Pondering Reports of Healings and Resurrections
I minister healing all the time and, frankly, more people have stayed sick than have been healed. Some have even died. However, for those who HAVE been healed, it’s a glorious moment.
As Cal Pierce says, “Healing is difficult only when you believe you have anything to do with it.”  I understand that my job is to pray and obey, not to heal. I know nothing about healing. But I DO know the Healer. So, I lay hands as the Spirit leads and see what happens. Sometimes, it’s miraculous and instantaneous. AT other times, it’s progressive, as was the case with the healing of my own “incurable spinal disease.”
I find it very interesting how, as I’ve ministered by phone to those in 3rd world countries, many healings are reported afterward. By phone, mind you! Is America a giant Nazareth with so few miracles taking place here that, when some actually DO occur, we cannot help but argue about their validity rather than seek God for more miracles in our OWN ministries? Does attacking a healing ministry divert attention from our OWN ministerial impotence?
Let’s bear in mind that Jesus Himself was limited to what He could do in His own hometown. In Mark 6:4-6, Jesus said, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.”
DYING TO SEE A RESURRECTION?
Here’s a thought to consider: Every single person that Jesus ever healed eventually actually died.
Among His amazing miracles, Jesus had to pray twice for a blind man (Mk 8:23-250, He had to clear the room with Jairus’s daughter for the lack of faith (Mk 5:40) but healed the woman with the issue of blood in a crowd (Mk 5:24-34) and the lepers were not healed on the spot but “as they went,” we are told (Lk 17:14).
In regard to the reported resurrections coming from Todd Bentley’s Lakeland Revival and Todd’s apparent lack of proof of the many being reported, truth is, let’s remember that resurrections happen every day all over the world. Whether it’s by CPR, an ambulance driver’s defibrillator  (CLEAR!), or those whose hearts stop beating but started beating again in a few moments.
How long must a person be dead to be considered dead any way?
Resurrections won’t always make the evening news. My goodness, God is doing all kinds of miraculous things on the battlefields of Iraq but all that makes the news are body counts.  I’ve even experienced two resurrections in my own ministry and neither made the news. I’ve also had people get out of their wheel chairs and, well…no big deal.
My friend, Jim Rutz, wrote a wonderful, faith-building book called “MegaShift” which documents incredible miracles and even resurrections, complete with contact people, just in case anybody wants to ask. I’ve found that people remain skeptical and, so far, none has bothered to ask the contacts provided. It was glaringly obvious as we read this book that most all of these miracles were taking place in third world nations. Bummer. That REALLY needs to change. Is it? Is that what’s happening at Lakeland and elsewhere these days?
Please hear my heart on this: I’m NOT the world’s biggest Todd Bentley fan. He IS our brother, however, and Jesus IS being preached in Lakeland, at least every time I’ve watched on my computer. I would like to scold him into stopping some of quirks and things that strike me as plain weird. But I would have said the same to Isaiah for walking around naked for 3 years, Ezekiel for laying down on his left side for 390 days and then on his right for 40 more, and to Jesus for coming as a babe in a manger and for not kicking some booty before letting them catch Him and crucify Him.
In other words, God’s ways are apparently not mine. I just read how, in the 1880’s, Billy Sunday would thump his chest, tear off his coat, collar and tie, leap up on chairs, and fling himself on the floor in imitation of a ball player sliding into home plate! Millions flocked to see him. What Billy could have done with GodTV and the InterNet!
You get the picture.
While listening to the Holy Spirit’s instructions, I’ve done some pretty strange things myself. I’ve had people lay down on the floor while we ministered healing to them. I’ve been led to stick my fingers in people ears twice, hugged a man until he bawled, sang over a sick baby till she stopped crying, given all my money away (all that I had, about $400), gave two cars away…I even cleared a pathway in the woods, knocking down five trees, to build an aisle for weddings. Though I appeared quite nutty for doing so, I KNEW God told me we would be doing weddings in the woods. Two years past by. We just did our first wedding there last weekend! Beautiful!
We need to start thinking outside the box…outside the Ark of the Old Covenant and the prescribed ways of ministry. God’s already “out there” actively doing things, some of which doesn’t happen to line up with our own puny belief systems and programming. Be advised: Among all those who side for or against Bentley lie dozens of other beliefs that would amount to many more factions.
GREAT BALL O’ FIRE!
I was in attendance when Todd came to Denton. We traveled 3 hours and met many friends there. If anyone attends these meetings out of curiosity, that’s their problem. If anyone attended as one following after signs and wonders, bad Christian, bad (signs and wonders should be following YOU). Those who went because they were very sick, in many cases, were obviously desperate for a healing manifestation. Not from Todd, I hope, but from God. I was seated in the nosebleed section, basically looking down on the stage into Todd’s right ear hole. Early after he took the stage, I was startled by a bright fireball bouncing down the center aisle and disappearing as it bounced upon the platform! My sister, seated next to me, noticed that I reacted strangely. I thought it was an act of terrorism! Oddly, nobody else moved. Apparently, nobody saw what I saw. I made two quick cell phone calls to friends I had spotted around the auditorium. They looked at me in amazement and shook their heads. They had seen nothing.
Afterward, at an IHOP restaurant, I was sharing what I had seen with a group in the parking lot. One man, a good friend, overheard me and said, “I saw that, too! It looked as bright as a laser, right?” Yes, it was that intensity of red!
Don’t ask me what that was all about except that Todd had just been talking about fiery coals. Very strange. Very wonderful!
It was definitely a sign that made me wonder.

I received a call early this morning. A man for whom we have been praying – a married man with children who worked for the Sheriff’s Department in my community – died of last night.

Many people knew him. We thought, “How great for God to heal such a high visibility person. Surely THIS would bring revival to our town as he would share his testimony of how Jesus healed him!”

We were encouraged by the reports of his recent “good days” as well as a vision that one of our friends had in which he was walking and even dancing around his hospital room.

I recently read some comments by a man I’ll call “Ricky” who made some statements that “very few were being healed at Lakeland.” I wondered if he, or you, were aware of these facts:

A 1990 Gallop poll found that 74% of Americans claimed to have made “a commitment to Christ,” yet George Barna’s Research revealed that 84% of born-again Christians deny that there is a Devil, a hell, or a Christian doctrine.

Read that again. Translation: Most born-again Christians are in very sad shape. That explains a great deal.

I am amazed that we spend so much time and money on missions trips. Over all, by the millions, Americans are jumping at the chance to become missionaries - with one key stipulation: we expect to get our comfortable lives back very shortly, leaving the poor indigenous people behind.

Not every missionary experience is noteworthy or exemplary. I spoke with a young woman who was a missionary to several countries. She raised tens of thousands of dollars for her short-term missions excursions but sadly says of these trips, “I don’t think my trips really helped anybody at all. Except me.” Regarding the great deal of money she was able to raise simply by mailing letters to church members, family and friends, she admits, in all seriousness, that most people probably supported her “because I’m cute.”

We need a Hero!

I was driving over 3 hours to minister on Tuesday when my oldest son, Justin, called.

We talked for two hours.

Folks, that NEVER happens.

But Justin had a story to tell.

Last Saturday night, he and his wife, Sara, were coming home from a party here in Texas. He wanted to leave at 11 but she talked him into leaving at midnight for their drive home to Stephenville.

Following are the FIRST FOUR PAGES of my eBook “Eight Things I Hate ABout Jesus.”

If you’re interested in reading the entire eBook, you can download it FREE with the click of your mouse HERE!

I just wanted to bless you today!

by Michael Tummillo
06/16/08
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

SEND A PRIVATE MESSAGE Mail
HIRE THIS WRITER

A minister once wrote anonymously requesting prayer from me. He had been having an affair for many years, meeting a woman in a hotel about halfway between their two cities. He used the Scripture, “like a dog returns to its vomit” to describe their relationship and lamented that, to make the matter known as a matter of prayer could cost him his job, his reputation and his marriage. He added that the two, have grown to hate each other.”

As a man who has experienced and witnessed many miraculous healings over the years - including