About 11 months ago my son, Michael, was in hospital with terrible pneumonia. He was 3 months old. While he was sleeping I took a walk through the maternity ward and saw a nurse measuring the blood pressure of an 11 year old boy. His blood pressure was far too high and it needed to come down. They had done all they could but there was little improvement. I asked the nurse if I could pray for him and she said ‘Go ahead.’ I took his hand and released healing and asked Jesus to intervene. About 15 minutes after praying for him the nurse again checked his blood pressure. It had normalized. The nurse almost fell over with excitement. Right next to the boy was a mother sitting next to her younger son who was also ill. I asked her what was wrong and asked if I could pray for him. While she was telling me the condition of her son, the Holy Spirit showed me that the mother’s back was painful and that she too needed to be healed. I told her what I felt the Lord was saying to me and she was stunned. ‘How did you know?’ was her reply. I prayed for her, released the Kingdom, and instantly her pain subsided and left.
The mandate for every Christian is that we have been called and empowered by Jesus to be encounters to people. When people come into contact with us they have an opportunity to encounter Jesus and His kingdom. Kingdom means ‘The king’s domain’. When we pray ‘Let your kingdom come’ we are praying ‘Lord, let your heavenly realities invade this one. May your Lordship and power extend over this place in which we are praying.’ By praying for God’s kingdom to come onto a sick person, we are praying for God’s domain (healing, wholeness, relief from pain) to manifest over that person’s sickness and pain. They encounter God and His kingdom through us. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he told them to pray ‘Let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.’ He was commissioning them, as He is us, to continually contend for heaven’s purposes and heaven’s realities to become evident on the earth. Where there is sickness we have authority to release healing. Where there is darkness we have authority to release light. And this isn’t just for some believers; this is the mandate on all believers in Jesus. He has filled us all with His Spirit. He has commissioned all of us to be encounters to the lost.
Jesus made a statement which we seem to forget. He said ‘As the Father has sent me so I am sending you’. What was Jesus sent to do? 1 John 3:8 tells us that Jesus came to destroy the devil’s works. And how did Jesus do that? He came to re-present His Father to this world and to release heaven’s realities into the earth through demonstration. What has he sent us to do? To re-present Christ to the world through proclamation and demonstration; to release heaven’s realities into this one. He has given us His Spirit to lead us into where he wants us to go and to empower us to fulfill his call on all of us.
Will you step out the boat and walk on water? Will you step out in faith and walk into the mandate He has on your life. Release His kingdom. Be the encounter!
