Prayers For Healing That Actually Work | Aggressive Life

I had a banner moment in my life a couple days ago. I was working out, I was on the Peloton, which is on our second floor, and a freaking coyote came over to my yard. I was like, ooh. Wow. Right. So, it's a long story, I won't share the long story. Bottom line is, I went and got one of my guns and shot it out of my window. It was awesome. I mean, I have the perfect place to do that. It's a hillside in the back, the bullet's not gonna go anywhere, and about blew my eardrum out because the muzzle blast was inside the window. If I'd stuck it outside the window, I wouldn't have blown my left eardrum out, practically. But then neighbors would have heard it, too. Anyway, so, I killed this thing. The plan was to, when I started to go track it, was to, because you never know exactly if you kill it. I saw it jump when I pulled the trigger. I saw it jump. But then, okay, I gotta go track this thing. So, I'm following the blood trail. No, of course, I got him. But the plan was to, maybe I'll make a mount, have a coyote howling on the side of the wall. That'd be kind of cool.

Maybe I'll do a full body mount. Maybe I'll do whatever, and I got up to him. He was smaller than I was hoping, because I'd seen them before. They're like German shepherd size. They're ridiculous. Like, early in the day, I saw one across the other street, across our front yard, a German shepherd size one, and there was two or three others as well, bolting through the neighbor's yard. Just ridiculous, and I would've done a full body mount on that. Anyway, anyway. So, I was like, yeah, do I wanna gut the thing, and do I wanna do this, and all the stuff you gotta do? I thought, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna drag this thing out, and I'm gonna leave it in my backyard, because it's gonna start rotting, and then all the other beard coyotes are gonna come and eat their buddy, because that's their, whatever it is, eat, eat, eat, eat. And I said, and those are the ones I'm gonna stuff. So, I dragged it out, but unfortunately, it's been so cold, it just froze. It's just frozen. Yeah, none of his buddies can smell him to come eat him, so he's hanging out under snow right now, and then sometime in spring,

he's gonna start smelling pretty stank, and hopefully, we'll have a cornucopia of. You'll have a coyote party right there. Exactly. That's a little lesson for all of our aggressive life people on what BT does when he's at home. Wow. Dirk, is that gonna make it in the podcast? I love it. If you're good with it, I'm good with it. No, no, no, I'm fine with that, I'm fine. We'll see how many of my neighbors listen to the podcast after that. Oh, man. Welcome to the aggressive life. You know, aggression can take on a lot of forms that can take on the form of aggressively setting goals for the new year, aggressively doing the goals, having a difficult conversation with somebody. All those things are true and all those things are good. And we'll have those kinds of discussions here at the aggressive life. But one of the things that oftentimes doesn't give credence to being aggressive is prayer. Prayer tends to be this thing that's mellow, serene. I go and I just go inside of myself and I spend time with myself. And yes, oh yeah, I guess there's a little God in there too. I put God in there someplace. And it's just a place where I just do some good

spiritual discipline. Every Christian has to do that, right? Yeah, yeah, that's fine. All that can be okay. But very few of us think of prayer as something that I am pushing. I am pushing an agenda. I'm pushing into God and I'm pushing an agenda that I think is God's agenda. And I'm going to him in prayer to see if he brings power and resources to bear on this situation in a way that changes it. Prayer can do things that other things can't. I don't think we can remind ourselves enough of this. I know for me, I'm rarely ever happy with my prayer life. But the only time I'm happy with my prayer life is when I come away from a long prayer meeting. That moment, oh, okay, I got it. But most of the time I feel like I'm phoning it in. I feel like I'm just putting everything possible before prayer, good things before prayer, like my Bible reading plan or something like that. And I need to be reminded and to fire myself up that no, prayer is a thing. It moves things. It moves me and it moves the world around me if I engage in the right way. So I need those reminders. I got a guy today who's a friend of mine. He's been with us before.

We're gonna have him again. His name is Paul McConaughey. He hails from England, so you're gonna love hearing Paul because anybody with an English accent is just sexy. You know, they start talking, you just go, oh, he sounds so smart. Paul could tell you, one plus one is actually equal 40. And you go, oh, one plus one is 40. That makes sense. I never thought of it that way before. So here he is to push you and I, my good friend, Paul McConaughey. Hey, thank you. It's good to be with you. Nice to be here again. Yes, it is. It's very good. What's been going on in your life since we got together last? Which was, gosh, maybe a year ago. Yeah, it's lots of good things. And I've been involved, I do quite a lot of stuff with Baptist, with the Baptist kind of world. And I've been out to Australia and we met with folks from all over the world there. That was been a good time in Brisbane in the summer. In terms of the things that we're talking about, there's been a really interesting stuff that God's doing. I think we've been, you know, you've been praying a lot about an awakening, Brian,

as I think we're seeing signs of it in different places around the world. For me, I've seen some really interesting things happening. I've had a lot of churches ask me to come and spend time with them, helping them to think about prayer and prophecy and healing. And since we, as a church, back in the day in Sheffield, England, really went after praying for these things. And we did many years, several years of just really pressing in and persevering. I pretty much had a consistent baseline experience of praying, of seeing what God does when I pray for healing. Of maybe on average, 50 to 60% of the people that I pray for, not necessarily seeing absolute 100% breakthrough, but definitely seeing some significant healing in about 50 to 60% of the people that I'm praying for. It's been a very bizarre thing that's gone on in the last maybe four or five months, which is in those settings, I'm going out to churches and praying for people. It's gone up to more like 75%. And it's been, I don't know what God's doing. I don't know why that is. I don't feel like I've changed anything I'm doing. It's not like I'm going to different churches. A lot of these churches have never seen people get healed before. They're asking me to go for the first time,

but I feel like God's on them. You know, like in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when the children went and the winter started to thaw and spring came and the talking animals started to say, Aslan's on the move. And it was a sign, you know, Aslan is an analogy for God there. And it had been a long time where people hadn't seen God do stuff and it felt like they were getting excited. There were these signs that God was moving. It feels a bit like Aslan's on the move. It feels like there's something different happening there. So yeah, I've seen a lot of people get healed recently. Give us some examples just in the last four to five months because you prayed for Lib to be healed of cancer. She is getting healed through normal medical means, we saw that. We didn't see breakthrough, did we? Yeah, it didn't bother me. Yeah, and it's not every time. No, it's not every time. I mean, we had a miraculous one a few years ago with her inner stroke. I'm gonna actually give a sermon on this in a few weeks where it was miraculous, no question, the hand of God moved. Medical people did their job. Yes, they did. Thank you, very thankful for everybody

at Good Samaritan Hospital. But they had never seen somebody with her level of stroke, not being able to talk, move one side, seeing the clot in her brain, go out and play tennis two or three days later. That's amazing. And walk steps later on in the day. That's miraculous. But then this one just came and like, we just had to go through the grunt work of chemo and now she's starting radiation. So it's always good hearing stories that build faith because my faith is built where some people, they get bitter like, that didn't happen to me. I don't look at it that way. I just go, what my faith built. So tell us some story that happened. This is the reality of our experience, isn't it? So for example, I have quite bad tinnitus. I've got this ringing in my ears all the time. Sometimes I would say- From a tennis ball hitting your ears? The tennis? Tinnitus, I'd say that's how British people say it. I don't know whether Americans say tinnitus or- Tinnitus, yeah. You're an American, speak American. Speak American. I'll do my best, I'll do my best. But that ringing in my ears, I have that a lot.

And in fact, I have it all the time, but sometimes it gets really, really loud. I mean, and it can be very distracting. And yet, in the last two months, I've probably, I think I've seen three people that I've prayed for healed of it, and yet I haven't been healed of it. So this is some of the dilemma when you're involved in the healing ministry. I mean, it's confusing sometimes, and this is just the reality. I don't think it's, I personally don't think it's that God doesn't want to heal people. I think we're just in a battle. It's a battle, and it's all that confusion and kind of chaos of battle, you know? And yeah, and one of the people that got healed, who's a woman from our church, it was a weird thing because we prayed for her. She'd had this experience for over a year. It was really loud. It was waking up. It was stopping her from sleeping at night. Prayed for her, and on the Sunday, she, and on the Sunday when we prayed, nothing happened. So she was disappointed. She went home. And then on the Tuesday, two days later, she'd had this nonstop for well over a year. The week that we prayed for her on the Sunday, on the Tuesday, suddenly there was all this crackling in her ear, in her ears, and it all went, it hasn't completely gone, but she said it went from about a level eight volume down to like one, so it's almost not noticeable. And so it was two days later, so who knows what's going on there, but she is absolutely certain that it was directly connected. I mean, it's too much of a coincidence. It's the same week that we prayed after a year of having this. We pray, and within two days, it's completely dialed down to almost nothing. And that was weeks and weeks ago, and it hasn't come back, so she's really, really encouraged by that.

I mean, another example would be we had, I went to a church that asked me to come. They'd never prayed for healing, really. They'd prayed for healing a little bit from time to time, but they'd never seen any real miraculous healing. So I did some teaching, and then we were going to do a demonstration. We're going to get everybody praying for healing for each other, but I did a demonstration up the front, and I said, can we have somebody who's prepared to volunteer so that we can kind of demonstrate how to do this? And the pastor's wife said she would come up, and she just had sinusitis, really bad block sinuses. She had a really bad headache. It was just pretty bad. Now, that was interesting for me, because I'd never seen anyone healed of that before when I prayed for them. So that always makes you feel a bit taken aback, you know, it's like, oh gosh, okay, well, I'm going to trust you, God. And then I said, let's have someone else come and pray as well. So, you know, I always like to pray at least in twos. Jesus sent out the disciples in twos. You know, if you look at somewhere like Luke 10, he always sent people in twos. He's been in twos even to go get a donkey, so I always like to get someone else to pray too. And a woman from the church volunteered, so she came up and joined me. So we just prayed for her and just did a very simple model of prayer, asked her what the issue was, then we prayed a bit and asked the Holy Spirit if there was anything he wanted to show us, and we just prayed out loud. And we thanked Jesus a little bit out loud that he, you know, that he is a healer, that he loves us, that he was there with us, because there's two or more gathered in his name. He said he'd always be there if we gather in his name. And we thanked him that he has all authority, and we just did that a bit, and then we just

asked God to heal her, and said, you know, how are you doing, and she said, actually feels like it's a bit better, it's kind of clearing a bit. I feel better than I did. I feel less pressure around my nose and my sinuses, and so I said, okay, let's pray again. So we prayed again, and it completely cleared. And I don't want to do like, you know, TMI, but it's like, I'm thinking, where's all the mucus gone? Where's all the snot gone? You know, it just completely cleared, nothing came out of her nose, but by the time we prayed for maybe two or three minutes, everything had completely cleared, and she said, yeah, it's just gone. And I'm trying to think through, you don't want to overthink it when you're praying for healing, I think, you know, but I'm thinking, well, that was like physical mucus that was an infection that was through all of her sinuses, and now it's gone. Where's it gone? What's happened there? But it had. It had all gone. So she was completely better. And then the woman who'd come up to pray, she said, well, I've had a really bad arm. I've had like, some sort of injury in my arm, and it's been really sore and stiff for weeks. And while we're praying for her, my arm got completely healed too. So we got two for the price of one, we weren't even praying for that woman. So that would be an example, I mean, I've got multiple examples, that'd be an example from the last few weeks of something that we saw happen. That's phenomenal. And, yeah, and we've seen a lot of those things happening, and it's just God doing his thing, you know? Just the last two weeks. Yeah, we're seeing a lot too, in fact, I've started

cataloging, I've had our prayer team start making lists of these things. We've got a little document of people who have had healings, and it's real. It's happening. It's faith-inspiring. I think it is. And you think the line, the witch in the wardrobe imagery of the winter is thawing, you think that we've been in some sort of spiritual winter and you think there's a thawing that's causing this to happen to a greater degree? Well, I think- I like that imagery, it's really profound. Of course, an Englishman would think about an English writer's analogy, it's good. Yeah, I mean, I like the imagery. I think if you're wanting to think about it theologically in terms of how Jesus explained it, I think Jesus made it clear that the way that he grows the church is through seasons of pruning and seasons of growth. He said that in John 15. So I think that the church, if you look at the church in America, and the West, to be honest, Europe as well, over the last few decades, I think we've clearly been in a pruning phase. So the number of people going to church,

on average, has been going down, and it's been going down more each generation. As you go from boomer to Gen X to Gen Z to millennial to Gen Z to Gen Alpha, it's been going down each generation. It's been pruned. And, you know, there are some exceptions to that. There are some churches that have just been doing phenomenally well with evangelism stuff, but in general, the church has been pruned. And that, there is a, if you look through church history, there is just- Let's stop right there. I haven't even considered that. That's really, obviously, no, John 15, the pruning, God will cut things out of your life that are good things, cut them out of life to get you to grow. I hadn't considered that he might do that across the entire West with his church. Maybe that's because I'm part of a church that's had growth and is big, and so I tend to just think, well, you just gotta do X, Y, Z. Well, you don't have a person who's doing this. Well, you're not. But that's pretty prideful. That's pretty fleshly to think that that's the situation with every church that isn't growing. So you think that it's been going down, maybe not just because the American church sucks,

the church in England sucks, but because God's going, I just need to start pruning this down a bit. I think that. And I think when you look through church history, you see the whole history of the church is a history of periods of pruning and periods of growth, periods of pruning and periods of growth. And to be honest, if I'm gonna live in a period of history, I would rather live towards the end of a pruning period, getting ready for another period of awakening and growth than live towards the top of a growth period, getting ready for a period of pruning and being stripped back. And I think, I actually think we've come, I mean, in my home country, in the UK, the church in the 1950s, 50% of the population of church on a Sunday, the 1990s, 5% of the population of church on a Sunday. Now, if you look at Gen Z, it's back up to 20% in church on a Sunday of the emerging generation. It's that high. I knew it was growing greatly. I didn't know it was up all the way up to 20%. It's 20%. Well, it's 18. I think it's 18%. Well, still, that's amazing.

Of Gen Z, of the emerging generation, yeah. I thought you were down to 1.5% of attendance as well at some point in England. It got pretty low. Yeah, it got pretty low at one point. I think it was propped up by folks emigrating from Nigeria and places like that. Right. But basically, so I feel like he prunes it, but why does he prune the church so that even more fruit will grow? And the thing is, I think that in the West, we forget how important deficit is in our lives. I mean, we're trained to go after fullness, to go after, make sure your bank balance is full, make sure you've managed everything so that you have everything you need all the time. And the problem with that is that there's a danger that we make God a lifestyle accessory. You know, you're like, you have all the things that make your life good. It's like, you get up in the morning, you have the breakfast that you like, you have the hot drink that you like, you go to the gym and do the exercise that makes you healthy. You know, you get into the car that you've chosen. You know, you do all the things that make your life healthy and good,

and then you also do the devotional that helps you to feel good spiritually. And if you're not careful, you're reducing God to a lifestyle accessory. And the thing is, God is not a lifestyle accessory. God is God. And we're supposed to be depending on God for our very life. And I think one of the things that's necessary in our lives. is we have to have areas of deficits. One of the reasons why spiritual disciplines often embrace it, like fasting, for example, is you actually embrace, I haven't got enough to eat, because God's gotta be God. He can't just be a lifestyle accessory, you know? And I think one of the ways that God helps us to relate to him as God and not as just an added extra to make our life better is pruning. And I think he does that individually in our lives, but he also does that with the whole church as well. And I think that's part of what we've been seeing. But I think that we're going back into a growth period, and we're in the early stages of that. And I think that's when you see these awakenings through history, you know? It's like, okay, guys, now we've had the pruning, now we're gonna start to go back into growth. But I mean, that's just my view. I might be wrong, but as I look at history, it seems to pan out with that scripture.

Dude, that's really insightful and really convicting, too. In fact, I'm gonna preach, I'm gonna work that in my talk this week, lifestyle accessory. Yeah, you're 100% right, 100% right, that our faith is good if our life is good. And if our life isn't good, then our faith isn't good. You know, if he's doing what I want him to do and I have the life that I want, then God's good. If he's not, then God's absent. No, he's not there to give you the life you want. He's there to make you like Jesus. That's his thing. But that lifestyle accessory, wow. That's actually, now it's very convicting because I'm one of those people who has, I'm guilty of what you just said in terms of, I have no deficit. You start off by saying deficit? Yeah, the importance, I feel like God's been on my case for the last few weeks saying, you have to have deficit in your life. And you might choose, and if you don't choose it, in the end, he'll have to give it to you. You know, because if we're gonna be like Jesus, but we have to relate to him as God. And if you look at Jesus, what's the first thing Jesus did when he got baptised? He went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days in the middle of a desert. He chose deficit so that God would be God.

And what did the devil do to tempt him in Luke 4? He tried to say, oh, make yourself God, you know. Sort your own problems out. And Jesus was like, no, my father is gonna be God. I'm not gonna do this in my own fleshly strength. I'm gonna let my father be God. And yeah, I think the importance of deficit in our lives, whether it's giving sacrificially, beyond what we feel that we can, whether it's fasting, whether it's taking steps of faith that push us beyond our comfort zone, whatever it is, it's putting ourselves in places where we can only function if God is God, you know. Whether it's pressing in in prayer, persevering, staying up at night when we wanna sleep, whether it's praying for healing for people when it makes us feel uncomfortable. And it puts us in that uncomfortable position of what if they don't get healed? What if this doesn't work out the way I want? Am I gonna persevere anyway just because God told me to? It's like, are we gonna relate to God as God, you know? That's a angle to tithing that I've never considered, been a big tither, taught to tithe. People who don't like the concept of tithing are people who don't tithe, which is a lot of people. But that's a different tithing, 10% of your gross income to the local church you're part of.

Always done that. Yeah, of course you have. That's in large part the foundation that you've had, one of the many little building blocks of your faith where you're able to see the kind of miracles happening through you. God tends to not move through disobedient people. He'll use disobedient people, right? But he tends to not put them on the first team, right? You agree with that? Well, I mean, it's one of the things that Paul said, I think, is it to Timothy? I'm trying to remember where that scripture was. He said, in a house, there are many different objects that have different uses. Some are for everyday common use, some are for special use. Cleanse yourself from the former so that you can be used for the latter. Paul actually teaches that, doesn't he? God will still use you, but if you really want to be used for the amazing purposes of God, then you've got to get yourself ready for that. But what I hadn't considered is the angle of, yeah, the reason it's hard to tithe, or I'm beyond the tithe right now because the tithing doesn't get me any more close to deficit, although I'm convicted now because my giving right now,

I wouldn't say it puts me in a deficit. That's a need for more contemplation later on. But yeah, that's part of why there's always spiritual growth and someone starts going tithing is because God intentionally wants you to get in deficit mode. You're living on 90% of what you had before. It's not just an act of. faith when you make that decision it's an act of faith until you get your next paycheck you know yeah and I mean for some people who are really you know on the edge financially and already things are tough giving 10% really can put them into that yes yes but for other other other other people who are others of us who are wealthy we could give 10% and not even blink right and it's like the parable of the it's like when Jesus saw the widows and she gave just that small amount and he said she's putting more than anyone else because although it was a small amount it was it was so big for her right didn't it and he's and he's made it clear that God is seeing the faith he's not that bothered about the amount it's it's what's the faith that's involved in the amount isn't it yeah if you're if you're saving 20% of your income it's zero faith to start tithing you're just saving 10% less which still makes you save twice as much as the average American or something like that you know and I'm for saving I'm very I'm very pro saving but yeah it's interesting see I think this is part of why miracles happen as we get on to a different track I'm not talking giving anymore that's that's just one example you get on a different track of how I want to view life how I want to experience life my expectations for life and you can't just live your life the way you want to live it and then expect to have some insightful profound prayers where God moves you're on you're on a different track and God might because you don't know what God's gonna say yes and no to but what I like being with you is I I get a correction if you will just a correction of home yeah that's right that's right let's remember the track

that I want to be on but this is yeah well yeah well the way I sit behind this is it's a weird thing because the way the cross works on our lives is we've got areas of our life that we haven't really taken to the cross and we're praying but it's our agenda and we're just asking God to bless what we want and and that's an immature thing to do but most of us have got areas of our lives where we still do it frankly and if you're a young Christian or an immature Christian or just a seeker probably most of your prayers are like that and the thing is that God will often still answer those prayers and bless you because he's he's got an agenda there God's agenda is he wants to teach you that he's a good father who loves to give you good things and you know Jesus said that how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask and and he he will do that and he will bless you as long as what you're asking for isn't overtly sinful he will often just bless you you know from the give me the parking space prayer to Lord I really need a nice house or I you know I need to find I don't know a spouse or whatever it is often he'll just bless you even though you're just praying prayers that are your own self-interest because he wants to teach you that he's a good dad loves to give you good things but eventually there comes a point I think where he says look I've blessed you lots do you trust me now because if you trust me then you need to trust me enough to let me take you to the cross and the cross is where I'm asking you to lay down your agenda and move into deficit and let me be God and if you will let me be God and you'll you'll go to the cross that is gonna hurt it's gonna be painful and it's not gonna be easy but once you've really gone to the cross and probably you've learned to camp there for a while and you've learned to live there and you've really and you've gone through a period of in this particular area of your life that's not easy they'll come a point where you go beyond the cross into a place of submission where where now my agenda has become your agenda and that to me is the place of power that's where you experience the resurrection power of Jesus working in your life yes and that's what Jesus is talking about in John 14 for example where he says I tell

you the truth you may ask me anything in my name and I'll do it for you the reason that he'll do anything that you ask is because you're only asking the stuff he wants you to ask because you've submitted to him and now you're on his agenda in that area so for example with money you you get to the point you can be at a stage where you haven't really submitted your money to God but but you need you have some needs you ask him it's amazing he's blessed you great but there comes a point where God will say do you trust me enough now to start to really be sacrificial with giving to really lay down your money make your money my money and you go through that process and it's really tough but you know that's not where it stops you come out the other side and there comes a point where you can I think in this life get to a point where you really have freedom from worry about money you could totally trust God about money you know that God will provide whatever you need but also you will do whatever God tells you to do with your money if he tells you to give it all away you'll give it all away if he tells you to do something else with it you'll do something else with it it's his money not your money but the but the counterbalance is you know that he'll provide everything that you need and you basically are not worried about money anymore. And I think that's the trajectory for a Christian that's really learning how to trust God is you've got some stuff that's before the cross, some stuff that's on the cross, but God's trying to move you to the point where you've laid it down and now you're seeing the resurrection power of God working in your life because you've really gone to the cross in that area, you know? You keep talking about going to the cross. I think I know what you mean, but maybe not. Maybe there's a different layer you're talking about. You talk about being in depth, going to the cross, so you go to the cross. Tell us, give us your little go to the cross devotional. To me, going to the cross just means that you go through a period of time where you persistently choose what God is telling you to do over what you want to do. And you recognize that what you want to do is not what God is calling you to do. And you get to a point of honesty, there's a point of honesty in going to the cross, where you say, I know that you're convicted to be God. There's this thing when you become a Christian, which is conviction, which is like

the Holy Spirit takes hold of your conscience. And everyone's got a conscience, whether they know God or not. But when you become a Christian, your conscience changes, doesn't it? And God that still small voice starts to convict you. And you get to a point, if you're honest, where you know, I know that this is what God wants me to do, or I know that God wants me to stop doing that. And if we want, God doesn't force us. If we want, we can ignore that for years. But if we're honest, and we're honest with ourselves, we can start to say, yeah, I know this is how God's guiding me, how God's leading me. And going to the cross is where you start to put down your own desires, your own preferences. And you say, okay, I'm going to commit to being obedient in this issue. And usually it's a particular issue at a time, God doesn't hit us with everything all at once, usually. So it might be money, or it might be, for me, the healing ministry is one of those things. I knew there was a period in my life where the Lord's saying, I want you to persevere in praying for people for healing, even though I never saw anybody get healed. For months and months and months, I prayed for people, never seeing anyone get healed. But I felt convicted that the Lord was saying, I want you to persevere and not give up, because that's what the Bible says. And that's what I'm telling you to do. So four nights a week at our church, we had these healing prayer nights, I went to every one of them, and I prayed for people for being healed. And they didn't get healed. And it was really hard. But I kept doing it, because I felt that God was calling me to do that. Now, to me, that is a practical example of being on the cross over that area. I hadn't got through it, I wasn't on the other side, I wasn't seeing the supernatural power of God working in my life. I was just camping there at the cross. By which I mean, you're kind of crucifying your own desires, you're taking your desires, and you're putting them on one side and saying, I'm not going to behave according to what I want, I'm going to behave according to what I believe God wants me to do. And you push through on that. And my experience is, if you do that, and you persevere in that, there comes a point of breakthrough, where what you want begins to shift. And now you're still doing the same stuff you were just doing, but now you want to do it. And something transforms, it says in Romans 12, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Something changes in the way you start to think, and now you're beginning to think, do you know, I actually feel like I want to do what I'm doing now, and I want to do what God wants me to do. And sometimes you begin to see a new level of spiritual power working in that as well. I can tell you, Brian, that the thing that taught me

this was actually, I mean, it fits with what the Bible says, but the thing that taught me was an experience, was actually a prophetic experience I had one time, which was a bit weird, but I can tell you if you want me to. I'd been to Israel, and so I visited the Garden of Gethsemane and all those things that we all visit, anyone who goes to Israel visits. And a few months later, I was in a quiet time, and I was just thinking about the Garden of Gethsemane, and they've got this rock there that they call the Rock of Agony, where they say that they think it's where Jesus knelt down when he was about to go to the cross, and, you know, where they said he sweated blood where he was trying to think through going to the cross. And I was just imagining that in my mind as I was just thinking, and I was just imagining how hard it must have been for Jesus to think about being tortured to death and taking the sins of the world on him. And I was imagining Jesus kneeling there. And then as I was imagining that just in my mind, a weird thing happened, which is like my imagination kind of shifted and started doing some things that I wasn't planning on it doing. And I felt like it was almost like the Lord took it over. And I suppose some people could call that a vision, but that's what I experienced. And in my mind, as I'm watching Jesus kneel down, he then suddenly gets up and kind of stands up and looks at me and smiles at me. And I'm thinking, is this my head? Is this the pizza I had last night? Is this the Lord? And then he says to me, did you know, Paul, I never make any sacrifices. And I thought, that's crazy. How can you say you never make any sacrifices? Because you're the epitome of sacrifice. I mean, if you think about sacrifice, it's Jesus. And so I thought to myself, maybe this must be the Lord, because I wouldn't make this up. And I said to him, how can you say you never make any sacrifice, Lord? We're just here in Gethsemane and you're at the Rock of Agony. It's all about your sacrifice. How can you say you never make any sacrifices? And I felt he said to me, I never make any sacrifices because I don't have anything left to sacrifice. When I went to the cross, I gave up everything of the flesh. I gave up everything that was just about my personal gain, gave it all to the Father. So there's nothing left to sacrifice. So for the whole of the rest of eternity, anything that the Father wants me to do is my absolute delight. It's exactly what I want to do. And he said, that is absolute freedom. And it's my absolute joy. He said, every time the Father

wants me to do something, it's exactly what I want to do. He said, and that is what happens when you go to the cross. He said, and that's why I want you to learn to take your flesh to the cross as well, because I want you to have that freedom too. Yeah, so it's a very powerful experience. That is powerful. So going to the cross, isn't just, I go to the place where Jesus is, because I think that's what we mainly think is a place where he hung. That's where he is. So I'm taking it to the cross. I'm taking it to where he is. It's also, I'm taking it to the path that he was on, which was a place of sacrifice. I take it there and I laid my life down. I go there, maybe not just to plead that I get my way, but I go there to lay my own life down. Is that right? I think so. And I think that's what the apostle Paul meant when he said in Galatians, it's no longer, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I've been crucified with Christ. And I think that's what he's talking about. I think what he means is he's laid down his desires, his fleshly desires, and he's taken on what God wants for him. And that's become what he wants. But it's a hard, that's a tough journey. I mean, that's spiritual maturity for Christian, isn't it? It is. I want to get into healing, but we're down an avenue. I want to stay in right now because when, when someone says the things that you're saying, I think we immediately assume they must have taken a vow of poverty or they must be a mother Teresa type or something like that. I'm, I'm, I'm looking at you. You've got some art in your back wall. So you haven't given away everything, the poor, you got something that looks nice. Um, I've tried to hire you and your wife, and I know that you're very cognizant of what kind of salaries you need and savings and all that stuff. Uh, so how do you mesh those sorts of things with what you're talking about? How do you know what is the, you know, what's the, what's the thing that God wants versus what's just a good thing to have? You know, you know, I'm asking here. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that, um, as you grow as a Christian, you have to grow in learning to listen to the Holy Spirit's voice and the Holy Spirit speaks in a number of different ways. Um, most people I know don't hear the Holy Spirit, spirit speak to them audibly, like through their ears. Um, the Bible talks about a still small voice. So a lot of people, um, you know, it's the first way that a lot of people hear is through, um, that's that just that conviction being sharpened and changed, but you can hear in all sorts of ways. I mean, you, you hear, I mean, I do sometimes hear God speak to me as if it's audibly, but, um, in my mind. Um, and I always weigh that with other people because I'm not Elijah or Moses. So I always have to make

sure what's that the Lord let's just check. So I weigh it with other people, weigh it against scripture. God's spoken for all time in a very dependable way through scripture. So you always make sure that what you're hearing fits with the principles of scripture, but you learn to listen to the Holy Spirit and you allow him to speak. God isn't against people being wealthy. God isn't against people being good stewards. He's not against people managing things. Well, he's not against any of those things, but what he wants is for those things to be submitted to him and for us to be trying to take them for ourselves and to depend on them on those things he wants us to depend on him and so I mean in the last if talking about money for example in the last 10 years my wife and I have had time I've just been very frank here we've had a period of time in the last 10 years where we couldn't even afford to get buy a coffee from a coffee shop because we've had zero spare money and that's because we did something God we felt God called us to do that meant that we just had to use all of our financial resource we had nothing left and we're just completely trusting him and we had a period of several years where we had just zero money and in the same 10-year period we've had enough money to be able to just buy a brand new car if we wanted to we've had both and we will move between both we've had times in our lives where we've given literally given all our money away for a period of time because we felt God's told us to and we've had time where we've had thousands and thousands of dollars liquid cash we've had both and and Paul says I've learned the secret being content whether I have little whether I have much and and the point is that none of it's our money it's God's money and we just do what God wants and that's just one area of our life's fun that finance is just one there's so many different areas yes you know and so I think I think what you're doing is it's not about it's not about whether you have a lot whether you have a little it's not about whether your life looks good or doesn't look good it's about what is God's telling you to do and are you doing that that's the focus of the life of a mature believer I believe yeah I like it you know so let's get to healing I'm gonna give you the two extremes that I see I'd like you to speak into those extremes the two extremes are I don't believe in healing

and the other extreme is I have a central belief in healing and let me describe those things I don't believe in healing yeah I'll check it on a multiple choice true-false quiz that yes God heals but I really when I hear every story about somebody being healed I'm cynical I when I have something wrong with me I only go to prayer in the last in the last ditch effort you know I yeah I believe I guess that does God heal true but the way I operate and think if I look at my inner heart I just yeah I have a struggle I don't believe and then the other one that's one should the other extreme is if I'm not seeing somebody get healed then God's not moving the other extreme of central belief of I so believe it's gonna be believe that's gonna be healed that if I'm praying for you and it's not happening then there's something wrong you have a cursed object in your house there's a there's a generational sin that you haven't dealt with in your own life there is a whatever I like I need there there has to be I need that I need that for my faith I need that I just I'm meeting more and more people who are in that and that camp and quite frankly both of these camps concern me it concerns me that you don't believe that God still heals and it concerns me that it's that big of a deal for you so let's speak to the I think we spoke to the first camp already but I don't really believe I think we probably already have anything you want to say more to that to that camp I think I think for that first camp I'd say this is about knowing Jesus and who he is I think you know the whole Bible is helpful the whole Bible is inspired we need to read the whole Bible regularly but the lens through which we understand God in the Bible is Jesus and the Gospels and he is the ultimate revelation of God if you look at Jesus how did he spend his time when he walked on earth what did he do he spent a huge amount of his time healing people one of the names of God is Jehovah Rafi just healing people is part of what Jesus does and so if you don't have any expectation that he's going to be involved in healing people that I think there is something there about getting to know Jesus better and and the Bible is full of instruction about healing even James you know in James 5 it's

really clear is are any of you sick you know call the elders pray for them and the prayer of faith will make them well I mean the Bible's just absolutely full of it so if you're not expecting to see people get healed or you're not expecting to see healing ever there is there is clearly a big gap between what the Bible says and what you're expecting and I think for any of us as Christians if there is a big gap between what the Bible says and what we're expecting then we should be convicted about that yeah and and To me, any increase in faith and breakthrough in my life has been about getting to know God better. There's never been any other thing at the root of it. Whenever I've seen a breakthrough in seeing more spiritual power in my life, it's always been to do with getting to know God better. So I would say, if you don't really, if you kind of would be someone who'd say, well, I believe that God can, I just don't expect he will. If you don't expect God to do the things that Jesus did, then there's probably a journey of getting to know Jesus better in that area. So that would be what I'd say in the first case. With the folks who have pinned their faith on healing. I mean, have you seen some of these folks? I'm just seeing more and more. Yeah, I have. I have. It's escalating. Part of it's good it's escalating because it's showing that there is an increased belief in healing. But I'm concerned about it to a degree. Go ahead. Speak to it. I mean, we had an experience in our church in Sheffield, Brian, where we'd just seen a whole load of amazing healings, including miracles, including, for example, a cancerous

tumor the size of a grapefruit disappear from a woman's stomach. And we'd just seen a whole load of stuff. It was an amazing time. And then what happened was we had a young girl, about four, get this stroke effectively due to congenital issues to do with blood vessels in the back of her head. And she became completely paraplegic. She basically had locked in syndrome. So her brain was completely fine. She could think, but she couldn't move her body at all. It was awful. And they were saying that it was only medical science that kept her alive. If she'd been alive at any time in history before about five years earlier, she just would have died. So in some ways, medical science made it worse. It probably would have been better if she'd just gone to be with the Lord in some ways. So our church responded magnificently because they had so much faith for healing. And what they did was they prayed for her for healing nonstop, 24-7, for six months. For six months, they persevered in prayer. There was at least one or two people praying for her around the clock for breakthrough, for healing, for six months. And she didn't get healed. And people were absolutely devastated. And in fact, a couple of people lost their faith as a result, which is exactly what you're talking about. So their faith was, well, if God doesn't do this, then how can God be real or how can God be a God of love or, you know. And that made me go back to God and say, what's going on here, God? I just need to understand. And I do some reading as well around sovereignty, God's sovereignty, and how does this work? Is God in charge or isn't God in charge and how does that all work?

And I don't know. I do think that we have to understand God's sovereignty. This is how I understand it. God is totally sovereign. God can click his fingers and make anything happen anytime he likes. But God is not. Perhaps this is too strong to say it this way, but I would sometimes say God is not in control. And I don't mean that he can't be in control. Of course he can. I mean, he's God. But what I mean is God is not in his nature controlling. God loves freedom. And because he's not controlling, he doesn't control all of us. We have free will to do what we want while we're in this life. And the same is true for the spiritual beings, angels, demons. There's a lot of free will out there. And free will means consequences. There's a lot of consequences. And the fall is an example of that. And there are consequences of the fall as well. So we have all sorts of things going on around us. And it makes it a very complex world that we're living in. And so God's sovereignty shows itself in several ways. And I simplify it by just thinking of it in a Trinitarian way. The father, the sovereignty of the father. There is a day, no, no, only to the father. Jesus said, not even the son knows it. There's a day where God will say enough is enough and he'll put everything right. And we think about it as Judgment Day, but it's also, there's another image of it in

the Bible, which is jubilee, which is everybody gets given back what was taken from them. And I think that day will come where there'll be amazing restoration. What about, people can ask other questions. What about all the children over the whole of history who've been tortured to death and things like that? And of course, things have happened in this world. But I think there will be a day when God will make it right. So that's one expression of God's sovereignty. There's another expression of God's sovereignty, it talks about in Romans 8, where his spirit works in all things for our good. And we don't understand that. And that's like the sovereignty of the spirit. We don't understand it. We can't see it right now. But we have to trust and believe that even though it looks awful, somehow God, with his amazing, all-knowing, all-powerful ways, is going to do it. going to bring a greater good out of it in the future. We trust him about that. And then there's the sovereignty of the Son, which you could call incarnational sovereignty, which is he takes what will one day be, and he makes it happen now. And a miracle is an example of that, a healing is an example of that. One day, Jesus told us to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. One day, there will be no more sickness, there will be no more tears, there will be no more pain. But Jesus takes that one day and makes it happen right now. And that can happen supernaturally, like when you pray for healing and see it happen. It can also happen naturally, like when someone gives food to someone who's hungry or clothes the naked or just... And he generally does that through the church, through his body. And he's working right now to bring his will to bear. And the thing is, you have to trust in all of those, you can't put all your eggs in one basket. And I think that what some people do is they put all of their eggs in that basket of miracles. It's like, well, that's how God shows his sovereignty by doing something right now. And it's got to look like heaven right now. And if it doesn't, then God's not pleased

with us or there's something wrong. But actually, it's a much more complex picture than that. And God's sovereignty works in all these different ways. And we have to understand God's sovereignty in all those different ways. That young girl, yes, we haven't seen breakthrough yet. And the devil would want to tell us that her destiny is to drool in a chair for the rest of her life. But the reality is that she is an eternal being, and that she will probably be surfing galaxies with God for eternity. And relatively, her life where she's paralyzed is very short. And we have to keep that in perspective, and not think that everything is about this little bit of life that we've got right now, if we're going to understand God's doing in her life. Yes, we're going to battle for her to be healed now, but that's not the whole picture. And so I think that folks who stack everything into what we get now as a deposit, the Bible teaches us that what we see with healing is a deposit of what's to come. The other thing is that Hebrews 11 is really important. Hebrews 11 is the great hall of fame in the Bible. We have the rock and roll hall of fame in Cleveland. Well, we have the Bible hall of fame of faith. And it's got all the great people of faith. And it's really interesting to read it, because half of them saw their promises that God gave them come to pass in this life, and it talks about them. And then it talks about the other half who didn't see their promises that God gave them come to pass, so they got to heaven. And to me, the Bible's making it clear. The promises are real. God will give you everything he's promised you. But some of those promises you're going to see in this life, and some of them you're not going to see till you get to heaven. And to be frank, we don't know which are which, and we have to trust God about that. And God has got an eternal view of us. He sees us as eternal beings. We've got a very myopic view where we think of our life just as the few years we've got here on earth. So when I pray for people for healing, I expect to see healing. I know that Jesus wants them healed. I don't have any doubt about that. He's the God of healing. I battle for healing. I'll persevere for healing. But my faith in God doesn't depend on whether they get healed or not. I know they're going to get healed either now or when they get to heaven. And I trust God about that. And I know that we're in a messy battle. And if someone doesn't get healed, I'll keep persevering. But it doesn't in any way dampen my faith in God. Does that make sense?

No, it makes sense to me. I'm just seeing more people who have a form of Christian voodoo, if you will. They want it so bad and think it has to happen that they just make shit up that isn't there in the Bible. Like this whole cursed object. Cursed object must be in your home. Hey, hey, Apostle Paul said it was okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols. That's not the worst thing you could... In other words, if you can get meat on a discount that was part of a pagan ritual that worshiped a false god, he's like, if you can eat it, eat it because it's cheaper. Hey, now, wow. If you can eat a cursed object, like meat sacrificed to an idol, why are you trying to go through somebody's house and trying to find some cursed object that might be blocking them being healed? Maybe them being healed is too central to your faith. It's too big of a deal to you, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think the whole area of demons and deliverance ministry is another area. And I think that some people see demons behind every stone, and I think that that is overplaying it. But I also think that my experience is that you can also underplay it. And I think, to me, in some ways, the effect that demons have with people is a bit like when a wound has... infection in it and so it can sometimes be you know if you want a wound to get healed up you have to remove the infection first yeah and then a wound could get here doesn't remove the wound but the wounds then can get healed up so I do think sometimes there can be if there's some demonic involvement getting people free of that first can be helpful and and there's another thing there which is that if someone has a lifestyle which is Lee has led to that demonic involvement right they may need to repent of that lifestyle and help that gets sorted out because otherwise you get rid of the demons they're just gonna end up coming back which Jesus did talk about that in the Bible as well so correct I think I in my experience having been involved in healing ministry for a few decades now I have seen sometimes times where people who are not healed up not getting healed there is some cause and effect there because there's a whole lifestyle thing right that means that they're basically allowing themselves to have a kind of spiritually get infected which means it's even if God healed them they're just gonna get themselves in a mess again I think that's a bit different from people who just can't accept the

fact that we're in a messy world and people don't always get healed right but I think there can be some stuff to do with the kind of spiritual powers and authorities and just some of that spiritual battling that can take place sometimes I believe in the demonic I've encountered it firsthand it's all through the Bible I do I'm just speaking though to it's too important to some people there's a whole there's a whole theology around spiritual warfare much of it is in the Bible much of it is just an interesting teaching that makes you feel like you're getting something deep and it's not biblical it's just spiritual warfare gobbledygook you know yeah I think one of my challenges and I've spent a lot of time with the charismatic church and learned from the charismatic church and spent a lot of time learning from a lot of great biblical teaching but in some parts of the church some of the things that I've struggled with is you'll have some really biblical teaching and then it will shift to some stuff that just isn't in the Bible right and maybe people have just learned themselves or they've just come up with some stuff that's helpful for them but they don't distinguish when they teach between this is biblical and this is just some stuff we think is helpful like you said maybe talking about cursed objects or maybe talking about soul ties or some other things and I'm just thinking that's just not in the Bible and I'm not saying that it might not be helpful for you but you should at least tell people this is but okay now we're coming off biblical stuff this is some stuff that we kind of talk about some personal opinions I have some things you might want to think about okay yeah maybe and if you and if you don't distinguish between those things it can really get people in a mess because they're like you know a lot of people just haven't read the Bible that much and so if you're a teacher you've got a responsibility to say this is in the Bible this is just some stuff that I think and there's a big difference between that isn't there right there is well and what we can oftentimes do when we're thirsting so much for the spiritual which is a good thing to thirst for the things that are not of this world and for where God is instead of just thirsting for things my bank

counter an iPhone upgrade but what can happen is we lose the we lose the point the point is becoming like Christ the point is sanctification things are hard for you not because you haven't been doing spiritual warfare right things are hard for you because that's spiritual growth because that's what it means to get sanctified that's what it means to go to the cross it's it's an ongoing growth process getting to know Christ it's not a magical this that get in touch the spiritual realm that stuff may all happen may all increase a hit rate of prayer being answered but it's the daily grunt work of going to the cross to use our metaphor for the day which is where growth happens yeah all right so Paul I got onto some stuff I did wasn't planning on just because it's always fun to talk with you but let's let's end this with this let's go back to healing okay if you just listen to what I said the last five minutes five minutes you think that I'm not into healing I'm very into healing that's why I want to talk to you we just got to sort of things so let's let's close with can you give us you know just bullet points ding ding ding ding like what are you doing to have a high hit rate in yeses to healing what are things that we should maybe be learning to you are there is there something you're picturing your mind is there something you're saying is there something you're doing to prepare your heart what what can we do to increase our success rate and seeing healings do our prayers yeah I think well firstly I'd say any any area of faith that you're trying to grow in, you have to do what Jesus told you to do. And what Jesus said is, when you pray, you must persevere and not give up. So he said that in Luke 18, 1, and he gave two parables. In Luke 11, verse 5, he gave the parable of the friend in the bread at midnight. And in Luke 18, 1 to 8, he gave the parable of the woman and the unjust judge. So two parables, both of them to illustrate that when you pray, you must persevere and not give up. You know, how much more does God love to give you good things, give you the Holy Spirit, but you must persevere and not give up. So we have to persevere and not give up.

And Jesus also taught us not just that we must persevere, but how to persevere. And he said, this is how you persevere. You keep on asking, you keep on seeking, you keep on knocking. And in my experience, a lot of people who haven't got breakthrough, don't do all three. So what's asking, asking is in your prayer time, in your devotional time, or with others, you're saying, Lord, please, would you give us more breakthrough in healing? I'd love to see more people get healed. Please would you do that, Lord? I'm asking you. I want to see that you did it. I'm your disciple. You said that anyone who believes in you will do the things you've been doing. You did it. I want to do it. Please, would you do that? So that's asking, and you're persevering in it. I've been persevering. I've been asking God for that for 30 plus years, you know, daily. Seeking, seeking to me is that you put yourself in a faith environment. So you seek out the people who see people get healed more than you. Spend time with them. Ask them, what is it you're doing? Can I spend time with you? Can I pray with you when you're praying for people? You look at the, you look up, you find the videos of people praying for people on YouTube or whatever, of people praying for people and seeing people get healed. And you watch them. You read the books by people who know how to see people get healed. You decide, you make yourself a disciple. You go to the conferences if you need to go to the conferences.

You go to the revival meeting, you know, when you've got man camp or women camp, whatever, you're going to those things and you're going to the tents and you're joining the ministry team. So that's seeking. And then knocking is you actually practice it. So in your home group or joining a ministry team or whatever, you're like, I'm going to take every opportunity I can to pray for people to get healed and I'm just going to do it. And I'm saying to you earlier, I've seen an upswing in how many people I'm seeing get healed recently, but also I've seen an upswing in how many times I'm praying for people to get healed. You know, I'm in multiple ministry teams. I'm going off and praying, leading naturally supernatural workshops in churches around the country. I mean, I just do it a lot, you know, so you just have to do it a lot. So keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking and persevere in the area. That would apply to prophecy. If you want to hear God do the same thing, if you want to see healing, do that. And then the other thing I'd say is it's about knowing Jesus as the healer. So read the Gospels, read the four Gospels and focus on all the times he healed people and ask yourself, did Jesus ever say no? How did Jesus respond when people asked him to heal? He's the same today as he was then. He's the same person. How does Jesus react to me when I ask him to heal? You know, so you're asking those questions. And then in terms of the mind, and the mind is the battleground for the Christian rather than the heart, I believe, when I'm praying for people, and I think I said this last time, but when I'm praying for people, there's a little tool I felt prophetically the Lord gave me, which is a path between two ditches. The ditch on one side is that you start thinking about yourself too much.

When I'm praying for people for healing, I don't think about myself. If I start thinking about myself too much, I've committed too much sin recently, I've not spent enough time with the Lord recently, I've not been a good enough prayer recently, and immediately my faith shrinks down to nothing. I've got to stay out of that ditch. The ditch on the other side of the path is I think about the condition too much. If I think about the condition too much, it's like, well, how am I going to see this cancer get healed? Or how am I going to see this condition get healed? You know, that woman with the sinusitis, I've never seen that healed before. If I've never seen it healed before, how am I going to see it healed today? Immediately your faith starts to shrink down to nothing, so I stay out of that ditch. The path in the middle is the way, the way is Jesus, Jesus is the way. So what you do is you think about Jesus, and the way I do that is usually I pray out loud, because you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, I pray out loud thanksgiving to Jesus for who he is. Thank you, Lord, that you promised if two or more of us gathered in your name you'd be here so you're here now, just like if you were here physically. Thank you, Lord, that you told us to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thank you, there's no cancer in heaven. Thank you, Lord, there's no examples in the Gospels of you saying no when someone asks you for healing and stuff like that. So that's a little tip of the way that I pray when I'm praying for healing, stay out. The two ditches, stay on the path, the path is Jesus. Yeah, that's good. I probably could boil it down to three things for me. One is imagery. I wanna put, I think our brain is the best communication tool God has given us, our imagination. It's the greatest Dolby sound system,

IMAX theater you can possibly have is in your mind. And so I wanna have, use my imagination to see what's happening with that person and to see it going a different way. Love that, yeah, I agree. Yeah, so if I'm praying for somebody who's got a, who isn't having kids and they want kids, I'm praying and I'm seeing sperm stick to the membrane on a uterus, I'm not even sure if that's the right exact, I think that is, if I'm praying for somebody with a heart condition, I'm seeing a heart that's beating really clearly and consistently with massive amounts of blood flow. If I'm praying for somebody in the brain, I'm seeing synaptic connection, it's just imagery. And then second thing is specificity. I wanna be very specific. I wanna actually say, God, would you, God, have these chemicals move right. Have them go, I wanna be very clear. Lord, just help this person of how they feel bad. No, I wanna speak to it really, really specifically. And then the final thing is clarity. I wanna be very clear that I want God to heal him. None of these weenie, well, if it's your will, Lord, then have this, that one, real clear. Glory, believe you're a healer, heal her, heal him. Or as you've reminded me before to just proclaim healing. We say you're healed, just clarity. I think those three things we're very hesitant to do.

And I think those three things have increased my hit rate. Totally agree, totally agree. I like that thing about proclaiming. In the Bible, I see them do both. So they ask the Father to heal the person and they proclaim, be healed. So I just hedge my bets and just do both every time. I'll say, Lord, please heal them. And that's in the name of Jesus, be healed. Yep, that's good. Well, Paul, this has been fantastic. Anything else you wanna talk about that we haven't talked about? I mean, no, I think it's great. I would say that I'd want to remind everybody that it says that we go one degree of glory to another until we see him face to face. And so if you're listening to this podcast, it is actually God's agenda for you that you become more like Jesus by degrees. And that as you learn these things, your life of ministry look more like the life of ministry of Jesus. So we talked a bit about money, we've talked a bit about healing, we've talked about some other things. In all of these areas, God wants you to actually take tangible steps where your life actually looks more like Jesus as you go to the cross, as we talked about,

as you learn to function by faith. And I just wanna say that is possible for you. You can do that. And you can actually lay some stuff down, embrace what God's doing in your life, and your ministry can actually tangibly look more, and your life can look tangibly more like Jesus's. And it's one degree of glory to another until one day you'll see him face to face. That is God's agenda for everybody who's listening to this podcast. And it's an amazing thing. Yep. If you live within driving distance, or shoot, flying distance, you can fly wherever you want. My day job is pastor of this thing called Crossroads Church. It's in a couple states. If you live anywhere near Columbus, anywhere near Dayton, Ohio, and live anywhere near Cincinnati, Ohio, and live anywhere near Lexington, this is a big deal for me and the church that I lead, that we wanna grow our whole church in this. And Paul is gonna be giving, I don't know what we wanna call it, talks, seminars, nights of healing prayer. Be able to get healed, and actually learn how to do it in live person

at different times in January and February of this year. He came in and did something with our staff a few months ago. You did, Paul. And we were practicing things, and man, we had some legit healings that took place that day. Among some people who maybe weren't that big of a believer ahead of time, but they became a believer real fast. So we're gonna just try to do this, not just to give people increased likelihood of healings, but to give people some more spiritual maturity and some more awareness of the realm that exists for us to step into. It's gonna be pretty good. Thanks for doing that. Do you wanna plug anything about that? No, I mean, I just think we will expect God to move, and I know that God will. And I'm really excited. I've never done anything like this, where we're going night after night to several different sites and doing it. I'm really excited to see what God will do, yeah. Well, I'm excited to have you as a friend and as a challenger. You challenge me every time I'm together with you, and you did that today. You're a good, godly man, Paul McConaughey,

and I'm thankful for you and your English accent. So Paul is available where? Paul, if people wanna get to you, Paul, how can they get to you? if they want to? They could get to me through my email which is paul.mcconachie m-a-c-o-n-o-c-h-i-e at uptick.org. And Paul also works with the Virginia Baptists, he's leading them through a bunch of things so you can connect with him and his organization there, where's that, what's that website Paul? That's uptick.org. Uptick.org. Hey, hey I don't know what you heard today that pushes you, I know I got pushed, hopefully you got pushed, and I'm gonna do some things differently, you should too, it's called The Aggressive Life, we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes, and more at bryantome.com. My new book, a 60-day devotional called The Five Marks for Man, 60 Days to a Powerful Life, along with all the other books in the Five Marks Library are open right now on Amazon. Be sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, then send an email to DIRT, that's DIRT, at bryantome.com to get a free Aggressive Life sticker. Find more on Instagram at bryantome. The Aggressive Life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. you