The Power of God’s love

Catherine and I were ministering in Germany at an all day event where members of different churches gathered together. The congregation was made mainly of committed, Spirit filled believers, led by dynamic, young in age but spiritually very mature pastors. There was a strong sense of  expectation and we knew that some came to receive healing, some expected a prophetic word of encouragement, some expected an increase in power and anointing. As the day progressed, more and more people were evidently touched by the Holy Spirit. Some fell to the ground, some laughing, some crying, others were just watching, not sure of what was actually happening. However, one by one they all became bolder and bolder and were coming to the front to receive ministry and then to pray for each other. We really loved it.

One phenomenon, for which honestly I hardly have any explanation but that is becoming more frequent everywhere we minister, is that when we pray for people they experience physical sensations, like hot hands, heat going through their bodies, shaking hands, tingling in their fingers, sometime hot feet.. I never encourage these manifestations but at the same I do not try to stop them. If people feel closer to Jesus, if they are encouraged to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit, if peace (the yardstick of the presence of  God) comes, if emotional and physical healing take place, well I am comfortable that God is at work through unusual signs, in a mysterious way perhaps, but effectively.

I was praying for several people who felt heat in their hands, perhaps one third of the congregation of about 200. There was a very nice girl, with bright red hair and a captivating smile. She had very hot hands and she had already spent quite a lot of time on floor, soaking in the presence of God. I prayed over her hands, asking God to give her a new impartation of anointing for healing and personal prophesy. She triumphantly started praying for people, then suddenly she stopped and came back to me. “When you pray for people, things happen: they are healed, they get emotional, they fall to the ground. I watched you, I do what you do, but it does not seem to work in the same way”. This is more or less what she said. I told her that ministry in the name of Jesus, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, had nothing to do with methods. It is not the way we pray nor using one formula rather than another, nor the way we lay hands or touch or speak to  people. It is purely the presence of God in us. Luke 5, 17 says that the power of the Lord was present for Him (Jesus) to perform healing. We, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, minister in the same way that Jesus did. The only difference is that in Jesus, the sinless Son of God, the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwells without measure (Colossians 1, 19 and Colossians 2, 9). We, sinful men, need to be constantly filled with the Holy Spirit and we create obstacles to His work in us and through us because of our sins, imperfections, wrong motives, selfishness.

I encouraged that dear girl to be filled with the love of God, to ask the Father openly, boldly, simply, to fill her heart with His love and then to pour that wonderful love upon the people she was ministering to. She just said “okay” and off she went. It is not too difficult to imagine what happened: people were healed, people were falling under the power of the Holy Spirit, all to those to whom this dear girl ministered had a personal, direct, deep encounter with the Lord. It is so simple: to know the love of God, to be filled with the love of God and then pour it out.

We saw the same thing happening again and again in all the situations in which we ministered during our last mission around the south of Germany. We had teenagers and even younger boys and girls ministering to each other and to adults, in power. People who never ministered to anyone, but were willing to humble themselves, ignore possible criticisms, insecurities and rejections, move boldly forward to bring a word of consolation, a word of encouragement end even proclaim healing upon needy brothers and sisters and thus be used by God, simply but effectively. I am convinced that the anointing is already moving visibly from the platform to the floor, from the pulpit to the pews and more and more we will see in our churches ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It is not a matter of methods, of gifting, of personal abilities, but only a matter of being reassure of the great love that God has for all of us and then to abide in that love.

In Jude 21 it is written:  “…keep yourselves in the love of God…” It is so simple. Once we experience that love, we are reassured of His constant care for us, of His presence, of His direct, personal, intimate involvement with every aspect of our lives, of our humanity, of our being sons and daughters.

I want to remember in a particular way the week we ministered together with Stefan Driess, our adopted son, in Humbersberg. Stefan organised and led the residential seminar, translated for me most of the times, ministered prophetically to many and healings took place every day. The presence of the God could be perceived so strongly that almost everybody  was manifesting strong emotions, some could not stand on their feet any longer, many were face down on the floor. Some had gold dust covering their faces and hands, some saw angels. What do we have to do with all of this? Are we basing our faith, our worship, our relationship with God on emotions, feelings, manifestations? Are not all these things misleading or dangerous? Can we be deceived and consider as signs of God’s favour what is actually leading us to a superficial and unfruitful level of emotionalism? God cannot and will never deceive us. He is faithful. Everything that comes from Him is good. If people experience the love of God to such an extent that their faces are covered with gold, well, let it be! If people’s lives are radically transformed after they have spent a few hours face down on the floor, well, let it be!

I believe that every time we participate in heart felt worship, in an anointed services, or we listen to some profound teaching or challenging preaching, every time we are involved in a  healing or prophetic experience, both we minister to others and we receive ministry form others, we have an encounter with Christ. No one can come face to face with our Lord and be the same person: such an encounter necessarily brings a radical change of heart, a step upwards towards the process of sanctification that unifies to the heart of Christ and to the love of the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Can those emotional experiences, manifestations and so on really produce such a change of heart, a metanoia, is us? Do they really lead us closer and closer to Jesus? Do they lead us to a life of self-denial, sanctification, total devotion to the service of Christ and of others? Is Jesus, and Jesus alone, glorified in all of this? There is no simple answer and we have to stick to what Jesus himself taught us: we have to judge by the fruit.

I now see all the strange phenomena I described take place almost every time Catherine and I minister. I do not think that there is any cultural foundation for those happenings: I saw them in Africa as well as in different European countries, among people of different denominations, cultural and social backgrounds. I must say that I have a number of questions, still to be answered. I am one of those who very rarely experiences anything. For a long time I had people praying for me and I was never “slain in the Spirit”. I had people praying for me and they fell to the ground! I started relaxing a bit in more recent times, but still I have not experienced the intensity of what I have seen in many others. I  often ask: What did you feel? What happen to you? Do you feel closer to Christ? Did it change anything in your heart, in your life, in your attitude? Most of the times the answer is positive: people do experience the presence of God, the real touch of the hands of God on their lives, often with physical and emotional healing, all inevitably say that they feel somehow closer to God.

The most significant report I heard is that people come into the presence of God in such a way that they do not want to lose the intimacy they have acquired. When they recover, so to speak, from their experience, they have such a strong desire to return to that place of intimacy that anything that might hinder it becomes simply repulsive. Recurrent sins, bad habits, bad attitudes, selfishness, self centeredness, progressively but steadily disappear from their lives. That is enough for me: if lives are so transformed because of such experiences, I welcome them all, falling to the ground, laughing, crying, shaking, seeing angels, having gold dust on faces and hands! They are all good to me.

Pictures will speak more than words - view the photographs from this trip.

Giancarlo and Catherine ministered in Aichach, Furstenfeldbruck, Albstadt, Harschhof, Humbersberg.  They will be back in Germany in March 2004. Check their future itineraries. In  June they will hold the same seminar with Stefan in the same place.