This subject has been touching the deepest recesses of my being lately. “God inhabits the praises of His people.” Psalm? These are Holy Words of more import than poetic symbolism. He really comes when we praise and thank Him, and His presence is the key to the healing ministry. His Word says, “Enter my gates with thanksgiving and my courts with praise.” Another wonderful scripture astounds me, “The Lord sits enthroned on the praises of His people.” If we are ushered into His throne room where He says we have total access to obtain mercy, can there be anything more important than that? In our healing missions there is one thing we have learned by experience: The stronger the Presence – the greater the quantity and “quality” of healings. Plus, there is a huge difference in the joy and freedom levels and prophetic revelation knowledge seems to pour forth more readily.
Moses summed it up when God told him to move on with His people, “If your presence does not go with us we will not go.” Exodus The Presence of God was so strong over the Tabernacle (place of praise and thanks) that it shone like a cloud by day and a fire by night as the Shekinah glory of God protected and even led the people through the desert wilderness. As I see it in scripture, there are three levels of the Presence of God. 1) It is a place of calm and comfort with peaceful quiet like a mediation spot. 2) The power of God is poured out like on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. 3) The glory of God manifests with an “open heaven” producing Shekinah manifestations of golden light, heavenly mist or a bright cloud. I call this the glory realm. It is most interesting that Jesus prayed in John 17, “Father give them (the disciples) the same glory you gave me.” He was talking about our ability to live in an experience of such Presence that strong healings and miracles are available to the people of God. ALL of the gifts operate there. Wow! This glory realm is truly the atmosphere of heaven on earth.
Let me give you an account of a glory realm experience. At Christ Healing Center we are learning to so praise God with grateful hearts that we are moved by the Holy Spirit over into a worship zone of utter abandonment, lost (or really found by Him) in His beauty and awe. And, when the Lord chooses, He ushers us into His throne room. After making His praise glorious, which He told us to do; we came to an absolute stillness with a weight of His glory all over the room. We waited for several long, pregnant moments, and here came the gifts. One woman felt a pain show up in her hip and asked, “Who has a pain in their hip?” It was my wife, Anna Marie. Her hip had been bothering her greatly. She was instantly healed upon that Word of Knowledge (one of the nine gifts of the Spirit). Then, my wife has a shooting pain manifest in the top of her head, so she asks, “Who has a pain right in the top of your head?” A young woman from Memphis, who just moved to San Antonio, stood up with tears in her eyes and said, “I have had a severe pain off and on in my head for many, many years. It’s me!” Anna Marie prayed for her and she was instantly healed. She has never had that pain again and it has been seven months since this happened. To top it all off, our worship leader finally spoke up saying, “I’ve been waiting my turn; I am about to explode here! I have a weight on my chest and I cannot breath! Please who is this for? It was for her best friend had just come in the room. She had been suffering from Asthma so badly that she had to go to the emergency room that morning. She was prayed for by her friend and, again, it disappeared and has never come back since. Praise God forever!
Praise and Thanksgiving lead to the most glorious place on the planet – the inhabited Presence of the One who said before He was taken to heaven, “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” Can there be anything more important to healing ministers than moving on into this realm of experience and practice where everything Jesus has becomes totally accessible? We are learning to be abandoned, love-smitten worshippers in Spirit and Truth, for they are the ones the Father is seeking right now.