BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Then look in the Bible and see how others have done it. Both the Old and New Testaments are full of people whose examples you can follow—people who, instead of sitting around waiting on God, rose up in faith and did what God was waiting on them to do. Take Jairus, for instance. One of the rulers of the synagogue during Jesus’ earthly ministry, Mark 5 tells us about a time he faced an extremely urgent situation. His little daughter was critically ill and about to die. He needed help from God and he needed it fast. What did he do? Having heard Jesus preach, he believed, got up and got moving. He went to Jesus and said to Him, “Come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live” (Mark 5:23). With those words, Jairus released his faith, and after that he never said anything else. Even though on the way to his house someone came to tell him his daughter had already died, Jairus kept his mouth shut. He refused to fear and stayed in faith. He stuck with his confession, Jesus brought it to pass and his daughter was raised from the dead. If you want to see another example of someone who released their faith and received a miracle, consider the woman who had the issue of blood. Her story is woven in right along with that of Jairus. Although her situation wasn’t quite as urgent as his, she was just as desperate for God’s help because she’d been suffering with that flow of blood for 12 years. She’d spent all her money on doctors and instead of getting better she’d only gotten worse. When she heard about Jesus and His Anointing to heal, she decided to believe it and released her faith the same way Jairus did. “She said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole” (verse 28). Then she went into action. (James 2:26 says that faith without corresponding action is dead.) She went to find Jesus, and while He was walking to Jairus’ house she pushed her way through the crowd and touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. Immediately, what she had said came to pass. “Straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague” (Mark 5:29). Yet another example of a woman who received a remarkable miracle by speaking words of faith is the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4. She and her husband had a son who’d been born as a result of a word from God given to them by the prophet Elisha. One morning when the boy went out to help his father in the field, he fell ill and by noon he’d died in his mother’s arms. The mother, instead of collapsing in despair, laid the child’s body on the bed in the room where Elisha stayed when he came to visit. Then she went looking for Elisha. She hooked her faith to the word he’d given her about that boy and calling to her husband, she said: “Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the [donkeys], that I may run to the man of God, and come again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to day? it is neither new moon, nor sabbath. And she said, It shall be well” (verses 22-23). It shall be well. The woman’s son just died and that’s all she said! She didn’t go into a big explanation. She didn’t say to her husband even one time, “Our boy is dead.” She called things that be not as though they were. She used her words to release her faith and refused to say anything else until she found the prophet on Mount Carmel. “And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well” (verses 25-26). Think about that! Even when she was talking with Elisha, the Shunammite woman didn’t mention death at all. She stayed with her confession of faith and the prophet got in agreement with it. As a result, before the day was over her child had been raised from the dead and sure enough, all was well. 6 : BVOV

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