St. Luke’s Retreat Rocked!
September 1, 2017
Dear Friends,
This last month I had the distinct privilege of spending three wonderful days in N. Carolina at Lake Junaluska, a Methodist Retreat Center. I was there to speak at the regional retreat for St. Luke’s Fellowship. These are a group of people from different areas that are involved in the healing ministry. They come together once a year to rest, refresh, be healed and encouraged.
The first night that I spoke my purpose was to encourage them. This was with all those who were part of leadership and the prayer teams that would be praying for people during this retreat.
During this time of ministry John Rice (the leader of this fellowship) and I, felt it was important to pray for them and impart to them what God had deposited in me. Over the years I have sat under the teaching of and been mentored by some incredible men and women in the Kingdom of God. Through them God has deposited significant gifting in me and I believe that part of my ministry is to impart that gifting to others that they might go out and do what Jesus did. It was a powerful time of prayer, healing, and empowering them.
On Friday my first message to the group was, “Who Was Jesus?” The goal was to remind them not only who he was, but also what he did, and then who we are through him and therefore what we are to do. I find that we often forget the power and authority we have available to us because of our relationship to Jesus. Not only that but we can easily fall into forgetting that we are called and commanded to go out and proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel. The question I often ask is, “If we don’t do it, who will?”
I had two more talks on Saturday. One was on “The Traps of Unforgiveness” and one was on “God’s Message and God’s Power.” I was having a struggle about which of these to do first and after much prayer felt strongly that God wanted me to talk about unforgiveness in the earlier session. So, I talked about the Traps of Unforgiveness, which are Condemnation, Intimidation, and Accusation. During the ministry time I asked God to bring to everyone’s mind people that they needed to forgive. Almost 90% of the people were reminded of someone they needed to forgive. It was a powerful time of ministry and quickly became evident by what followed this session that unforgiveness was exactly what was needed at that time during this retreat.
The last message on Saturday was, “God’s Message is Demonstrated With God’s Power.” I spoke about our calling to not only proclaim the message of the Gospel but to demonstrate it. If we are Christians then that means we are “Christ Like Ones.” The question is can we really call ourselves Christians if we don’t do what Christ did? Here’s and example:
Suppose I joined a skateboard club. Every week we gathered and talked about skateboarding. We studied the different types of boards, the wheels, bearings, techniques of skating, the various types of ramps and jumps. We bought skateboarding T-shirts and caps and talked about the heroes of skateboarding. We even went to events to watch these champions do their incredible tricks and came back excited, hoping that one day we might be able to do that. But we never got on a skateboard. Are we skateboarders? I don’t think so!
That was a question I challenged them with. It’s easy to be a Christian safely behind the walls of the church. But what about out in the marketplace? I wanted to challenge them but also encourage them by reminding them that we have within us all the same power and authority that Jesus had. That’s stunning to think about.
The entire weekend was filled with people who were freed up from internal stuff they had been carrying around for years as well as a number of physical healings. My sense is that they left this weekend feeling much better than when they came.
Thank you for your continued support of Wholeness Ministries. We continue to see God do exciting things and there is much on the horizon we will share with you in the coming months.
God bless,
Mike