A Tale of Two Kingdoms (5)

Power and the Kingdom

I preached on Daniel 2 in our Much More Group meeting on Oct 19, 2010. The title of the message was “Jesus’ Superior Kingdom”.  Some came to me after that saying it was a truly awesome message and they were very blessed.   Some regretted that it was not recorded in audio form. Sometime I don’t know whether I have encouraged them more or they have encouraged me more. These are really precious brothers and sisters to me and they are the Lord’s precious people. My desire is that through these articles there can be some measure of record on what the Lord has put in my heart, including but not limited to what I have preached in the group meeting or in church. And everyone, including myself, can always go back to it and chew on it. Knowledge, however, is not only information and content. It is also experience.  

We had very anointed and powerful worship that particular evening and throughout I felt like I was in a warm bath, only I was not wet. In the midst of the worship I suddenly had a physical sensation on my upper back towards the side near the left shoulder. It lingered and I knew that the Lord was telling me something. After the worship I asked if someone in our midst was suffering pain and I described the condition. A sister responded and after confirming the condition of pain I laid my right hand on her head and commanded the problem to leave. Faith was easy when you have confirmed a word of knowledge. I remembered my right hand becoming hot, really hot, as I prayed for her. Immediately after a short prayer the sister declared the pain was gone. I love the way she put it. She simply said, “It’s gone!” This demonstration of power set the tone for the evening. It fanned into flame a message that’s already burning in my heart. 

The Lord is good to His people, and He is not confused as to what is good and what is bad. My favorite author Bill Johnson put it this way: Jesus is perfect theology. The Bible tells us that Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38, NKJV). So make no mistake about it, to be healthy is something good, else Jesus would not be “doing good” putting people out of sickness. The kind of teaching that says that sickness could be from God to teach us something and we should glorify God in it is at best misinformed, or worse it’s from the pit of hell.  Deuteronomy 28 speaks about blessings and curses. Believers will do well to check it up to see for themselves how God defines “good” and “bad”.

In His goodness He desires the coming of His Kingdom upon our lives to remove and replace any limiting difficulty or adverse circumstance. The collision of His Kingdom with the kingdom of darkness is always a power encounter, and His Kingdom always wins. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The message of Daniel 2 serves to emphasize the truth of the all-conquering power of His kingdom, not only to Nebuchadnezzar, but also to all that have ears to hear.

Here is another true story. It happened in the morning of the same day. I was at work and was having a chat with a male colleague of mine. We were talking about things concerning our work and nothing about Jesus. But unexpectedly the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart that my colleague had pain in his right knee. Certainly I couldn’t tell the Lord it’s working time and not ministering time. But yet it was kind of awkward to pull myself out of an on-going conversation and ask him if he had pain on his right knee.  Anyway I did it because the Lord insisted. My colleague was stunned. With a look of utter unbelief on his face he confirmed it was true and kept asking me how I came to know about it. He was a Buddhist but he did not object when I asked if I can pray for him. He was healed on the spot. And I got to share Christ with him.

Two incidents in one day got me thinking. Jesus is really keen to establish His kingdom in our life, don’t you think so? Neither of the ailments in question is life threatening, yet Jesus desired to show both our sister, a devoted Christian, and my colleague, a devoted Buddhist, His love and His power. Jesus will show up whenever we call upon Him and He will show Himself strong on behalf of us. He is willing to do it more often than we dare think.

Won’t you let Him?