Saint Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the Gospel to everyone and use words if necessary.” What a profound statement! I believe he was saying that a living example of the Gospel is more effective than words. Some people may argue with you about doctrine or the interpretation of Scripture, but unless they believe you’re a liar, they can’t argue with your testimony.
In John 10:37-38, Jesus said,
“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.”
And in Mark 16:17-18, we read what Jesus spoke to His disciples after commanding them to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.
“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Then, in verse 20, Mark went on to say, “And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.”
There is nothing more powerful than a miracle testimony. Jesus and His disciples used them to confirm that the words that they spoke were truth. I teach our students at Charis Bible College that the Word of God changes lives, but I also teach them to use testimonies because people relate to stories. That is one of the reasons Jesus used parables to convey truth.
Because of these truths, I’ve dedicated three weeks of our January Gospel Truth television broadcasts to playing fifteen miraculous testimonies of how God has touched and changed lives. I’m expecting these programs to make a profound impact on people.
In this letter, you will read three true stories of God’s healing power. I believe that as you read these stories, faith will build in your heart. Even if you don’t need healing personally, you know someone who does, and they need your prayer of faith.
Faith, Not Works
Mike Hoesch didn’t pay much attention to the small sore on his chest. It started out as a minor annoyance – an itch that wouldn’t go away. But after a year, he decided to get it checked out.
“When I first walked into the doctor’s office, I wasn’t afraid, just curious as to what was causing this sore,” remembers Mike. “But the doctor took one look, and the next thing I knew, he had me scheduled for an emergency surgery.” Mike wasn’t clear about the diagnosis at first – malignant neoplasm – and asked his wife to research it while he returned to work.
His wife called him at work with the layman’s terminology: “malignant skin tumor.” A spirit of fear instantly gripped him. “My pastor told me not to do anything in fear, so I canceled my surgery until I could get peace,” says Mike. Mike’s doctor called him back immediately, warning him of the seriousness of his condition and letting him know that if he refused surgery, he would remove himself as his doctor.
This drove Mike further into fear, but deep down, he knew God could heal him. He turned to God’s Word. He searched the Word looking for things he could do to get God to move on his behalf. “I was taught that everything God did for me was based on my performance. As soon as I thought I’d finally measured up, the bar got raised, and I had to do more.”
As Mike struggled with confusion and discouragement, the lesion changed into a tumor and began growing at an alarming rate. “I was told that it could metastasize throughout my body, and that’s what began happening,” says Mike. “For the next five years, it clung to me and sucked the life right out of me. I grew so weak, I had to quit my job, give up the business I started, and at one point, even hold my head up to eat.”
Mike had given up hope, but then a friend brought him Andrew’s You’ve Already Got It! CD series. “I was reluctant to listen because I’d been taught that our ministry was the only one with the truth.” It was a miracle that he listened, but once he did, the message resonated with his spirit.
“God had been trying to share with me that when Jesus went to the cross, He purchased my healing. There wasn’t anything else I had to do but believe and receive. When I heard Andrew teach this and looked up the scriptures for myself, I was convinced that it really was for me. I finally understood that I’d never be able to receive as long as I thought there was some other work I had to do.”
Once Mike received the revelation of healing, no one could convince him otherwise: “I noticed after about a month, the tumor got smaller. I wasn’t surprised, because I knew I was healed. Within six months’ time, it was completely gone. I learned, like Andrew says in A Sure Foundation, that if you have God’s Word in you, you’ll always have something to stand on that won’t wash away in the storm.”
Instantly Healed
Reeling in pain and loaded up on medication to numb his body, Lance Weldgen walked gingerly into his local coffee shop, laptop under his arm. Typically, after a couple of hours, the pain in his body forced him to go home and lie flat on his back. His doctors called his condition fibromyalgia. Lance called it torture. With no known cure, the best Lance could hope for was temporary relief through the seventeen different medications he took.
Lance noticed a couple – Mike and Rose Gonyer – sitting across the room, studying their Bibles. He mustered his strength to walk over and strike up a conversation. As Lance returned to his seat, the Gonyers noticed his pain. “I went over to him and told him I could tell he was in a lot of pain,” recalls Mike. “I asked if he would share what was going on. After he told me, I invited him to Charis Bible College, where Rose and I were students.”
The intense pain kept Lance pinned to his bed and away from CBC the following day. But the next day, Lance’s wife, Gerri, got him up at five a.m., determined he would make it to the school.
After attending four classes, Lance was led into an empty classroom where Mike and Rose began praying for him. “After explaining what God’s Word says about healing, Rose said that God put it on her heart to ask if I felt worthy – valuable enough – to receive His healing,” says Lance. “For the first time, I realized that this had been my problem all along.”
Lance wasn’t prepared for what happened next: “Mike and Rose began praying for me – but not the kind of prayers I’d ever heard before. They spoke directly to my body, telling the fibromyalgia and pain to leave, and then rebuked a spirit of sickness.” Mike then told Lance to stand up and asked how he felt. “I noticed I didn’t have to grab onto anything to stand,” recalls Lance. Lance stood straight up and mentally scanned his body. One thing was noticeably missing – the pain!
Lance is now living a pain-free, abundant life as a full-time counselor at a local rescue mission. He’s using the same Holy Spirit authority that got him healed to set others free of addictions and sickness.
A Broken Heart
Jamie Scott lay on the hospital bed, holding her brand-new baby girl and feeling amazed at the miracle of childbirth. Her daughter looked perfect. But after several minutes, Jamie and the nurses observed that the baby wasn’t maintaining her natural color and kept turning white. The nurses raced her daughter to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.
Nearly two hours had passed when the doctor returned to Jamie with grim news: Her daughter was missing a rib, a couple of major arteries, and the left side of her heart. The doctor transferred the baby to another hospital that specialized in cardiology. Good thing for Jamie, a friend had told her about Andrew Wommack Ministries just a few months prior, and Jamie had been learning truths about God’s Word ever since.
“When my friend first told me about AWM, I went to the website to see what Andrew taught,” says Jamie. “I had been raised in church, but had never heard teaching like this. I ordered several books and CDs, including The True Nature of God, which set me free in my relationship with Him. I then began watching Andrew on television where I heard his teaching God Wants You Well, and I ordered the book A Better Way to Pray.”
When the doctor’s report came, she had the confidence to stand on God’s Word: “For the first time I felt I really knew who God was,” says Jamie. “At that moment, I remembered Andrew saying how we have the power to speak God’s Word to our bodies. I laid my hands on her and commanded her heart to be whole, and I declared that she was healed by the stripes of Jesus.”
God’s peace instantly washed over Jamie, even though she was looking at her daughter’s white-colored skin and a jumble of tubes connected to her tiny body. As Jamie returned to her hospital room, the Holy Spirit spoke three words to her: “Watch Me work.”
The following day, Jamie spoke to the cardiologist, who had written a book on heart defects. He said that because the baby’s heart was not developed enough to support arteries, there was no guarantee that any type of surgery would be successful.Jamie and her husband waited and prayed, continuing to stand on God’s Word that their baby had been made whole.
Still in the hospital herself, Jamie wasn’t able to see her baby. But the next day, she spoke to a nurse who told her that her daughter’s condition had changed the night before. After viewing ultrasounds, they now saw a heart where there was no heart before and arteries where there had been none. Jamie hung up the phone and, with tears, exclaimed to her husband, “They see her heart!”
After four days in NICU, Jamie’s daughter was moved to the preemie unit and, by the end of that week, sent home with her parents. While the doctors couldn’t explain what happened, they assured Jamie that her baby was 100 percent whole. But Jamie already knew that based on God’s Word. In looking back on the experience, Jamie says with certainty, “If I didn’t learn the teachings about healing that I received through AWM, my daughter would not be here today.”
There are so many lessons to be learned from each of these stories, and these are just the tip of iceberg. My staff has now put together three DVDs called Healing Journeys I, II, and III. Each DVD has five miraculous and powerful stories. They will build your faith to receive your own healing and help you minister healing to others.
