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126. Fan or Follower


Returning home from a missions trip is always bitter sweet for me. I miss waking up and sharing my days with everyone. I miss their different personalities and perspectives. I miss their faces, their voices and their hearts. I don’t think the week could have gone any better. There was no drama, everyone worked together, and everyone respected one another. It was a great experience. The east coast team and the west coast team all blended together and felt like one big family by the end of the week. It was so hard to say goodbye. 

Getting picked up to go home reminded me that I was back in the real world. I was so happy to see the kids and Leah did a wonderful job surprising me. Nash was whiny on the car ride home because he wanted me to hold him. Then the spirit of religion crept in out of my daughters mouth. You see the enemy doesn’t wait to get his jabs in where he can. Immediately after this trip, he was trying to get to me. She looked at me and said “Mom if Jesus does the healing then why do you need to pray for people?” I immediately discerned what was going on and I simply replied to Leah “Because I believe every word of the Bible”. I reached for my phone and pulled up Mark 16 and handed it to her. I told her to read beginning at verse 14.

As I reviewed this piece or scripture the Lord put on my heart the desire to share the difference between a believer and a fan. Today’s church is so full of fans that will never walk in the true power of the Holy Spirit that the Lord died for us to have. How many Christians go to church on Sundays and “believe” in Jesus but have never made the commitment to get water baptized? Fan not believer. If you’re a fan of a book, you read it as a story, you believe in the storyline and follow the plot, but you don’t take it as literal instruction. The Bible is meant to be taken as literal instruction. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. That’s pretty literal to me. Have you made that commitment as a believer? Or are you simply a fan of what Jesus died for us to have? Are you willing to die to your flesh?

Go proclaim the word to all. That’s again pretty literal instruction. Do you believe the Bible or do you not? You can’t believe one word and not another. It’s either all true or none. (FYI, It’s all true).

These signs will accompany those who believe. Do those signs accompany you if you call yourself a believer? If they don’t, then can you call yourself a believer based on those defining factors? Or are you a fan of how that used to happen or how it happens through others but never through you?

What we were doing was laying hands on the sick and they were recovering. It’s that simple. All it takes is the Holy Spirit. All it takes is having the faith to step out and try. The Lord is no respector of persons. What he does for one he does for all.

We saw blind eyes healed, we saw deaf ears opened, we saw backs healed, knees, ankles, headaches, diabetes, depression, witchcraft, etc. Deliverance and healing left and right. Why? Because of faith. There is nothing that happened on that trip that can’t happen right here right now. 

The Lord is the I Am. Not the I was, not the I will be, the I AM. He is always healing, delivering, and setting free the hearts of His children. 

I highly encourage you to accept Jesus into your hearts as your Lord and Savior. I encourage you to make the decision to get baptized. I encourage you to experience the Holy Spirit and the gifts that the Lord bestowed upon us. 

I encourage you to truly believe the Bible and not just be a fan of it. 

After reading those scriptures, Leah asked me if she could get baptized. I didn’t have to say a word, I didn’t have to puff my ego up and defend my work on the trip. I didn’t have to argue or say my opinion. I simply handed her the word and let the truth of the word settle into her heart as she read it to herself. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit. It helps the word go from being seen by your eyes to being written on your heart. There’s such peace in the presence of the Lord. There such purpose when you walk with Him. There’s an undeniable difference between religion and relationship. . 

Mark 16:14-20 ESV

The Great Commission

14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.



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