Dear Readers, I have shared this testimony with people hundreds of times over the years, and I believe God will use the truth in this column to help many others as I share it again with you now.
At our previous home, there was a patch of weeds along the side of the garage that appeared to have been a flower bed at one time. Years ago, before we lived there someone appreciated a nice garden. But I think it can now be referred to as “Where the Wild Things Grow!”
Well, I also appreciate beautiful flowering plants but at that time I had never really tried to maintain more than a few hanging ones.
(But I had managed to keep Aloe Vera alive in a window seal for a number of years. I just leave it alone. It seemed happier that way.)
Now, that “flower bed” could not be mowed because we had never cleaned out the broken rocks and pieces of rotten wood that once defined it’s borders. But all of that was about to change! We decided to make that eye sore a beautiful garden once again.
So the first step, destroy the weeds, Ivy and weird little tree things that had taken root. My husband suggested a weed killer that he had just used on the driveway.
Wanting to tackle the job myself he told me to just spray it on the weeds, the poison will work it’s way down into the roots and within a few days the plants will die. Immediately I thought this is not entirely correct.
Actually, the minute the poison touches the roots of the plant that is when the plant actually dies, it just takes a day or two for us to see the results above ground with our own eyes.
My hubby showed me the brown plants in the cracks in our drive as further evidence that the substance he used really works. This helped build my faith in it.
All this brings to mind something that happened to me once when a harmless freckle on my leg suddenly began to grow and change in shape and color. I have shared this amazing testimony of the power of God’s word spoken in faith through born again believers in Christ Jesus but it bears remembrance.
I showed the spot on my knee to a couple of people at work that recently had skin cancers removed and both pointed to it and said, “You need to get that thing looked at NOW!” Fear gripped my heart as I headed to my computer to look up all I could find about skin cancer, but as I was walking to my desk I heard the Holy Spirit speak to my heart, “No, I want you to find out everything I have done for you in my Word.”
Now at the time I had already been renewing my mind in the area of healing and I used Jesus example when He cursed the fig tree in Mark 11:12-33 to stand on.
“Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
In response Jesus said to it, ‘Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.’ And His disciples heard it.”
“Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.’ So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.”
So, I spoke directly to that place on my leg and using the word of God I cursed the root of that cancerous looking thing. “I don’t care what you are, or what your name is, because the name of Jesus is above your name. You are not of my God, and you will bear no fruit in my body! You are dead at the root.”
I want to point out to you where the Bible said Jesus responded to the plant. In other words the fig tree was talking to Him, conveying a message. Things are speaking to us constantly. Not just our bodies, your bank account is speaking you, job situations or lack of are speaking to you, etc. They may not be conveying actual words but their messages are clear enough. So, if they are conveying messages contrary to the Word of God, we need to answer them with the Word of God and speak truth to them. (For example: I have heard numerous testimonies of people given a death sentence, but chose instead to stand their ground on God’s promises and declared, “That’s not my report, I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Psalm 118:17)
Well, in my situation, nothing seemed to change, in fact that thing started to grow larger over the next few days. And I want you to know that Satan came at me from all directions like a barrage of gun fire trying to cast doubt. In the middle of the night thoughts would come, “It’s not working.” So I answered, “dead at the oot!” I heard more about skin cancer in the next few weeks then my entire life. I was filling up with gas one day and the TV on the gas pump came on, “Doctors are seeing more cases of skin cancer than ever these days.” Through family members who just called out of the blue, “Brenda, I want to remind you that skin cancer runs in the family so watch out for it.” I had complete strangers strike up a conversation that always lead to them or someone they knew dying of skin of cancer. And I hadn’t even mentioned it at all!
This went on constantly for two weeks.
Now notice, I never once went back to God and said, “Hey wait a minute, what’s going on here, how come it didn’t work? Why aren’t You doing Your part?”
Nope!
Because I believed in my heart when I prayed that it was done. I settled it then and already saw it as finished, and knew that it would be just a matter of time before my physical eyes saw the results on the surface. In my heart I saw the root of that thing on my leg drying up when my words penetrated the skin.
In the natural, nothing seemed to change at all until one morning, that “thing” simply fell off of my leg. To this day, there is simply a small smooth patch of brown skin left as a daily reminder that God is faithful and cannot lie. If He said it, we can stand on it. Praise Jesus!!!
So, the word of God, spoken in faith releases the power of God in our lives.
But if a person is just speaking the word ending with “I hope this works,” attitude it only means they don’t actually believe it. That is a “fake it until I make it” prayer.
I didn’t understand how it actually worked in the spiritual realm but I trusted God’s word, and believed in my heart that God’s word would “soak” down into the root of that infection/disease and kill it! John 3:16 confirmed His love for us and I take that very personal, and the heart knowledge of HI\is love will replace “hope so’s.” Faith works through love. Gal. 5:6
As for the garden, at the time I could no real physical evidence that the weeds were dead, but they were. I don’t have to dig them up to confirm it.
We can grow deep roots in the love of God through His word so we can see His promises in our hearts, and experience the results in this world. Plant the seeds of faith, and let seed/timmmmmmme, produce the harvest in your own life.
“So shall my word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11
“For the word of God is alive and active.. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
But when it’s all said and done …. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8
Contact Brenda Groves at: ads@alvinsun.net
