Category: Christian Life and Gospel Leadership

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My Journey Into Healing Ministry (part 2)

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…Continued from Part 1

To South Sudan

After Randy Clark prayed for me at Voice of the Apostles in 2012, and the conference ended, I went and saw my family for a few days, before getting on a plane to fly to South Sudan.

This trip was the most extreme and difficult mission I had ever taken part in up to that point. Our host told us that our precious time in Uganda would look like life in America compared to what we would face in the remote, tribal area we were working in.

To get there we flew from the U.S. to Nairobi, Kenya, then took a very small plane to Lokichoggio, Kenya. (Each person was only allowed 15 pounds of luggage!) Arriving at that small airport, we were told it should take an hour to reach the border, and less than 1.5 hours, total, to get to Narus, our final destination. As we waited for a few hours for our drivers to arrive, we quickly figured out that something was wrong.

We soon learned that it had poured rain all night, causing the vehicles to be delayed getting us. Then for the next 6, mud-soaked hours, we crawled to the border in our little hatchbacks. Arriving there, we were forced to leave the cars and wade across the flooding riverbed that marks the Kenya-South Sudan border, then deal with an immigration officer who was angry about having to work so late in the day waiting for our team. This was just the start of a rough trip.

The Road crossing the Kenya/South Sudan Border

From there, the next couple of days were marked by team members freaking out over a lack of plumbing, bats circling overhead in the rooms, and rats coming out of mattresses while some of our ladies slept. Finally, after resolving that we are not going home because God had called us there, our team organized ourselves for a morning of prayer and worship. From that moment on, everything changed.

Healing Breakthrough

After praying for the sick regularly for over a year, it was on our third day in South Sudan where my healing breakthrough finally came. As our team ventured out to the mango tree where our host church gathered, most of the team members were talking to some Taposa women who had come around to see the whites.

My attention, on the other hand, was drawn to the old man, sitting alone, at the base of the giant mango tree. When I got close to him, I could see that all the color in his eyes had gone, and that he was completely blind. (I would find out from his family on my return trip the following year that he went blind from alcohol poisoning, after a lifetime of drinking almost a gallon of the local brew each day.)

Suddenly I was overcome by a love for this man (compare to Jesus’ being “moved with compassion in Matthew 14:14). I collapsed in the dirt beside him and laid hands on him and began to pray.

I have no idea exactly what I was saying in this prayer. For the first time, I was being led in healing prayer by the Spirit alone, and prayed in faith, absolutely believing something was going to happen. After a few minutes, one of our Ugandan pastors came and began praying with me. Slowly, over the next 20 minutes or so, we began to watch the color come back to his eyes. As the team gathered around to see what was happening, it was obvious that his sight was getting better.

The blind man in South Sudan – my first healing.

When we first began to pray, all he could see was the difference between light and dark – the same way we can see light and dark if we close our eyes. As we prayed, he began to say things like, “I can see the green on the trees.” “I can see the brown from the dirt.” We kept praying. He began to say, “That one is a black man. This one is a white woman.” It was obvious to all that God was working a miracle.

We couldn’t remain there all day. Arrangements had been made for us to make our way to visit a hospital or prison or something. The trip kind of blurs in my mind now. As we left him, however, I knew the man was going to be completely healed.

It didn’t take long to find out. At the end of the day, as our team met for supper back at our base camp, one of the local pastors we were working with came running into the dining room, very excited. “Pastor Scott, the blind man you prayed for is completely healed. He is walking around the village by himself with no one leading him! Everyone is talking about this miracle.”

We found out from there that each morning this man’s children would bring him to the “church” tree, and sit him in the shade with his jug. They would bring him lunch there at some point, then come back in the evening to collect him and take him home. When he was now walking around without being led, it was sure to capture people’s attention!

Healing Evangelism

This whole trip was loosely planned, because you never know how things will go in the bush of Africa. The next morning, very early on, we sent a local pastor to a village just over an hour away, where we were told the gospel had never been preached. We sent him to ask if we could bring our team and share with the people. The response of the village chief left us amazed at God’s goodness.

He told our pastor that he had been approached by many missionaries over the years, but had never allowed them to come to his village. He didn’t want their stories. However, he then said, “…but I heard about the blind man, and we want those people to come here.”

A couple hours later, we gathered our team into the cars and were on our way. We didn’t have a sound system or any cool media technology. It was just our small group of believers, off to see what God would do.

Once in this unreached village, I was given the privilege of sharing the Gospel with around 40 people who had gathered to hear what we had to say. My first question was, “how many of you are Christian?” All of them put their hand in the air. I was perplexed, but quickly realized my mistake. This was South Sudan. Politically, Northern Sudan was Muslim, but Southern was “Christian” in the Catholic-empire sense of the word.

My question that followed, then, was, “how many of you have ever heard of a man named Jesus.” This time, none of the locals raised their hand.

I began to share from the Bible on who Jesus was, why He came, and how each person can be saved. I told them of how Jesus had worked in his lifetime to get this message to the world, then continued through the early disciples, and now the church. When I gave the invitation, there was quite a bit of excitement as all 40 people raised their hands to get saved by Jesus!

Afterwards, I couldn’t help myself. I began sharing how we had been praying for people all over Narus, our village base of operations, for various issues from wanting to be pregnant, to finding work. Then I shared the story of the blind man, and told them, “we want to pray for you too.”

One of the Taposa we met on this mission.

We decided it was wise to have men pray with men and women with women, due to some cultural sensitivities we had discovered the day before. As eager as the men were to be prayed for, none of them came to me at first. They were waiting in respect as one of the old village elders came to receive first.

This old man walked with the help of a stick, and was very slow. A 10 meter walk took 2-3 minutes for him, unassisted. I patiently waited, out of respect, for him to reach me. He told me how his knees had been very damaged in the fight for freedom and other tribal wars in the past, and asked me to pray.

At the time, I was praying with another gentleman – a very devout leader in his cessationist Baptist church. He was already skeptical of the blind man’s healing, wanting to know if we could verify he was actually blind before we met him; ignoring the fact that we personally watched the color return to his eyes.

I placed my hands on the old warrior’s right knee, while my doubting companion grabbed the left. I prayed. As soon as I finished, the old man tested out his legs, and… nothing.

There was no change to his condition, and he thought that I wasn’t understanding the problem correctly. I assured him I understood the need, and explained to him about the passage where even Jesus had to pray for someone twice (see Mark 8:25). I said, “let’s pray again.” (This received an awkward glance from my prayer partner, but he relented and grabbed the knee again.)

This time, as soon as we finished praying, I asked the man to test them out. He took one step, then took off running around the village center completely healed! I was so excited; I was shouting more than he was. My prayer partner, not so much.

More Healings

The next man to come forward was another warrior with the same issues, and the pattern followed the same. We prayed once, nothing happened. We prayed a second time, and he ran around completely healed.

The third man had major back pain and was unable to lift or work easily. After a couple of prayers the pain in his back completely left. At this point, so did my prayer partner. These healings were challenging his faith to the point that he went to pray with someone else.

The fourth man was different. He, too, was walking with a staff due to worn out knees. I prayed for him once, but by this point his faith was high after seeing all the other healings, that he didn’t check himself before taking off running. He wasn’t healed. He reached the edge of the village center and collapsed in more pain.

The thing you need to understand is that these are a warrior tribe. Every man carries an 8-foot spear and can be very aggressive. They also value their elders. Now we had broken one of them. As everyone’s attention turned to the elder who had collapsed, out of fear for what might happen next, I took off running to the man, praying “God, we broke him worse. They’re going to kill us. Please, You have to heal Him now!”

As I reached the man, I immediately began praying for him again. This time, he listened when I asked him to test it out first, and praise God, he was completely healed.

The one who didn’t test it out first.

Church Planting Made Simple

About this time, the chief, who had missed our meeting due to other commitments returned and began asking his people what was going on. All of the testimonies of how God was moving in salvation and healing through many members of our team overwhelmed him. He immediately asked us to take up a permanent place in their village. They led us to the edge of town where they donated a large plot of land to build a church and anything else we wanted to do (hospital, orphanage, etc.). 

They pleaded with us to stay, so much, that in their limited understanding of what had happened, they thought this power was coming from us, and not God’s Spirit in us. They went as far as to ask if we could leave some of our white women so that they could “mingle the blood” and receive this power. We explained to them that the power was not in us, but in Jesus through God’s Spirit, and that He would do these things through them if they learn to follow and obey him. We promised them that our local pastors would begin coming to work with them regularly in discipleship, then quickly left for the protection and comfort of some of our team.

I can happily report, however, that today, 8 years later, there is still a growing church in that village led by the pastors who took us there in the first place.

Here is the recap video of the entire South Sudan mission. The blind man can be seen at 7:27. Some of the warrior’s knees being healed is at 10:29.

I can also happily say that the senior pastor who hosted us on that first trip, a Ugandan missionary to South Sudan, became a good friend of mine. In fact, he has since began transitioning out of South Sudan (leaving the ministry there in the hands of the other pastors on his team) and is now planting a church in Busia, Uganda, under the covering of Sozo Ministries, the ministry God led me to open in 2015.

Ministering Through Words of Knowledge

It is difficult for me to share how much the healing ministry has shaped my work for the Lord in the years since this first breakthrough.

Upon my return to Haiti, immediately following this trip to South Sudan, healing began happing every week in church services. 

As I returned to the U.S. at the end of 2012, I saw that my opportunities to pray for people were becoming less and less. Deciding I needed to grow in my understanding of this gifting and have accountability to press in for more, I signed up for Randy Clark’s online healing school, which pushed me to continue praying for the sick and growing in the gift. (I am now a member of Global Awakening’s Association of Healing Ministers, and last year I was ordained by Global Awaking — Randy’s Ministry in the U.S.)

It was through Randy’s program that I learned how to receive Words of Knowledge for healing, which has become one of the primary ways I minister in healing (and more).

In 2013, I had returned to traveling around the world with Heart of God (HGIM); Haiti, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, India, Israel. Little by little the gift continued to grow.

On a 9-day trip to India in 2014, the pastors kept me on a crazy preaching schedule. We did 2 half-day pastor’s conferences, one night open air crusade, and preached in 17 churches around the countryside. Not having time to prepare for each meeting, I really began to depend on words of knowledge to be able to minister. I would spend time praying in the car, on our way to each church, asking God to show me what to speak and what He wanted me to do. 

Inevitably He would speak to me about scriptures I was supposed to share and show me pictures in my mind of how He wanted me to pray and minister to people. Surprisingly, praying for the sick was becoming a large part of what He was showing me to do. In one church He told me beforehand that every person with back pain would be healed. (They were.)

Praying for a Hindu man’s back pain

On that one trip to India, I saw more healings in 9 days than I had seen combined since South Sudan two years prior. As is sadly, often the case, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit brought in controversy among friends, and unfortunately, this large number of healings led to some challenges within the organization I was working for. As an interdenominational ministry, it was clear that not everyone in leadership believed the same about healing that I did. The Lord began to lead me to check my motives and make sure this calling was from God, and to see where He would take me next.

A New Ministry

The month before my trip to India, I had attended a gathering of the International Society of Deliverance Ministers, invited as a part of Randy’s healing program. There, I received two prophecies which would shape the current era of my life. One prophecy was a confirmation of my calling and concerned a shift in the ministry I was doing coming “very soon,” and the other was about God having “all the funding” ready for my “new ministry.” 

At the time, I held those prophecies loosely, until the following March, when in a season of prayer and by mutual agreement with the leadership, I resigned from HGIM. To be clear, this was not a divisive and angry split. Both sides felt like it was God’s timing, and I remain friends with everyone in that organization!

Immediately I began work on registering Sozo Ministries, Inc. with the state of Texas and working on non-profit status. We took the name “Sozo” because it is the Greek word for “saved” or “salvation” in the New Testament. However, if you look it up in a concordance, it means complete salvation – body, soul, and spirit – meaning that in Christ’s atonement are the promises of salvation from sin, physical healing, and spiritual deliverance from the devil.

Since the foundation of Sozo Ministries in 2015, we have seen over 2000 people healed from various physical diseases.

My Healing Ministry Today

As I now live in Uganda with my family, and lead almost 40 churches registered under Sozo Ministries in Uganda and Kenya, it is amazing to look back and see this journey the Lord has brought me on.

Today, I spend my time not only preaching the gospel and praying for the sick, but training other pastors and believers to do the same. If you have time, you can watch some testimonies on our youtube channel:

HEALING TESTIMONIES

Throughout the year I preach in churches around East Africa (and in other countries as God opens the doors), and see healing happen in every single service.

Sozo pastors plan gospel crusades throughout the year, and I have the privilege of preaching to the lost, and again, in every single meeting people are getting saved and healed.

The largest event I am a part of is the annual Global Outreach mission, in partnership with Living Water Ministries, Uganda. It is my privilege to help train the outreach team in healing ministry, then to lead the healing session at each mega crusade. Last year’s team saw over 600 healings during the three-week outreach. Less than 100 were through my prayers. It came through those who had been in the training and walked out equipped and filled with faith!

The Lord has connected me with other ministries operating in healing and equipping the church for the supernatural, which has allowed me to bring ministers like Kimberly Cleveland of EquipNations and Jim Wietner from the Global School of Supernatural Ministry to help take our work in Uganda and Kenya go higher.

All in all, I can say that being a part of what the Lord is doing in saving the lost and healing the sick around the world is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Looking back at the 16 year old me, I could never have imagined things going this direction, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

To be truthful, in many ways I feel like my journey into healing is still just beginning. The blind man’s healing was less than 7.5 years ago! I cannot wait to see what the next few decades hold.

It’s Your Turn

Hopefully sharing my journey into healing ministry has encouraged you in some way, to pursue God for more in your own life. The Bible encourages us to pursue spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1) and seems to imply in many places that you will receive the gifts you ask for. So go after Him for more!

I would also ask you to pray for me. While I am confident that God heals, and see him do so often, I know there is more. I also know the challenges that come from, both, believers and nonbelievers concerning healing, and I need the boldness to remain faithful to God’s calling.

Finally, I will say that if your church or ministry is wanting to learn to operate in the healing gift, or wants to plan a gospel-healing outreach, it would be my pleasure to be invited to speak, or to offer guidance to your team in any way possible.

INVITE ME

As always, if you are enjoying what you are reading on my blog, I would also be honored if you would subscribe to my weekly email below. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram for regular blog updates, and other ongoing #ChristianLife and #GospelLeadership insights!

If you’re enjoying the content I produce, a little caffeine to keep me going would be appreciated!



© Anthony Scott Ingram 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Cover photo by Sozo Ministries, Inc.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

Please note that I do get a small kickback from Amazon for any purchases made using the links on this post. Should you choose to purchase from them, I just want to say thank you for further supporting my work in ministry!

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My Journey Into Healing Ministry (part 1)

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Last week I shared a word the Lord has been speaking to me concerning another healing revival that will follow this coronavirus pandemic, and I said I would talk more about the healing ministry in the weeks ahead. Before I start talking about the practicals of healing ministry, I felt like it would be a good idea to give my own background in the healing ministry, to give some credibility to what I am teaching; or at least to show that I wasn’t brainwashed into some psychological mumbo jumbo.

I am a fairly average Christian. Yes, I am a pastor and missionary and all of that, but when I compare myself to the great heroes of the faith, I am usually left feeling un-remarkable. (I don’t recommend you compare yourself to anyone but Jesus, by the way. It works out better for you in the long-run.) Never in my life could I have imagined that God would one day use me in the healing ministry. Now, however, it is one of the greatest joys of my life.

Coming to Faith

Growing up and finding my own faith in Jesus was a journey in itself. My parents had left the Baptist church when I was four, and when I had questions, all the different denominational beliefs from my extended family left me feeling more confused than before I asked. By the age of 16, I knew that my faith in Jesus was real and that I was saved. I had rejoined the church from my childhood. Beyond that, I had no intention of anything in ministry. My life’s trajectory was Texas Christian University’s “Ranch Management” program. I was going to be a full-time cowboy. 

Although this is not the place for my full life story, it will suffice to say that around the age of 18, my course changed as I felt God redirecting my priorities and leading me into the ministry. Instead of TCU, I enrolled in the fundamentalist Baptist college recommended by my pastor. It also happened to be the same school where many of my family members in ministry had gone since the 1920’s. Frankly, it was also the only Bible college I knew of, which made the decision fairly easy to make.

Unbelieving Bible College 

While in that Bible college, my faith really began to be tested and challenged as my hopeful outlook of God’s big plan for the world, was turned upside down by legalist rules and a lot of hypocritical, self-righteous attitudes by some of the students and faculty. Not to mention their belief that the supernatural gifts of God ceased after the 12 apostles died.

As I have discussed many times before, it was during this time that I began reading the book of Acts, not only as a historical record of the early church, but as a book that must either validate Christianity as real, or which would force me to consider that this whole thing was a myth. I began to pray for God to expand my experience to fit my convictions about the Bible, and after a few months of praying, the Holy Spirit of God filled me, just as the Bible promised.

Surprisingly to me, not everything in my life changed at once. Although there was a new, revitalized spirit within me and my optimism of the Christian faith had been renewed; and there was definitely fruit being produced in my life from this change, I was also faced with a lot of controversy and hostility from my peers and the college faculty. Nevertheless, my hunger for the things of God continued to grow.

Healing Enters The Picture

Along with my pursuit of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I also became hungry to see the power of God at work. It was around this time in my journey that divine healing entered the picture.

First, it came through stories from both my grandmothers. On my mom’s side, my grandma has always been the charismatic believer. She has always prayed in tongues and believed God for miracles. Yet for most of my life, I ignored her stories and moved along with my life. (In the worst times, I argued with her from my Baptist education, and hurt our relationship in many ways.) However, over a holiday break in college, she began recounting to me, again, all of the many miracles of healing she had seen over the years. Not only in her own body and in our family, but through former pastors and other believers she used to know. Though these stories were not new to me, I did pay more attention to them now.

It was my other grandma who surprised me with stories of healing. She had been raised in the Church of Christ her whole life, until she married my granddad and moved over to the fundamental Baptist church where I had also attended as a child and again from the age of 16.

This grandma began to tell me of different things she had seen in her own Christian life that her (our) church would not validate, yet she knew them to be true. 

The craziest story she told me was about how when she was young, she was diagnosed with a severe case of appendicitis which was nearing a rupture. The doctors told the family that there was nothing they could do, medically, and sent her home. It was her older sister, however, who refused to accept that answer. This older sister, who was a faithful member of the Church of Christ until the day she died just a couple years ago, took my grandmother out to the barn, laid her down in some hay, laid hands on her and prayed a prayer of faith. My grandma’s pain instantly left, and soon everyone saw that she had been completely healed.

These stories from my own family – people I loved and trusted more than anyone – began to sink into me and stir up that hunger to see God move in these ways again.

More Stories of Healing Today

Following that Christmas break, my faith for healing went beyond just accepting the stories of the past, to being open for the present. This was due in large part to my good friend Bobby returning to college with stories of his own.

While on break, he went back to see his family in Florida, but soon found that circumstances with his parents were quite different than when he left. They had moved from the Baptist church and were now “spirit-filled,” praying in tongues,  and attending a local Pentecostal congregation. The first week home, his parents asked Bobby, and his brother Tommy, who also attended college with us, to visit the church just once, to see that their parents were not crazy.

Bobby came back with incredible stories of not only healing, but mind-reading prophecies, as well. On the healing front, he had watched his grandfather’s swollen ankle shrink back down to normal size through the pastor’s prayer. His grandmother, who had been keeping her arm in a sling, was also prayed for and was able to lift her arm above her head with full strength.

One prophecy was made over Tommy, that he would receive a healing anointing. That evening the pastor called Tommy up to lay hands on an old woman as he prayed. The woman fell down under God’s power and the pain in her back completely left. (She did end up with a minor headache, as she bumped her head on the pew as she went down…)

All of these stories, old and new, built a burning desire in me to see God’s healing power for myself. It didn’t take long.

I Got Healed

A few months went by, and as I have shared in other places, Bobby got us invited to a “revival” meeting at the church of a Nigerian missionary to the U.S. We couldn’t wait to go, based on the pastor’s presentation of the revival as being full of “healings, miracles, deliverances, and more!”

On the first day of the revival meeting, however, I woke up in the morning in terrible pain. My stomach felt like something had broken inside, and I couldn’t deal with it. I skipped class that day to go to the E.R; where I received x-rays and an MRI of my stomach, all to no avail. The diagnosis I left with was the same as I had written on my intake form: “extreme abdominal pain.”

Discouraged and still hurting, I did manage to go to the revival service that night, where we did, in fact, see many incredible things we had only imagined up to then. Demons were being cast out. People were falling under God’s power (although we still struggled to accept that as really from God).

It was at the end of the night that the pastor said something like, “I know some of you came for healing, but we are not praying for the sick one-by-one tonight. We are doing that tomorrow. However, if you are sick, God can still heal you, now,” and he prayed a general prayer over the congregation.

To my surprise, as he prayed this prayer, all of the pain in my stomach instantly left. No trace. And it never came back.

As people were leaving, I went to greet the pastor and told him of my healing. He quickly put me on the mic to share with the dispersing crowd what God had just done, to help raise their expectations for the next night. Needless to say, we made sure to go back!

Years of Charismatic Stagnation

From this time on, my Christian walk remained rather stale. I was still in Bible college, and struggling with the pessimistic Christian culture and the little bits of ongoing backlash I faced there. Nevertheless, I did graduate in 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in Bible.

Two years before, I had also began interning in the summers with a missionary group in Mexico, and I spent June of ’07 with them. Then, I took my first trip to Uganda with my friend, Micah, in July.

On that trip, we again saw things that piqued our interest in spiritual things: deliverances taking place, healing evangelism at work, etc. Still, it didn’t have any effect on actually bringing me into doing those things myself.

From there I returned to the Texas and joined the staff of Grace Baptist Church as Associate Pastor. I was also invited to minister with another international missionary organization, Heart of God International Ministries (HGIM), on a volunteer basis, which took me back to East Africa multiple times, as well as India and eventually Israel and Haiti.

Again, I believed whole-heartedly in healing, and at times would try my hand at praying for the sick, but never saw healing take place. Despite my desire, I began to think this gift was not for me.

In 2012, the HGIM’s work in Haiti required the long-term presence of the U.S. Team, and I resigned from the church, became a full-time missionary-evangelist, and moved to Haiti for almost a year. It was during this time that I got serious about praying for the sick.

Continual Failure

While living in Haiti, I primarily oversaw the orphanage work of HGIM. However, I was also preaching in church services every Sunday, and often on other days as well. Within the church culture there, it is standard for people to approach the pastor for prayer following every service. As these poor people do not have the financial ability to go see doctors for general health issues, the majority of my praying each week centered on physical healing.

Sunday after Sunday I was praying for neck pain, back problems, recurring headaches, cold and flu-like symptoms (common to the people in the mountains where I was staying), and more. These weren’t “major” healing issues like cancer or AIDS, so for some reason, my mind thought these things should be easier to see healed. They weren’t.

It didn’t matter what I did. Week after week, no one was getting healed. Not once, from March to October, did a single person claim to be healed through my prayers. I didn’t know what was happening. I had been reading every scripture about prayer. I believed that, as James says, that the prayer of faith would heal the sick (see James 5:15). I was praying with all the faith I could manage, yet was met with a continual failure to see healing manifest. I had no idea what was wrong.

My Introduction to Randy Clark

It was at this time that I began looking for mature Christian leaders who had a verifiable healing ministry from whom I could learn.

I read a few biographies of different ministers in the past who had great healing ministries. They were encouraging, but they didn’t teach me how to pray for the sick. I watched some YouTube videos of modern street-evangelists who practiced healing, and I got a few insights from them. However, the turning point was when I found a book on the Apple Bookstore, by two men named Randy Clark and Bill Johnson. The book was called, “The Essential Guide to Healing.”

Despite the fact that these men were quite famous in charismatic circles already, I have to admit I did not know much about them. In fact, had I known beforehand that Randy was involved with that “Toronto Blessing” some Baptist pastors had warned us about, I probably wouldn’t have read the book at all.

As I began the book and read their biographical stories in the first two chapters, much of the spiritual life of Randy resonated with my own upbringing –  charismatic grandparents, faith-filled youth, Baptist education that challenged it all, and a lot more. I immediately knew this was someone I would learn from.

As I continued the book, I learned Randy’s “five-step prayer model” for healing, and I began using it in my post-church service prayers. Still nothing happened…

I also read in the book about “impartation,” or the transferring of anointing through the laying on of hands. (I shared about impartation on my podcast recently, and don’t want to dig into it here.) Suffice it to say, I began to think that perhaps this is what I needed. After all, I had never been part of a charismatic church. Nor had I ever really been mentored by anyone in the ministry, beyond what Bible college tries to teach. 

I began to question my own assumptions, which I had for years, that you either have a gift or you don’t, and that they would simply appear one day, and just work. While that may be true at times, what I found is that most of the time, spiritual gifts are not instant. 

It began to make more sense to me that the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit would likely be learned, built and passed on through the Christian community, from one generation to another, just as it did in the Bible. They are developed in a person as part of their life in the body of Christ. 

Promise of Impartation

One night, as I was sitting on the balcony of the house where I lived in Haiti, I was praying and asking God to speak to me about healing and growing in the gift. I very clearly heard Him speaking to me, saying that “in October, Randy will be doing a conference. If you will go to the conference, he will lay hands on you and you will receive and impartation for healing.”

I got so excited. I didn’t even know Randy Clark would consider coming to Haiti, so I quickly began to look at his website to find out when he would visit! Unfortunately, I discovered that he was not coming anywhere near Haiti.

Instead, what I learned was that at the end of October, Randy would be hosting his biggest conference of the year in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, called “The Voice of the Apostles.” This just happened to be taking place a few days before I was supposed to go to South Sudan with my organization, so I immediately began making arrangements to go.

Confronting My Doubts

During the conference, once again coming into a major charismatic event as an outsider, I began to see and experience things I could never imagine. I questioned many things happening around me, and thankfully, was given quick validation from the Lord almost every time, that what I was seeing was from Him.

There was holy laughter taking place through Rolland Baker, which I strongly doubted, until it was me on the floor laughing. 

There were angelic encounters! I had been feeling a slight tickle on the top of my head for three days, when finally a woman came to me and asked, “Do you know you have an angel messing with your head? I have seen him from across the room for three days, but was never close enough to you to tell you.” Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure what he was doing. (I can tell you that the whole event did mess with my mindset about God and His work, though…)

There were words of knowledge (another gift of the Spirit listed in the Bible) coming from many of the speakers. Again I was skeptical, until Georgian Banov called out “old knee injuries from basketball accidents.” Up to that point, I had very bad knees from middle school basketball. I actually had to quit sports in 9th grade because of it. As I went forward for prayer, I was instantly healed, again!

Impartation

Finally the time came for Randy’s impartation session. Over 8,000 people prayed for the touch of God on their life, and I was beginning to get discouraged that my impartation might not actually come as the Lord had told me. 

As Randy led us into this time, he said “there is no way I can pray for all of you, but I have a team who have travelled with me around the world. If you begin to sense God touching you – you feel electricity in your body, or heat, or you get cold, or you begin to shake – then put your hand in the air and my team will come pray for you.”

As Randy prayed over the room, I told the Lord, “You said Randy would pray for me, but if it comes through his team, I will take whatever You have for me here.” Then my right hand began to shake uncontrollably.

After his prayer, Randy left the platform, and I began to put my hand in the air to receive prayer from the team. Quickly, however, Randy turned back to the microphone and said, “I forgot to say it, but if you are a full-time missionary or evangelist, come up here on stage. I want to pray for you.”

As quickly as I could get there, I climbed onto the stage. I was the second person in line when Randy began to pray for us. All I remember was him putting his finger on my open hands and saying, “Lord, I bless Anthony…” (which he read on my nametag) and I fell to the floor under God’s presence.

Me with Randy Clark in 2013

Two hours later, Randy’s stage crew came to clear bodies from the stage for the next session’s sound check. I stumbled back to my chair, still feeling the weightiness of God’s presence, where I sat with an electric pulse occasionally hitting my body and causing me to jerk. (This lasted for the next week, causing my dad, a long-time paramedic, to wonder what was wrong with his son. He thought I might have had a stroke, or was having micro-seizures.)

Something had definitely happened in Randy’s prayer, though. Could this be what I had been seeking for years? Could this actually be an impartation for healing? I supposed time would tell….

I do not usually write about myself in this way, and would love to hear your feedback in the comments section below.

As always, if you are enjoying what you are reading on my blog, I would also be honored if you would subscribe to my weekly email below. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram for regular blog updates, and other ongoing #ChristianLife and #GospelLeadership insights!

Continue to Part 2…

If you’re enjoying the content I produce, a little caffeine to keep me going would be appreciated!



© Anthony Scott Ingram 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Photo by Sozo Ministries, Inc.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

Please note that I do get a small kickback from Amazon for any purchases made using the links on this post. Should you choose to purchase from them, I just want to say thank you for further supporting my work in ministry!

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Another Healing Revival is Coming

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I hear the Lord saying, “There will be a new wave of healing revival coming around the world through the church, because I am moving the church out of apathy to global events.”

Hold, on. Let me take a step back before we get there, though.

I am not a prophet, nor have I ever claimed to be a prophet. What I am is a Christian who can do what Jesus says all believers can do, which is to hear His voice when He speaks to me personally (see John 10:4). Hearing Him is an automatic result of receiving the promise of the Holy Spirit, coming to dwell inside of us. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit would bring everything Jesus has already spoken into our remembrance, as well as teach us new things the Lord wants us to know (John 14:26).

With that clearly stated, I want to share something today that is a bit unusual for my blog. My common practice is to share practical tips for living the Christian life or ideas on how to be a better leader in the gospel. Included in the topics I have shared many times are how you can hear God’s voice for yourself, and practical ways to grow in hearing Him. However, today, I want to share with you a prophetic word from the Lord that He has been pressing into me deeper and deeper over the last few weeks.

This word comes in light of the fact that this coronavirus’ spread has continued to bring fear to the whole world. It has given the spiritual authorities at work behind governments and leaders the ability to creep further and further into the realm of ‘church,’ even taking away some religious freedoms.

Why Has God Allowed This Virus?

Before I get to the prophetic word, let me begin by saying that all of the things going on in the world concerning this disease are not without a cause. What I want to point out, however, is that God is not the cause of this thing. It actually goes all the way back to Eden.

When mankind sinned, in the beginning of our existence on earth, there were penalties that came upon the world as a result. The earth would, from that point on, war against humanity and give hardships as we tried to live our lives. Sickness and disease — forerunners to the ultimate curse of death — were a part of those consequences for our sin. This virus taking over the world now, is a fruit of our sin; not a plague sent by God.

Later in history, at the Tower of Babel, when God divided the nations of men, another action happened in the heavenly realm — one which the Bible talks about clearly, but humans want to ignore. With the dividing of nations, the bible also makes clear that God placed each new nation under the control of other heavenly beings, known as “the divine counsel” (see Deuteronomy 32:7-8 and Psalm 82:1-4). These beings are the “authorities and rulers” the Bible talks about in Ephesians 6:2, which are at work in the world and fighting against the Church. (If you want more information about the divine counsel and the spiritual realm, I cannot more highly recommend the book “The Unseen Realm” by Michael S. Heisner.)

These rulers in heavenly places still have control over the human nations of the world until those nations are brought into submission to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They, aligned with Satan, control the kingdom of darkness, and have control in the world through the sin of the people. When we talk about the coronavirus that is sweeping across the world and causing so much fear and panic, we must understand that whether it is natural, or if it turns out that the disease began in a lab somewhere deep in China through manipulations by men, the real reason that this disease has spread and been causing so much devastation in the world is because the spiritual authorities in heavenly places have desired to use a global pandemic to stand against Christ.

The results of this pandemic are obvious, and I have mentioned some of them before: there is a Spirit of fear that is taking hold, which is stronger than the disease itself, causing people to live in great anxiety, depression, loneliness and more. Suicide rates are up in some of the most developed nations. Even in some of our isolated villages in Africa, there are people afraid to go into their own gardens and plant. That is not the result of the love of God. Those are fruits of the enemy and His schemes!

Looking at my home country, the U.S., I am so burdened every time I read the newspaper about more unnecessary government overreach in the church. Drive-in Easter services, where members did not even get out of their cars, led to arrests and fines from anywhere between $500 and $1,000. One county in California banned singing worship songs on Facebook Live broadcasts. The craziness of this whole mess, and the unreasonable attacks it is bringing against the church continue to be the greatest burden to my mind in this pandemic.

Submission To Authority.

I want to be very clear here. I am not against the government mandated protocols which have been put in place to try to prevent the spread of the disease. I think there is wisdom in washing your hands, covering your mouth and nose with a mask, limiting human contact, and not going out of your house if you do not absolutely have to. This disease is deadly, it is spreading rapidly, and human governments are given by God for our protection (see Romans 13:1-4).

What I am saying is that as a Christian I am not blind to the fact that when a sickness is taking over the world, it is not just a natural phenomenon that we should expect every once in a while. It is absolutely the work of the devil as a result of his authority in the world through sin.

More than that, I believe that as Christians — as those who have been brought out of his Kingdom of Darkness, and serve the Lord in His Kingdom of light — although we do not (yet) have authority over human government, we do currently have authority over this disease in the heavenly, to see it healed by the power of Jesus. This is the promise of Jesus because of His atonement: by His stripes we are healed (see Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24).

It’s Time for the Church to Rise Up

As Christians, we cannot just sit back and ignore this disease; ignore the power of the enemy; and allow the overreach by spiritual authorities working through governments, to suppress the church in any way. We must rise up! 

So what does that look like? Well, I believe there are two keys we must understand biblically and historically. They are summarized for us very clearly in 2 Chronicles 7:14 (emphasis mine):

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

The First Key is Prayer.

We must become a people who stop living like the world and simply waiting on scientists and world leaders to tell us what to do. They do not have the answer. We do. Jesus is still the answer.

We must learn to pray. To shut ourselves in our prayer closets once again and believe Him to overcome every scheme of the enemy at work in the world, so that God’s Kingdom can continue to be established and grow, just as the Bible said it would (see Isaiah 9:7).

The Second Key is Holiness.

The church must come out of living like the world and repent! Holiness is a prerequisite for overcoming the power of the devil. His authority is sin. Yet we have a generation of believers who think that because Christ has forgiven them, they can do whatever they want and it will be ok. That is NOT true! Even if you believe in eternal security and know that you are forgiven in Christ, there are still consequences for your sin in this life on earth. 

Every time we willingly sin, we are empowering the devil in our lives and in the world around us. We are showing that we are not living submitted to the rule of Jesus, but we are still willing to play the devil’s games.

I believe that when the church rises up in prayer and holiness, once again, it will lead to a greater revival than the world has ever seen!

Another Great Awakening

Can you just imagine, with all of today’s technology and the ability to take a message around the world instantly through things like YouTube and Facebook Live, just how quickly would another Great Awakening go around the globe? Just how quickly would a revival spread from house to house, city to city, and nation to nation?

I believe the greatest revival in human history is yet to come! In this season of the devil’s work causing a global pandemic, I am becoming more and more hopeful that the time for this revival is knocking on our door! Whether it is the big one or just another foretaste of that revival, I believe the season is upon us, now!

With all that in mind, let me tell you what the Lord has been speaking to me, repeatedly, over the past few weeks.

The Word the Lord Spoke to Me

I believe the Lord said to me, “I hate this sickness, and I hate that the enemy has used it to bring fear to the whole world. The heavenly forces and demons have used it for a major power grab. They are even overreaching by attacking the church, well beyond just a simple shutdown of in-person services. The devil and his demons think that this disease will expand their grasp in the world for another season. However, in response to this disease, I AM about to release a healing revival in the earth greater than the world has ever seen.

I have already told you that this disease is going to disappear just as fast as it came, not through doctors and medical intervention, but by My power. I will confound the wise. Yet in the wake of this disease, when the world is still feeling the anxiety and fear because of what the devil has done, and wondering if it is really gone, I AM going to show Myself even more powerful than all sickness in the earth.

This is not just going to be a healing revival among those churches who believe in healing already. I AM going to bring healing through My people who have only nominally believed in healing in the past, like those who only know how to pray, ‘Lord, if it is Your will…’ I AM going to show them that it is My will to heal. This will be a move of My power, not limited by the faithlessness of men.

I AM going to bring great increase to the healing anointing on My people, so that in homes and coffee shops, and in grocery stores, and small meetings among friends, simple prayers for healing will be effective. In the most insignificant moments I AM going to wipe out major cases of cancer and heart disease and Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease and polio and Ebola and tuberculosis and others. This will not be done in a major show from pulpits and platforms. I Am going to do it in simple, house fellowships and family prayers. I Am increasing not only the gift on My healing evangelists, but I Am increasing the healing gift in the Body of Christ for My glory! Testimonies will arise from every corner of the earth, in the places you least expect them.

In the wake of this coronavirus, which the devil has used to make his name great in the earth, I AM going to release My healing through My people in such a way that My Name is lifted up for the world to see, and the devil will think twice before using a disease like this for his purposes again. 

You have seen this disease bring death and fear. The healing revival that is about to come is going to bring life and peace and joy and is going to lead many thousands more into My Kingdom than this disease has been able to take out.”

Let’s Get Ready

Again, I have never shared a prophetic word like this on my blog before. Right now, however, I am so convinced that the Lord is going to do this, that I believe the church must get ready. We must pray. We must repent, where necessary. And we must become the voice for what the Lord wants to do in the earth.

Most importantly, we must take this word from Him as an opportunity to see Him working through each one of us. Many of you have never laid hands on the sick to pray for them. I believe this is the greatest season of opportunity to learn. God is about to make healing the sick easier than every before, through simple prayer in His name. Let’s be ready to step out and pray at every opportunity, as we see this new healing revival come!

In my next post, I will share more on the healing gift of God, and how you can pray for the sick with confidence. However, I didn’t learn these things on my own. If you want to learn about healing and grow in the gifting yourself, there are many great books and trainings available to you, that will take you deeper than a simple blog post can. Let me recommend just a few to you here: 

What About You?

Is God stirring something inside you, during this pandemic, that says “I Am still in control! Look and see what I Am about to do!” Maybe you have already seen an increase in healing happening around you!

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

As always, if you are enjoying what you are reading on my blog, I would also be honored if you would subscribe to my weekly email below. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram for regular blog updates, and other ongoing #ChristianLife and #GospelLeadership insights!

Please note that I do get a small kickback from Amazon for any purchases made using the links on this post. Should you choose to purchase from them, I just want to say thank you for further supporting my work in ministry! You can also donate to my missionary work and ministry through Sozo Ministries, here.

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

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Presence or Power: What do you seek?

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I love encounters with the Lord. I love to see people getting filled with the Holy Spirit or receiving new impartations of gifts and callings. It is an exciting thing to see people encounter their Father in such a real way. After wrapping up a series of blog posts on encounters with God (part 1, part 2, part 3), and spending a week preaching at our ministry’s annual Pastors’ Conference, where so many of our leaders were touched by the Holy Spirit, I am stirred up with a passion for the presence and the power of God to work in people’s lives.

Nevertheless, I am also reminded that too often those seeking an encounter with the Lord get their priorities wrong. Too many people desire the power of God, and all of His benefits, yet reject His abiding presence in their lives. So the question for us today is, “what are you seeking: presence or power?”

The Presence and Power of God on Display

As you read through the Old Testament, the people of Israel had some very tangible signs of God’s presence with them. They also saw His power at work, daily. Through the plagues in Egypt, God delivered His people from Pharaoh. After Moses led the people out of captivity, God’s presence manifested as the pillar of cloud and fire. He powerfully provided for them with manna from heaven and water from the rock. After the tabernacle was built in the wilderness, the whole place was filled with smoke – what we might call today, “the glory cloud.” Then, God commanded Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant, which would represent God’s physical presence wherever it was carried. Their lives were full of both God’s presence and His power.

For the life of an Israelite in those early days, you could not escape from the public demonstrations of both the power and the presence of God. However, as much as they enjoyed the powerful provision God gave to them, they began to distance themselves from His presence.

Rejecting the Presence

In Exodus 19, God tells Moses that He will descend on Mount Sinai and speak to the people. When the day came, there was fire and smoke covering the mountain. God warned Moses to set boundaries around the mountain so that people could not touch the glory and die. He then issued to Moses the ten commandments. Yet, the people’s response was not to rush close. The Bible tells us

“Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.’ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.’ The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.”

Exodus 20:18-21

Although the people believed in God, and had benefitted from His power. His presence was terrifying. They were face to face with a God who was beyond their control, and so they fled.

They sought a God they could control.

As the story continues, we know that Moses returned up the mountain into God’s presence, to receive the law from God. Meanwhile, the people of Israel decided to build the golden calf – a god they could control – and bowed down to worship it, instead (see Exodus 32). 

Replacing God with man.

Unfortunately, this rejection of God’s presence marked the people of Israel for generations to come. A culmination point came after the time of the Judges when the people called on Samuel to appoint for them a King. 

“But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

1 Samuel 8:6-7

Desiring the Power

Although the people did not want God’s presence – they rejected Him personally – it didn’t change the fact that they wanted His power to work on their behalf.

Over and over again, when the people were defeated by enemies or had troubles in the nation, there was a cry to God to rescue them. We find another story, along these lines, when the nation was utterly defeated by the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4.

“Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle. And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?”

1 Samuel 4:1-3

Their answer to the defeat is what makes the story interesting. Their response is, “Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” They called for the ark, which symbolized God’s presence, but they were only interested in the power.

Losing the Power?

As the Ark comes into their camp, the people cheer, and even the Philistines are disheartened, because they know the testimonies of God’s power in the past. However, they encouraged themselves that they should not become slaves to Israel and they rose up to fight.

“So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell. And the ark of God was captured…”

1 Samuel 4:10-11

Israel (symbolically at least) was left without both the presence and the power of God. And the Philistines rejoiced! 

Capturing God’s Power?

“When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon.”

1 Samuel 5:1-2

Dagon was the main god worshipped by the Philistines. He was a false idol, erected in statue form, in a large temple built for him. Now notice what the Philistines do. They bring the Ark of the Covenant – the thing that symbolized God’s presence – and they try to use it simply as a source of power. They bring it into Dagon’s temple, and try to set the God of Israel in the shadow of their false idol. Just like Israel, they wanted His power, but not His presence.

God, however, will not sit subservient to any human idol, and on the first morning Dagon’s statue is laid facedown before the Ark of the Covenant. After the Philistines return the idol to its place, God destroys it.

“When they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.”

1 Samuel 5:4

Plagues then begin to come upon the Philistines, until they put the Ark on a cart and send it on its way back to Israel.

Still Rejecting the Presence

If we follow the story along, the people of Israel are happy for the Ark’s return, yet they still reject the presence of God which it represents. They do not bring it back to the tent of meeting as God had commanded Moses. It is moved from house to house, bringing both blessings and death, until King David brings it to a place of honor in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, this isn’t simply a story about an ancient people and their God. It is the same story for too many in the church today! Many people who call themselves Christian, want nothing to do with God. They simply want His power and blessings in their lives.

I have a friend who is an active homosexual, and lives a lifestyle of hedonism. He wants nothing to do with God, does not like Jesus, and hates the Bible. Yet if you have a conversation with him about faith, he will tell you, “I was saved at 6 years old at First Baptist Church, and ‘once saved always saved.’” You cannot convince him that his rejection of God’s presence in his life nullifies the power of salvation. He will not accept that to have God’s power, he must also accept God’s presence (and authority).

False teachings abound

My friend’s story is an extreme example, but it is not unique. If we look at major theologies being promoted, you don’t have to search very far before you find Christians peddling the blessings and power of God, without needing His presence.

Take the prosperity gospel for instance. While I believe God promises to bless and prosper His people, it is always tied to their relationship and submission to Him. Not so with this theology. For them, if you give something to God financially, then you tie His hands, and He has to return that money to you with interest. Plant your seed of faith, and God has to grow you a tree.

Example after example could be given, where we seek to control God, rejecting His presence but receiving His power.

No King but King Jesus

I believe it is time for a new generation of believers to rise up, and stop playing games with God. We have to stop seeking His power for our own benefit, and start seeking His presence to guide our lives.

The cry of the early church was, “no King but King Jesus.” This was an absolute rejection of Caesar and the worldly ways of power and prestige. They traded everything to know Him.

The payoff? They received Him! They were filled with the Holy Spirit, guided by Him daily, and through Him, changed the world! When they sought His presence, and allowed Him to be God, they found that His power comes along, as well.

He is not a God to be controlled. We cannot manipulate Him in some way to make His power work for us. We must return to the place of wanting Him. When we do that, we will find our blessings are not just from Him. They are Him.

He is the reward of our salvation. He is our hope. He is our joy. He is our blessing. Even heaven is not heaven, if He is not there.

What about you?

I don’t know about you, but I just want Him. I am tired of wasting time, going after a blessing. There has to be more than simply pressing in for a breakthrough. Why do we need another conference that promises a method or program to get God’s power to work in our lives.

I just want Him. I want His presence. I want His love, and His touch on my life.

How about you? Have you traded His presence to pursue His power? Is your goal to submit to Him and let Him be God, or are you trying to control Him for your own benefit?

Truly, it is time for the people of God to stop going after His power, and instead become a people marked by His presence!

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you want to read more about personal encounters with the Lord, and how they can shape your life, I would like to recommend the book, “Hosting the Presence” by Bill Johnson.

As always, if you are enjoying what you are reading on my blog, I would also be honored if you would subscribe to my weekly email below. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram for regular blog updates, and other ongoing #ChristianLife and #GospelLeadership insights!

Please note that I do get a small kickback from Amazon for any purchases made using the links on this post. Should you choose to purchase from them, I just want to say thank you for further supporting my work in ministry!

Photo by Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash

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Speaking in Tongues FAQ

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Due to my Baptist upbringing and education, many people get confused when they discover that I both believe in and practice the charismatic or sensational gifts of the Holy Spirit (i.e. prophecy, healing, tongues, casting out of demons, etc.). Because things like ‘speaking in tongues’ are seldom practiced or taught about, even in Baptist churches that profess a belief in the gifts, there are many questions that arise when people find out about my beliefs and practices.

On the other hand, when I discuss spiritual gifts with my more charismatic friends — Pentecostals, or Assembly of God friends for instance — they are often confused by my ‘restraint’ put on the gifts and my inability to agree on some of the finer points of their respective denominations doctrinal teachings about the gifts, specifically the gift of tongues.

Over a decade ago, a girl in my church began asking me a ton of questions about the gifts and tongues, and I took the opportunity to write an answer to some of the more frequently asked questions that come up in discussions concerning this gift.

When I shared the FAQ to my blog, it quickly became the most read blog post I have ever written. I have revised the post a little from the original, but the information is still true and relevant today! I attempt to ground every answer with solid biblical support, so make sure to have your bible open and read the scriptures I refrence. If at the end of this post you still have more questions about the issue, please feel free to ask in the comments.

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Is the gift of tongues an earthly language that you never studied but God teaches you, or is it an unknown (non-earthly) language altogether?

Both versions of ‘tongues’ are represented in the scriptures (Earthly tongues in Acts 2, Non-earthly tongues in 1 Corinthians 14). However, when most people talk about the gift of tongues they are referencing a non-earthly language that cannot be learned, taught, or even translated without the Holy Spirit giving the interpretation. If it were an earthly language, then the spiritual gift of interpretation of tongues (1 Cor. 12:10) would not be necessary (1 Cor. 14:5, 27).

What is the primary purpose of the gift of tongues?

The primary purpose of all of the spiritual gifts are twofold. First to build up and edify the church (1 Cor. 12), and secondly, as a sign to non-believers. Tongues can fulfill both roles by personally edifying the one who speaks it (1 Cor. 14:4) or edifying the whole church when an interpreter is present (1 Cor. 14:26-27), and as a demonstration to non-believers (1 Cor. 14:22)

Is speaking in tongues a sign of salvation? Do I have to speak in tongues to be saved?

Speaking in tongues is never shown in scripture to be a sign of salvation. On one hand you may can argue that if someone speaks by the Holy Spirit’s power, then he or she must be saved. At the same time we know of non-believers and even animals in the Old Testament who God used to speak truth, but no one argues that animals can be saved. And we also know that there will be people at judgement time who try to use their prophesying and casting out demons in Jesus name as a sign of salvation, but Christ will deny them (Matthew 7:21-23).

Is tongues a sign that a person has the Holy Spirit? If I don’t speak in tongues does it mean I don’t have the Holy Spirit inside me?

No and No.

First off, we know that Satan can imitate all of the power and signs that God demonstrates among men. Therefore, just because someone claims to be speaking in tongues, it does not mean that they are truly filled with the Spirit of God. The Bible says we will know them by the fruits of the gift (Matthew 7:15-20), not simply by the demonstrations of power.

Secondly, we know from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that not all Christians will speak in tongues, just as not all will be able to prophesy or lay hands on the sick and see them healed (1 Cor. 12:27-31).** The Spirit alone will determine how He manifests His gifts through a person (1 Cor. 12:4-11).

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Is tongues the primary gift of the Holy Spirit?

No. Paul makes clear that there are gifts more desirable than others (1 Cor. 12:31), then spends all of 1 Corinthians 14 arguing that, although he wishes all of them could speak in tongues (v. 5), he would rather them seek the gift of prophecy (vv. 5, 39) because it has more benefit to the full body of believers.

Can anyone speak in tongues? Should all Christians speak in tongues?

The only people who can legitimately speak in tongues from the Holy Spirit and not some counterfeit version are those believer’s who have sought the gift (1 Cor. 14:1) and whom God has chosen to give the gift to (1 Cor. 12:11).**

If I don’t speak in tongues does it mean that I am not as spiritual as someone who does?

No, nowhere in scripture is it indicated that the gift of tongues is any special mark on the character or spirituality of that person, or and indicator of a higher level of affection received from God.

What does it sound like when you speak in tongues? How do I know it’s tongues and not just gibberish?

Since I have not found a biblical answer to the question of what it sounds like, my cessationist friends will have to cringe a little as I answer from personal experience and the similar experience of others. Speaking in tongues does sound like gibberish, in the same way listening to someone speak in any language you don’t understand sounds like gibberish. However, when you listen intently to someone speaking in tongues, there is clearly a structure to the language, and as time goes on, you will hear certain ‘words’ or ‘phrases’ being repeated.

The only way we can know someone is really speaking in the gift of tongues from the Holy Spirit is to test the Spirit and see if it is really from God (1 John 4:1-3) and as mentioned earlier, to judge from the fruits produced by the gift.

Do you know what you are saying?

Speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues are two different things. Paul says that when a person speaks in tongues, he is speaking to God, and that no man understands (1 Cor. 14:2). It is a form of prayer in which even the mind of the one praying does not understand what is being said (1 Cor. 14:14).

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How do I pursue tongues (or other charismatic gifts)?

1 Corinthians 14:12 says, “since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” If you want to pursue the spiritual gifts, it begins by realizing that they are for the purpose of building up the church, and then seeking to serve. You become an extension of God’s love to the world (1 Corinthians 13). They aren’t for show, and they aren’t for you to have to feel you have attained a higher Christian status.

Now Christian Healing: Pentecostal Powerif you really want to pursue the gifts, I don’t know that there is a standard way to do so, but I feel like the following suggestions are a good place to start.

First of all, express the desire to God. He is a loving Father who wants to give gifts to His children if they will ask (Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13).

Second, we know that God delights in the obedience of His children. The Holy Spirit is drawn to the person who is pursuing holy living. So strive to live a life pleasing to Him, rather than one at odds with Him (Galatians 5:16-24). As your life becomes attractive to His presence, He will begin to manifest more often.

And finally, live a life that evidences your desire to see God’s Kingdom built, and God’s people to grow in maturity. Love and serve others (1 Cor. 13). Oftentimes it is when we run out of the ability to love and serve on our own power, that the power of God is made known (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

** Though it is true that not all people will practice every gift,, I do not discount the fact that Paul tells us to desire the spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:1), and that God gives good gifts to His children when we ask Him (Matt. 7:11). It is my personal theological conviction that God can give many or all gifts to the person who devotes themselves to pursuing Him and serving the church. However, we must remember that the gifts are for that reason – service – and not for making a name for ourselves. Seeing people healed will only come when we seek every opportunity to pray for the sick. Giving a prophecy will only come when we seek to edify, exhort, and comfort others often (1 Cor. 14:3). And speaking in tongues will come to the one who is most hungry to spend time with the Lord in prayer, and to be built up in Him.

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Gospel or Gifts: Which Follows Which?

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I was raised in a conservative Christian family. Some of my family were Baptist, some were Church of Christ. Needless to say that when my own spirituality gave way to sin, legalism abounded in my upbringing. Even when I began my own pursuit of Christ at age 16, I joined with a fundamentalist Baptist church because I didn’t know much else existed. 

This was a great season for me, as I had never learned much of the Word of God, and the emphasis they put on teaching the scriptures enabled me to learn very quickly the core truths of the Christian faith. However, something was always lacking. Even as I began sharing the gospel, and slowly seeing some of my friends turn to Christ, I always longed for something more.

It was another four and a half years before I was baptized with the Holy Spirit and began seeing the power of God come into my life and ministry, but when it came, it changed everything! What interests me, today, is how the power of the Holy Spirit comes.

Which came first, the gospel or the gifts?

As I read the Bible, there seems to be two contradictory teachings on how the spiritual gifts would become active in the life of a believer.

The first is found in Mark’s version of the great commission, where he writes:

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany [other versions say “follow”] those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Mark 16:15-18; English Standard Version

Gifts Follow Gospel

What Mark seems to be saying is that when we go out to obey the Great Commission, sharing the gospel and making disciples, that the gifts of the Holy Spirit will just automatically come along to testify of the power of God. This makes sense, because as Paul states, “the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20). I take this to mean that without the power of God at work in our efforts to share the Gospel, we are not giving the true gospel, or at least not the full gospel. However, the good news, it seems, is that when we simply obey the Great Commission, the power will come naturally; we do not need to do anything to bring it about.

I like that. It sounds so easy!

The problem is, that isn’t how things actually seem to work.

Gospel Follows Gifts

In my own life, I was a Christian and sharing the gospel regularly for many years, and never once saw the sick healed or demons cast out. I believed in those things. I even hoped for them to happen at times, but I never experienced them. There are many generations of Christians who would testify the same thing. Just read the biography’s of the “generals” of the faith, such as Smith Wigglesworth and John G. Lake.

Even the disciples, whom Jesus delivered the Great Commission to personally, did not just begin preaching publicly and then see the power show up. Jesus actually gave them another set of instructions, which seems backwards to this original position. Rather than telling them “preach the gospel and the gifts will follow,” as Mark teaches, Luke records that Jesus told the disciples to not attempt ministry until the Holy Spirit came on them with power! 

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now…But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Acts 1:5-6,8; English Standard Version

So in one instance, Jesus tells them that as they go to make disciples the power will follow them, and in the other, Jesus tells them to wait for the power which will then enable them to make disciples. 

So which is it?

The truth is, I think it is both. In each teaching, there is a dynamic presented by Jesus in which the foundation of both receiving the power of God and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ hinge on our response to His promise and His command. They become inseparable.

In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples were to wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise. They already had this expectation that the Holy Spirit would empower them to be Christ’s witnesses supernaturally. They had already got a taste of this in the earthly ministry of Jesus, and they had already touched the power of the Holy Spirit themselves, through Jesus, which enabled them to heal the sick and cast out demons. They expected the fulfillment of the promise that this Holy Spirit would one day come and baptize them, and then the power of God would remain on them, just as it did with Jesus. 

Their waiting for the Holy Spirit to come was borne out of an expectation that He would come, and they didn’t just sit idly by twiddling their thumbs. They anxiously pursued the Lord in prayer to see the promise come:

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying… All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Acts 1:12-14; English Standard Version

This prayerful pursuit of the power of God isn’t incongruous with the Great Commission in Mark! He teaches that we are to be walking in obedience to preach the gospel to the whole of creation. That is not optional. Yet in discussing the gifts, Mark tells us that these signs don’t just follow a preacher, but they “accompany those who believe.” 

It may be that to preach the gospel without the power of God is not just a failure to share the full gospel, as I stated before, but is actually a failure to believe it ourselves!

This was the case in my own life! I spent years believing that God’s power was alive and working out in the world, but I was also filled with so many excuses as to why it wouldn’t happen in my own life. I knew that God was healing the sick and casting out demons through those missionaries who live in the remote regions of the world, and I always believed their testimonies when they came to our church, but I was just a nobody kid living in America’s “Bible-belt.” We had a church on every corner preaching to gospel. The testimony of Jesus was surely well-established where I was, so why would God do something supernatural through a barely-saved teenager like me, when there was so much “evidence” of the gospel all around?

As I moved closer in my journey to being filled with the Holy Spirit and seeing the power come alive in me, I necessarily went through a major period of “discovery” that reshaped my beliefs. There were testimonies I began to hear of the power of God at work in urban America, not just the jungles somewhere. There were stories of revival in history, from the Great Awakening to Toronto. Then I began to hear of how God had done miraculous things in my own family’s history — such as when He miraculously healed my grandmother from appendicitis as a young girl through the laying on of her sister’s hands, after the doctors said nothing else could be done for her. I then began to hear of how my own friends were seeing hints of this power happening around them, from crazy (but accurate) prophetic words, to actual supernatural healings.

Even though I believed the gospel and was enrolled in Bible college to become a preacher, this process was taking me to a different place where God was chipping away at my unbelief. Once that path was cleared, there began to arise in me a hunger to see these things happen in my own life. I began praying desperately for God to give me the baptism of the Holy Spirit, without anyone to guide me or tell me what it would be like. (Remember, I was Baptist. Everyone I spoke to was discouraging this pursuit as futile or even an opportunity for demonic manipulations.) 

One night at three in the morning, it finally happened. Sitting on the side of the bathtub in my college dormitory, I was overcome by the presence of God and began praying in unknown tongues. From that day on, everything changed.

The Necessity of Desire

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, stating that “I do not want you to be uninformed” about the Holy Spirit’s gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1), and he spends the next three chapters discussing their use and purpose. The problem in that church was that there was a hyper-spiritualizing of people with certain gifts, and a neglect of others whose gifts were deemed less important. In some cases, there was flat out abuse of the gifts for self-glorification. However, contrary to the reaction of many modern teachings on the gifts, Paul never told the Corinthian church to cease using the gifts. Instead, he corrected them. He explains to them that the goal of every gift is love of others, and summarizes this argument by commanding them: ” Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts…” (1 Corinthians 14:1). In fact, this command to “earnestly desire” is repeated again in verse 39, concerning the gift of prophecy. 

The words “earnestly desire” come from a single greek word, ‘zēloo,’ which according to Strongs Concordance means “to burn with zeal,” “to be heated or to boil with envy,” and “to desire earnestly; pursue.” It is a present, active, imperative verb, which means that we are  commanded to be full of this desire all all times, and to actively be pursuing the gifts in our lives. Despite it’s possible vulgar connotation, the best example I have heard to explain this word’s intensity is that we are to “lust after” the gifts, like a young man in pursuit of a woman.

Paul’s language here, then, solidifies the argument that without a belief for the gifts, and a burning pursuit of them, we do not get the power, which enables us to be a witness. They will not passively come upon us.

This throws out the argument I hear from many cessationist friends that, “I am not opposed to the gifts, but God has never given them to me,” and “if God wanted me to do those things, He would give them me.” The truth is that He has shown us, in scripture, that we are to obey every command He gave the first disciples, which includes, “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons,” and so much more. He has also shown us in scripture that to receive the power to do these things, we must pursue it. They do not come without hunger.

The Secret to More

Presently, I have the opportunity to share the gospel with thousands of people each year, in different nations of the world, and can honestly say there is nothing more satisfying than to see people give their lives to Christ. Nevertheless, I can also tell you that I am hungrier than ever for the power of God to work in my life and ministry! Dr. Randy Clark is famous for proclaiming, “there is more!” Well, I want more. I am not satisfied to see the power of God remain stagnate in my life, and I have come to expect greater things to come, as I grow in Christ. 

So what is the secret? How do we get the “more?” 

Stay hungry, and preach the gospel! 

As we preach the gospel, it gives an opportunity for the power to come! It all begins when we are hungry and seeking, but it grows as we use the gifts of God in obedience to the Great Commission! As we go and minister to other, more comes. As more comes, our hunger grows, and we pray. As we pray, more comes, and we receive more power to go. The cycle continues on and on. 

So to answer our original question, which follows which? Do the gifts of God follow the preaching of the gospel? Or does the preaching of the gospel follow the arrival of the gifts?

The answer is yes to both!

The scriptural pattern is that the gifts follow those who believe in the promise of God, and prayerfully burn to receive them. Once we receive them and use them in obedience to the Great Commission, they will grow and more will come!

The gospel and the gifts always follow one another, in both directions, because in the plan of God you cannot separate His power and presence from the Gospel presentation. You cannot fully share the gospel with another person in the absence of God’s power to reveal His Kingdom. And you cannot steward the gifts of God in you if you are not using them to share the gospel with others. The scriptures declare that you cannot have one without the other, so let’s stop trying. Let’s get hungry; let’s pursue the gifts, and let’s proclaim the gospel! We will be amazed at what God does through us when we do.

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