By Mark Ellis –
In October 2018, Brother James was conducting outreach among an unreached Tibetan people group in China, a group with less than 10 known believers.
“We were doing some basic discipleship with a group of local believers,” Brother James recounts. “We were trying to teach them basic kingdom principles about following Jesus and hearing his voice and being an encounter everywhere we go.”
Brother James and the other disciples got in a van and decided they would drive northwest for three or four days. “If we came to an intersection, we asked the Holy Spirit if we should go straight or left or right.”
They stopped along the way, loved people, took pictures, and “did the tourist thing.”
“We were looking for ways to bless people. So in the process of doing this we came upon a village.”
Brother James encountered an older man and attempted to start a conversation with him.
“Hi, I’m James. How are you? What’s your name?”
There was no response.
Brother James tried several times to communicate with the man, but was met with silence.
Finally, the villagers standing nearby said, “He’s deaf. He can’t hear you.”
Brother James had a quick thought: I’m a temple of the Holy Spirit. He’s deaf, so I can pray and Jesus can take care of that…it’s in the Book of Acts.
They prayed for the man’s ears once and there seemed to be a slight improvement.
We prayed for his ears a second time. Brother James snapped his fingers near the man’s ears. “Is there any change?” he asked.
The man nodded a bit, with a quizzical look in his eyes, as if to say there was incremental improvement.
Over the course of 5 to 10 minutes the small team continued praying and God answered. The man’s hearing was completely restored!
So Brother James decided to restart the conversation.
“Hi, I’m James. How are you? Are you from this village?” he asked.
“No, actually I’m not,” the man replied. “When I was young both my parents died and I got shipped off to this village when I was young and an orphan.”
“Well that Creator God we just prayed to that healed your ears is actually a Father. He adopts orphans.”
The team shared about being adopted into the family of God and what it meant in their lives.
After carefully listening to them, the former deaf man said, “Yes, I want to be adopted by God the Father too.”
He prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior and Lord and was born again!
“This was more than just a physical healing,” Brother James notes. “There was a Father inviting him into his family. There are orphans everywhere, walking around in the streets out there. You have the opportunity to introduce them to God the Father because you are a walking encounter with God.”
“You are a temple of the Holy Spirit,” he continued. “If you are a temple, you are a meeting place for heaven and earth. You are holy.
“God doesn’t fill temples that are unholy. You were once a sinner saved by grace. But you are not a sinner saved by grace anymore. You are a saint who is a vessel of the kingdom of God coming to earth.
“You need to get over the thinking that you are a sinner that will never get over your issues. Come on. God says you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It is what God did. I am a vessel because of what God did. I am a walking encounter everywhere I go.
“Why do people go to the temple? They want to encounter something that can take care of their needs. You are a walking encounter with God. So when I remember this, cool stuff happens.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
