“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Hebrews 13:8 NIV
Vacation time was a fun time for me on my grandparents’ farm. As the oldest grandchild, I spent much of the summer with them. A favorite pass time was sitting in the shade on the southeast corner of the old wooden porch with the friendly collie asleep at my feet. I spent many happy hours shelling peas, snapping beans, and husking corn as every vegetable was prepared for the long cold winter.
On a particular afternoon while I prepared the vegetables I reflected on the cottage prayer meeting conducted in the large farm kitchen by an elder from the mission in the nearby town.
The farmers who gathered the night before had spent much time on their knees in audible prayer. Until that night I had never seen a person anointed and prayed for as in James…
“Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.”
James 5:14 NIV
Everyone in the room had prayed so earnestly for my Grandma. she suffered frequently of blinding headaches that sometimes even nauseated her. They were asking God to deliver her. (At that time I had never heard the medical term migraine headaches.)
Suddenly, that afternoon the silence was broken by my Grandma’s call, “Hazel, please come quickly!” I ran into the kitchen and saw Grandma standing by the big kitchen cupboard with tears streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them with her big white apron. “Hazel, the headache’s gone. I felt it leave. I reached up to touch the top of my head as it was simply splitting with pain, and as I reached up I breathed the Name of Jesus and the pain fled before the power of His precious name.”
It had fled never to return again.
My grandma lived into her seventies. The healing commenced at the prayer meeting and was completed by the kitchen cupboard as she took authority in the Name of Jesus. Never again was my grandma plagued by migraines.
This was the first healing I had ever witnessed. I was just a young Christian and had not heard much of Jesus the healer. The incident was so indelibly imprinted on my memory that through many of life’s deep testings I have felt the awareness of that same Jesus and His healing virtue.
The four Gospels record many miracles and healings that Jesus did when he trod on this earth…
“Many followed Him, and He healed all their sick.”
“When Jesus saw the large crowds, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
Matthew 12:15; Matthew 14:14 NIV
It is faith-inspiring when you or I have a need to pick up our Bibles and read of His ministry to the sick. This same Jesus still has the power to save the soul and raise the sick.
Down through the years, many testimonials could verify His presence in the sick room. Jesus has the same compassion today when He is invited into a room where there is suffering. Let us claim His promises which are steadfast and sure.
By Hazel F. Brisco—End Times Messenger July 1986