because he knew you guys and he knew her condition and he saw how severe it was, he had to know what this was and in that search he probably found God. At the very least, he can't refute that God did this, whether he found God himself or not.
Speaker 2:There was another thing. There was another miraculous cure. I had a paralyzed face. It's called Ramsey Hunt. In fact the story again is medically verified by that same doctor. I had a shingles infection in my left ear. It caused the sheath to the, the nerve to expand and push against the sheath, and my face is paralyzed from the corner of my head down to the corner of my mouth. And because I was more than 50, he said you've got like a 40 chance of maybe a little bit back, but you're not going to speak again. And here you are. Yeah, well, here's. There's a long healing story that's attached to that.
Speaker 2:But when it was done and when I was miraculously healed and there's a whole series of events, this one and my wife's healing both wound up on the 700 Club because they have to insist on medically verified and I got the doctor's note. So when I walked into the doctor's office and he was going to give me counsel so I could get different kinds of work in my 50s not involving my speech or my face, he looked at me and I went like that you can't do that, it's really impossible. I said I know I can't do that. Do you want me to wink this eye or that eye. I can talk now I can speak, now I've been healed. He said, well, it's medically impossible. I said, yes, he said what happened. I said, yes, he said what happened. I said I believe the Lord Jesus healed my paralyzed face and I told him some of the backstory and he sat back in his chair and of course he's treated my wife and he's treated my son and she treated me and all of us have had miraculous healing, all of us. And so he said my wife, she's a real Catholic. Me, I'm a Hindu, I'm a lousy Hindu. My wife really believes in that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then he said this. He said lots of people of faith come into my practice and they want to tell me that God has healed them, and it's usually a placebo effect. But in your case and in your wife's case, there is no medical explanation for what happened to you, and so I am more than prepared to admit that this is something that is beyond medical science. And he wrote the two notes he did. So you know what? I now know this. I didn't used to think this way before. I now know that healing is supposed to be far more common than we make room for it. But what we've done is we've laid trips on people around the fact that if it's not instant, heal instantly we say it's false. Well, jesus of Nazareth prayed twice for the guy who couldn't see. In fact, he interviews him. Actually, I wouldn't recommend doing this in your average American church. He spits in the clay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially post-COVID.
Speaker 2:And then he spits on the guy's tongue and then he breathes and he, you know, he prays. And he says, how are your eyes? And he said, well, I can see, but it's kind of. I started seeing men but I see men like trees walk. Oh, let's pray again. So he prays a second time and then the man's restored. Well, if sinless God, the son Jesus of Nazareth, prayed twice in a developmental process for the guy to get his healing back, maybe it's possible for us to pray twice or three times or four times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I get that A lot of people want it now and they want it completely, and sometimes that's not how it is. Maybe it's not God's will that you're completely healed, and sometimes that's not how it is. Maybe it's not God's will that you're completely healed. Maybe not at that time, maybe it'll come later. Maybe there's a reason why he doesn't need you to be fully healed. Maybe there's a reason for everything he does and we just need to trust him.
Speaker 2:All of it is just speculation, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't know, I've got a three-pound brain Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work right.
Speaker 2:You don't know. I've got a three pound brain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work right. If you have a three pound brain, you'll do well if you can just manage to be able to order your affairs. But you don't know what's coming around the corner God does. Anyway, the book describes five different pathways.
Speaker 2:Now the book contains medically verified accounts of healing and they call it the instant heal. That's the first one. The second one people would push back on this, but I now believe that natural healing is miraculous. I'll tell you why Anybody who's sick, their body doesn't work right and their healing processes don't work right. So before my wife was healed, if she damaged a muscle, it was gone forever. After my wife was healed, if she damaged a muscle, it re-grew.
Speaker 2:I now believe ordinary healing. Like you cut your thumb, you wash it off, you put a little saddle on, you put a bandage on it, the skin grows back. It's amazing. That's just as much a miracle. It's not in the same realm, but it's a miracle. The third one is what I call the pathway to a remedy. Now I've talked to medical practitioners before and they've told me this Very often. They will see somebody who was injured next door or died next door or whatever, or their brother or their sister got afflicted and they made a commitment as a young person to study medicine so they could learn how to treat the thing that killed their kid sister.
Speaker 1:I mean we're talking about it.
Speaker 2:And so some of these people dedicate 15, 20, 30 years of their lives seeking a cure for something that was a great grief to them in childhood. And then they're given insight and either they're given some sort of an application to help them or they're given the cure. Oh look, and some of these are believers who cried out to God asking them to show them. Would you lead me to this thing? My wife's sister got the polio vaccine and the neighbor didn't. The neighbor died and my wife's sister lived and she made a commitment to study medicine because medicine saved her life. Anyway, the bottom line here is that if somebody has spent 20, 25 years and has discovered something that improves the medical condition and gives it to you as a gift, take the gift.
Speaker 2:My favorite story for this is in the Old Testament. It's the story of Hezekiah, king Judah and you know he's the prophet goes in. It's in 2 Kings 20. Isaiah goes in, says to him you're toast, you're dead. Kaputski, write your will, get your house in order, you're dead, it's over, goodbye. And so what a nice word from the guy who wrote 63. So Isaiah is getting ready to leave. He walks out. Hezekiah it says this in 2 Kings turns his face to the wall and he doesn't even say God, heal me. He says, god, remember how I've served your people. He cries bitter tears. Isaiah is leaving and suddenly the Lord's voice speaks to him Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, I'm adding 15 years to his life. So he goes back and he says I'm adding 15 years to your life. And Hezekiah says isn't that nice? Prove it.
Speaker 1:Isn't that just like humans, oh?
Speaker 2:absolutely so. Isaiah says what do you want? The shadow to go down 10 steps or the shadow to go up 10 steps? And he says down, oh, that's easy, give me 10 up, please Give me 10 up. And so Isaiah cries out to the Lord and Hezekiah watches the shadow go back 10 steps. He gets a nature miracle and when it's done he's thankful. He composes a little song and then Isaiah says to him now here's what you got to do. Get yourself a fig poultice, put it on top of the boil, suck the poison out. You'll just be fine 15 more years.
Speaker 2:So he gets a prophetic utterance, despair. He gets a second prophetic utterance after his prayer. He gets a word of assurance. He gets a nature miracle and he gets medicine. And all of that's in the same story and it intertwines medicine, medicine, miracle and mystery. I have a chapter in the book called Medicine, miracle and Mystery. How they Intertwine, because there is this thing called holy mystery and there is this thing called miracle and there is this thing called medicine, and none of them means that you're sinning. All of them in combination mean that God is overseeing your life as you submit to his lordship.
Speaker 2:Now the fourth pathway is suffering. That doesn't have explanation and there are seasons where this happens. I mean, why did Joseph suffer in the prison in Egypt? Why didn't he just meet the king and become the vizier, I mean, and it says that God was with Joseph. God was with Joseph when his brothers threw him in a pit, wanted to kill him. That's crazy. Anyway, the bottom line is the scripture does not get embarrassed by suffering.
Speaker 2:The scripture teaches that servants of God from time to time experience suffering and there is no explanation and sometimes they'll find like years later. So you know this with the story of Joseph, I mean, that's a good one there 17, when he gets betrayed by his brothers probably 22, 23, when he gets thrown into this Egyptian jail and then he gets elevated to the court of the king, waiting two years. After the guy forgets the dream You're talking about, leading the suffering right, and then when he's 30, his brothers, and so he waits 13 years before he sees the fulfillment. And the suffering was awful, just terrible stuff and unjust and wrong and evil nothing more evil than a bunch of brothers wanting to kill their own brother and sell his own flesh and blood for cash and lie to their daddy about what's going on. This is a terrible thing and act when it's done. The holy purpose is revealed. And sometimes people go through suffering and they do not understand. And they're godly, they're righteous people, they're crying out, they're people who memorize the scripture and go to the prayer meeting and serve the poor and they get sick and they die and in heaven the Lord will reveal. So the last. So you have these. First of all, the instant heal, the natural heal, the intertwining of medicine, a pathway to a remedy, suffering that we don't understand, and last of all, the magnificent crossing where God says your life purpose is done, now you're coming for your reward. And all five of these intertwine and the book that I wrote, and it's a co-write with Reverend Dr Maxie Dunham. Maxie just turned 90. A wonderful, godly, righteous man who's written on prayer all his days. He's written five zero 50 books. His last book was the co-write with me, healing Prayer, god's Idea. His grandson was medically miraculously healed, his daughter married a medical doctor and they had a son who was born with and the eyes weren't looking right.
Speaker 2:By the way, the audio. I'm going to give your listeners a free copy of the audio book, chapter one, because it's got my voice and Maxie's voice telling our two origin stories with prayer for healing, and we want people to learn that there's something called instant healing. We want people to learn there's something called prayerful preparation. We want people to learn there's something called the Lordship of Jesus. We want people to learn there's something called prayerful preparation. We want people to learn there's something called the Lordship of Jesus. We want people to learn there's something called praying in the Spirit, where the Spirit prays through you with groans that are too deep for words. There's also something, by the way, jesus practiced prayer in the Spirit and it was where his emotional interior being intertwined with the Spirit of the Lord. You see him doing that when he prays for Lazarus's resurrection.
Speaker 2:The Apostle Paul talks about groaning that's too deep for words. As you intercede, sometimes there are long seasons where the intercession through a human takes time, and then events are shaped and time and space is rearranged for the intercessory prayer ministry of God. The Holy Spirit praying through a human who's yielded to the divine nature. Those two things come together and produce the transformation of the human condition and from time to time we see miraculous healing. So there you go, those five pathways. We want to teach people that when you pray for someone, you pray in submission to the movement of the Spirit.
Speaker 2:And Jesus says it all through John's Gospel the guy at the Pool of Bethesda he'd been there 38 years. I mean, you want to talk about a hopeless case? And then he's put in this place called the Pool of Bethesda where there's a last chance hope, and he lies there on a pallet every single day and night for 38 years. Jesus says do you want to be well? And then when he gets healed, he said take up your bed and walk. And then actually, when the Pharisees questioned Jesus, he says this interesting thing I can't do anything unless the Father shows me.
Speaker 2:And so there's been an error made in the Christology of our Lord, based upon well-meaning Christians ascribing more to Jesus than he intended. I am a born-again evangelical, inerrant scripture guy. I believe the Bible is final in all matters. All matters is final. But what I want to say to you is he is God, the Son, and he's the Son of man. And the miracles did not happen because he was divine. The miracles happened because he was submitted and in his God-honoring submission, taking on human frame after he emptied himself of all divine prerogative, he is restoring what was intended for our first parents when they gave it away to the powers of darkness. He's restoring that.
Speaker 2:It says that in Philippians 2, 5-11. Let this mind be in you, which also was in Christ Jesus who, although he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being found obedient. He was obedient to the point of death. It's very clear. That is a counter parallel to Adam and Eve. Now I don't know who you think is dumb and who you think is dumber. I think Adam and Eve are both dumb. Now I don't know who you think is dumb and who you think is dumber, I think.
Speaker 2:I think you're both dumb. What that? They were humans who regarded equality with God as something to reach out and grasp. And in Philippians, chapter two, you have God, who enters into the human domain not to regard equality with God as something he already was. God Emptied himself a divine prerogative so that you and I could be raised to the highest place Participation in the very presence and power of God himself. And his reason for coming wasn't just so you could get saved and sit tight. His reason for coming was that you and I could be partakers of the divine nature.
Speaker 2:He wants us to be infilled with God himself and to carry out the ministry that he did not complete. His work was completed in terms of our salvation, but the salvation of the world depends on you and I, and it depends on the infilling of his very presence and power inside of us. And when the spirit fills us, we get two things we get Jesus' sinless perfection covering our stupidities, and we get his very spirit. That means the mission that he wants to accomplish flows through the power of the spirit flowing through us, and this is how miraculous acts of power happen. The Holy Spirit prompts us, we pay attention to the presence and we partner with God when we're not expecting it. Oh, I just gave you a big download there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you summed up the gospel pretty well.
Speaker 2:Actually, he didn't come just to get you saved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much more to it.
Speaker 2:So that you could take the planet back from the powers of darkness and pass it all back to God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we're called to go and make disciples. You can't do that if you're just sitting cushy and everything's just hunky-dory for you. You have to go out, you have to live out your faith Well, more than that you have to be infilled and follow.
Speaker 2:The bottom line is, what we've done is we've reduced the gospel to a decision. We've said, oh, if you just make this one decision and pray that prayer with your eyes closed and nobody looking, you can get saved. Well, I don't find that in the Bible at all. The notion of getting saved and sitting tight and not telling anybody else that you're making the commitment is alien to the scripture.
Speaker 2:The whole point of the New Testament is that you become a public testimony to the glory of God and that his presence and power infills you and transforms the earth through the prayer life of the believer and the obedience of the Christian community. He said disciple all nations. He didn't say pray for the neighbor next door. He wants us to take the planet back. That's what he wants, and he does it by the infilling of his very own person. He said I mean, if your spirit left you, you'd be dead. He fills us with his spirit because he already died and so we become participants in his, the extension of his body. So when he wants something done in heaven and he starts to think, the power of the spirit flows through every aspect of his body across time and space and people start to follow because the presence of the spirit in them guides them into the purposes that are attached to the body that's connected to the head. His name is Jesus. It's the transformation of the planet, not just the escaping of hellfire for a passing second with a single decision while you live a slimy life. That is alien to the Bible, and my goal in teaching this is I believe that people need to take Jesus so seriously that every pore of their being gets infused with the divine.
Speaker 2:Now John Calvin taught something called total depravity, and he's correct In that doctrine. It means this there's no part of the human condition that has not been affected by the fall. That doesn't mean you're an ax murderer if you're totally depraved. It means you could be a nice person but never quite achieve. It means that you're born bent. You're born broken.
Speaker 2:Well, the incarnation's the other side of that. Here's what it means when God became a human. It means that there's no part of what it means to be human that was not infilled with the divine. That means that it's possible for someone who is totally fallen to be totally filled. And we live between these two realms the fact that we're fallen and the fact that we're filled. We're already participants in the powers of the next age. That's what the Bible says. Through the experience of salvation and infilling and repentance and walking with the Lord and sanctification, you get infilled with heaven's presence and power. And the reality is you're Lord bent, and these two things coexist at the same time. So we're already participating in the powers of the next age. We're not yet as we should be, but we know that when we see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3, verses 1, 2, and 3. That's the center of the Bible. Oh, this is exciting stuff, sister.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely. It's profound, and I believe that there's a lot of Christians out there, myself included, who don't understand the full depth and appreciate the seriousness of prayer And-.
Speaker 2:Well, the joy of it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that too, I mean. A lot of people are like oh, I got to pray about this again. We're told to pray without ceasing, we're not told to pray with whining, and I got to bring this back to him again. It's like, no, he already knows what we need, but he wants to hear our voice. He wants us to partake in whatever he wants to do. He wants us to be willing, and if you're not willing, he can't work with that.
Speaker 2:He's not going to work with that Pray without ceasing is a problem. How do you pray when you're fast asleep, right? How? Do you pray when you're in the middle of trying to figure out that quadratic equation? How do you pray? When you're taking care middle of trying to figure out that quadratic equation, because how do you pray when you are, when you're taking care of that kid who's yelling at you and you got to clean that baby's bottom and scream at you.
Speaker 2:So what I say about praying without ceasing is this it's not that you are always uttering words, it is that you are always present to the divine presence, and there are seasons where prayer is nonverbal and you know, this Many people.
Speaker 2:I've been a pastor for years. Sometimes you get called up because somebody's in the hospital, it's going to be a surgery, there's been a car accident, whatever, and they're in shock. And you go into that family's room and they don't know how to pray. They haven't got words because the one they love is on that operating table and there's head trauma, or this guy could very well die because his heart got popped, something like this. So what I do when I go into a hospital room like that and there's family gathered is I said you don't have to use words to pray, you can be present to the presence. And I'm going to give you a scripture that will help you.
Speaker 2:And I'll go to 1 John, 1, verse 5. It says this God is light and in him, him, there's no darkness at all. Now, two verses later, that light is described as beautiful. It says this if we walk in the light, which means we can, as he is in the light, which means he's there, we have fellowship with one another. That's participation in Jesus and the others. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us, oh, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us, oh, sister, that's good light.
Speaker 2:Okay, now in 1 John, light and darkness are at war. Okay, and here's the bottom line Darkness consists of something as awful as Cain's murder, or lying, or manipulation, or unhealth and those kinds of things. So then I get, I say now, listen, every one of us thinks in pictures or memory I'll give you, I'll get. Then I look him in the eye and I say now, use all your powers, concentrate, look me in the eye and whatever you do, don't do this, don't think of an elephant. They all laugh. Yep, I said, well, it's the same thing. So word is code for pictures.
Speaker 2:So when you hear God is light, what do you see? I say, well, I see this brilliant, beautiful light. I said, okay, picture a dark room and the darkness is your husband, your daughter, your son struggling to live, or this is your sin issues, or this is, whatever. The matter of the day happens to be your lack of provision, whatever. Now you know the text says Jesus is in the light and he says if you walk in the light, that means you can go. So put yourself there with Jesus in that light, stay right there Now, your loved one on the operating table, bring them into that light and just wait Now. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to breathe in. God is light. Breathe out no darkness at all. So every breath becomes a prayer. The prayer is to be present to Jesus in the light. The prayer is the exiting of all sin issues and despair. The prayer is to bring yourself into the light of Jesus, to have your sins forgiven, to experience fellowship. The prayer is that the disease or the trouble vanish from your husband, your son, your daughter. And every time you breathe, it's light in, every time you breathe it's darkness out and picture your loved one under the care of Jesus in the light. And you can do that without saying a word until the surgery is done, and the relief that floods the room. Because they want to pray and they don't know how they can do that. And the bottom line is all they're doing is quoting the scripture and they're using every faculty of who they are as people to pray the scripture.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you'll need words. Sometimes words will cheapen the encounter. Sometimes you need to lament and sometimes you need to sing praises. Sometimes you need to silently reflect on possibilities. Sometimes you need the answer. Sometimes you are yourself afflicted while you're praying for another and you're crying out to God and you have prayed 6,000 times and you've not seen the answer come. Sometimes you see you become aware of an increase of God's presence and you're commanded to take a step of care of love, because prayer is love on its knees. And sometimes you're told to do nothing because it's beyond your ability, power and God doesn't want you in there and if you go in there you'll mess it up. You are to be present to the presence in the middle of all of these X-Factors, and every family's got a thousand of them, and God knows what you need and you usually use words, but you don't need them all the time, because Jesus is the word and the word became flesh and every part of what it means to be human can be involved in your prayer.
Speaker 1:Amen. I know I'm very pumped up for trying to reignite my fire for prayer because this has been an area that's been hard for me to handle lately.
Speaker 1:I've been feeling like a skittery squirrel all over the place because I have five children, so my brain's going all different directions, trying to find something to pray about, and a lot of times it just feels flat and I know I'm not even scratching the surface of what I really feel like I want to pray and, yeah, your workbook of living prayer, oh, Maxie, yeah, yes, if you're just getting started, there is no better book than the workbook of living prayer by Maxie Dunham.
Speaker 2:It's're just getting started. There is no better book than the workbook of living prayer by Maxie Donovan. It's an older book now, published in 1994, but it assumes you know nothing. The scripture is always in italic, it's got two paragraphs of teaching, it's got a reflecting record section and it takes you seven days a week and I've used this with every new Christian I've ever had. Within six weeks, the new Christian who didn't know where the books of the Bible were and has just had some sort of a decision to Christ becomes a seasoned intercessor.
Speaker 2:This is a primer. This is designed to teach people how to just get started. Now, if you want to go deeper, you follow it with my book that was inspired by Maxi Dunham's book. Now this book is deeper. This just came out. It came out in September of 24.
Speaker 2:It's called Living Out the Lord's Prayer Line by Line, and the inspiration from this book was Maxie Dunham's workbook of living prayer. And what I've done is I took 13 years of research on how Jesus' words meant something, in the contexts he used them and then, when he gave us the Lord's Prayer and he summarized all of his teaching and reduced it into a memory device that we were supposed to use to think Jesus' thoughts after. So this course would follow beautifully on Maxie's. And once you're done this, then you need to learn how to listen to his voice, and that's why I wrote this one.
Speaker 2:This is a six-week interactive journey on listening to the voice of Jesus. It's called hey, are you there? It's Me, god. How to Listen, test and Know when God Speaks. And once again, like the other two books, the scripture is on every day and in my case, with this one, I made it bold italic. So if you got five kids and three of them are screaming and you need the scripture in you and you're trying to do the study, go for the bold italic and get your scripture verse.
Speaker 2:That's a good parenting tip right there, but it has a journaling section. It's got a journey. So then, if you do those three in a row, then you're going to be in a place where your prayer life shifts from uttering words when you don't know what to say to being present to the divine presence. That leads you into this last thing healing prayer. That's why I wrote and Maxie and I wrote this together. The reason I wrote this book is because I had not a sweet clue how to do prayer for healing and I didn't even want to thank you very much because it's so controversial.
Speaker 2:People die, they're in pain, and when you pray and nothing happens, what do you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can shake faith. I can see why you are scared of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't have to. So the point is, healing prayer requires that you be present to the presence, but you have to learn to be present to the presence, to recognize when the Lord is giving you a prompting to pray for another, that has an answer. So if you do all of those in a row in the order I just gave it to you, maxie Dunham's workbook of living prayer, living out the Lord's prayer by me here, there it's me, god and then healing prayer, in that order, you will be in a place where prayer is dynamic and engaging and not just sort of like this thing that you do because you have to have your quiet time with five minutes in a Bible text.
Speaker 2:The intention here is to train spiritual disciplines. So my ministry is called Spirit Equip why? Because I want to equip the spirit. I want to equip people in the disciplines of listening to the voice of Jesus and in the disciplines of prayer, the disciplines of hearing the voice of Jesus. And I can tell you this Every Christian on earth has heard the voice. The Bible says it. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. Jesus is the lamb and we are the sheep. We're supposed to pay attention to that. That's the center of John's gospel. He wants us to learn to hear the voice, to be able to carry out the ministry that Jesus is sending upon the church to complete his purchase of the planet back from the powers of darkness.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Dr David, for coming on today and everyone who is listening. Remember the list that he gave you of books and the order Go get those books, Start doing it.
Speaker 2:You can go to my website. So it's three W's and it's spirit, like Holy Spirit, and equip like equipment, spiritequipcom. And if you go there and you go to the website, if you want the first chapter of the audio book, give me your email and I will give you the first chapter. We'll send it to you on your email and you can listen to myself and Maxie Dunham tell our healing prayer stories that launched the book.
Speaker 1:No to myself and Maxie Dunham tell our healing prayer stories that launch the book. No charge, that's just a gift. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, dr David, for coming on and sharing the power of healing prayer and healing in general. I mean this has been very encouraging and I'm pumped up to work on my prayer life.
Speaker 2:Don't do it alone. Get those resources. Start with Maxie's, it will help you, yeah.
Speaker 1:I will Thank you. God bless you.
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