" Taking Jesus Along For A Test Drive "
Dear Friends and Family,
Just a few weeks ago, my 1988 Dodge Omni had to be taken to the junk yard, do to the frame rusting out. I can only compare giving up my car to when I gave up my favorite blanket as a small child. It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done. We thought we could get by with just one car, but that wasn’t working out. Our other car is eight years old with close to 130,000 miles, and it’s starting to make a clunking noise. It will do for a second car, but I wasn’t sure we could trust it to drive long distances. So we decided to buy an additional car.
We felt impressed to buy a particular make and model car. Wednesday morning we headed out to the car dealership. Lena told me that the Lord impressed on her that there would be a salesman that would be walking with a limp, and we were supposed to pray for him.
When we went into the car dealership a salesman asked us if he could help us, and we noticed that he was walking with a limp. We test drove several cars, and decided on one. I told the salesman to give us the lowest price possible on the car, and that we had just started looking for cars, and would let him know our decision in a couple of days. Before we left, I told him that we were ministers, and that the Lord had impressed on Lena that we would see a salesman with a limp. We asked why he limped. He said several years ago he stepped into a hole and injured his knee. We asked him if we could pray for him. He said we could, so we laid our hands on him and asked God to heal him. We then told him to walk and see how his knee was. He said it was better. He told us there was another salesman there who had a worse limp than he had. We didn’t see the other salesman that day.
About two hours after we left the dealership I checked the email from Healing Hands Ministry and found a prayer request from another salesman at the same dealership. He said the salesman that we had prayed for told him that his knee was healed and he wanted us to pray for him. He said that he has been suffering from bone degeneration, arthritis, bone spurs, and asbestos contamination for 30 years.
The following Friday we went to a dealership in Kalamazoo. We test drove one of their cars. We told the salesman that we wouldn’t be buying a car right away. He told us he was going to have back surgery in two weeks. He said he had three herniated disks. We asked if we could pray for him, and he said we could. After praying for him, Lena asked him how his back felt. He said he didn’t know because he was taking morphine and couldn’t feel any pain. We told him that when the morphine wore off he should notice a difference.
The next day we went back to the first dealership, and met with the salesman that had the bad knee. He told us that his knee hasn’t hurt him for the past two days, ever since we prayed for him. Before we left, Lena asked him if the other salesman that he told us about was there. He went and got the other salesman. We met the other salesman and went into the showroom. We sat down with him and asked what all was wrong with him. He started out by telling us about the bone spurs in both his feet, and how the spurs had pierced through the bottom of his feet. I put my fingers on the top of his shoe, just above where the spurs were, and prayed that in the name of Jesus the spurs would dissolve, and the pain would leave. I then told him to stand up and walk. As he took his first steps, Lena told him to say thank you Jesus, and as he did, the pain left his feet.
He sat back down and told us about his knees. He said that he needed both knees replaced. The problem with that was he would have to have them replaced about every ten years. He went on to say that he had to get up about two and a half hours early every morning before going to work because his knees would go out of place during the night and he would have to pull them back into place and start moving them around to get them bending. Then I put my hand around his knees, one at a time, and in the name of Jesus commanded the knees to go into place, the tendons, ligaments, muscles, and cartilage to be healed and the knees to be lubricated. I then told him to get up and walk. With each step he took, the pain left his knees and he began thanking Jesus. His knees started getting stronger and he was walking straighter and faster. His limping completely disappeared. He looked at us in amazement and said, “Is this temporary”? We told him it would last.
He then told us about his back and how his spine curved from one side to the other because of the bone degeneration. He told us the only thing that could be done was to do a lot of exercise to get the muscles strong enough to help hold his back straight. I had him sit in a chair and held out his legs. One leg was about ½ inch longer than the other. This was because his back was out of place. As we prayed for his back to be healed, his legs became the same length. I then did the same thing with his arms. I told him to bend and twist. As he did his back became straight. He then began walking around the showroom at a very fast pace, with his arms up in the air saying thank you Jesus. God had done a miracle right before our eyes.
He told us he had seen this kind of thing on TV but didn’t believe it was real. I told him this was the kind of God that we served, and asked him if he would like to receive Jesus into his heart. He said if Jesus can do this, YES! I then led him through a pray accepting Jesus into his heart and asking Jesus to forgive him of his sins. I asked him to join us at church for Sunday service. He accepted the invitation and was in church Sunday.
When you take Jesus along with you for a test drive, anything can happen, and does happen. To many times we leave Jesus at church. We think the church is responsible for bringing people to Christ. Jesus met the people where they were at. We too have to go out of the church and meet people where they are at, and lead them to Jesus.