LUNG
CANCER
A WALK
IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH WITH MY GOD
PROLOGUE
“Pass it by me
one more time,” said –this time calmly -my friend.
“Well,” I
repeated, “Suppose that you had 3 people who all, according to the doctors, had
a terminal illness. Let’s say lung cancer; in the same stage every one of them,
identical in all aspects.
All of them
receiving the same treatment and living exactly the same length of life, let’s
say 10 months. Suppose that each of them had kept a diary through their
illness.
Suppose the
first person was a religious one who believed that god sometimes puts sickness
in people to teach them something or because he wants to test them and such
like.
The second
person was an atheist who hoped that the doctors and medicine could save him or
at least help him in some way.
And the third
person was a so called born again Christian. Someone who believes that sickness
is a curse and it is put there by the Devil or by an unwise way of living.
Nevertheless, he believes that is God’s will for people to get healed and he
grasps this doctrine with his whole heart - with both his hands so to speak.
I suggest that
when, after their death, you read each diary, you will find that the first two
people had lived those 10 months, a life more or less, full of cancer. I mean
that their life had being centred around Hospital appointments, treatment of
the cancer, talk of their symptoms and side symptoms and even swings of
depression and such like, a somewhat miserable life to say the least.
I suggest that
you will find the third person, the Christian who believed that God wants him
well, had a ball, so to speak. He lived refusing to accept the sickness and its
symptoms. He had the same treatment like the others and accepted it as a small
part and an interlude if you like, of his normal life but nothing more than
that. He considered the side effects being not results of the sickness but of
the treatment and did not pay too much thought to them.
He prayed
against the pains and he behaved like he was truly healed - and for all
appearances he was - and nothing had any detrimental effect on him. He kept on working and enjoying his life as
before and if you ask the people around him/her, they will tell you that they
did not notice much difference in his/her behaviour and lifestyle than the one
he/she had before the cancer.
I also suggest
that the third person’s life, even under cancer, is a million times more of a
preferable way of living than the life of the other two people.
And I am very
sure that the third person will not die but live much longer than the other
two. And when he/she dies it will be for any other cause but cancer.
God has not told
me how long I am to live but I do know that I am having a ball living this
life, as I have been always having in the last 17 years since Jesus became my
Lord and God.
By the way, I am
going to write a story about this period of my “illness” A diary of shorts,” I
said with a smile.
“UNBELIEVABLE”
“Lung
cancer?” My friend yelled. “You? No
this can’t be, you have such a great faith, you are a man of God, you can’t
have cancer, not you, it is not possible, how can this be true? A friend of
mine died from the same cancer, No way I am going to believe…”
“Calm down” I
cut her short, “To complain of getting sick is like complaining about getting
hungry or/and thirsty and having to eat and drink to survive. You might as well
complain to God about not being able to fly and having to take an airplane to
go to other places and such like nonsense.
I live in a World
corrupted by sin. I am subject to and liable to get any sickness that any other
person in the World is liable to get. This sickness is not because of sin, but
it could be because I used to smoke 80 cigarettes a day for 35 years before I
became a Christian or because of a million other natural or/and spiritual
causes. I am not so spiritual to know all about everything but one thing I know
and that is this; after we become Christians we are the ones, by the power and
grace of the Holy Spirit, that change and not the circumstances of this World.
My God DID offer me healing from any sickness and disease but never promised me
rose gardens.
“I remember
He told me that: You shall face no problem
uncommon to man and even then along with the problem I shall give you the
solution.”
That was on
the morning of Thursday 31st of March 1994 - 17 years ago exactly to
the day I was diagnosed with lung cancer. That was the morning after I gave my
life to Christ and accepted Him as my Lord and Saviour.
“Why would you
allow me to have any problem then? Is it not more sensible not to allow any
problem at all? For to allow problems and give solutions at the same time,
well, it makes no sense to me.” I asked.
“Between the problem and the solution there is a distance called patience
that you never liked to go and you have spent all your life trying to avoid
doing so” He
answered.
“Make no
mistake. I remember all things that happened since that day to the present.
So now I am
diagnosed with lung cancer; fine let's get on with it and please allow my wife
Marion and me to start dealing with it and what we know that is true.
And what is true
is what Jesus Christ told me some time ago.
He said: “I walked into the Bank of Heavenlies where every Person had
an account and every account was in red -fully in debt. Every account was full of Sin, full of Sickness, of Poverty
and of Death. I paid all debts and
closed all accounts. No person owes anything any more. Instead I opened a new account for each
person.”
“But Lord I have
nothing to put in for credit, I will end up owing more than before.” I
said.
“I know you don’t have anything creditable.” Said the Lord with a smile.
“Nobody has; BUT I have and that’s why I
opened a Joint account in both our names. I have credited this account with
forgiveness of sins, Righteousness, Divine health, Life Abundant and supplies
for your every need. Your own task will be to go to the Bank NOT to put
anything into the account but to withdraw what you need whenever you need it.
And above all do not allow the Devil to reopen your old account. Fight him all
of the way. Christianity is not a once-off battle but a life-long war against
the Devil. However, this is a war that I have won for you so don’t let the
Devil steal your victory.”
What’s going on?
It was on
Wednesday 30th of March 2011
-17 years to the day, since I gave my life to Jesus - when I spat blood
into the sink of my shop’s bathroom, Bright red blood it was.
“Whoa, don’t I know this colour of blood? Of
course I do.” I thought.
“Know
this,” I heard my voice saying. “My God is able to deliver me from every kind
of fiery trial but even if He does not I will not bow my knee in front of
NOBODY BUT Jesus of Nazareth.”
“What on
Earth have Abednego and his mates (Daniel 3rd chapter) to do with
me?” I thought.
My mind
went back to the morning of the Thursday 31st of March 1994. Then at
10.25 exactly I spat the same colour of blood.
This was not blood from my gums, nor from my oesophagus nor hiatus
hernia’s blood, this was too bright to be anything of them. Cancer I thought
then, Smoking caught up with me. Eighty cigarettes a day for 35 years have a
price and it seems it’s time for me to pay it.
I started laughing with the irony, only last
night I had given my life to Jesus Christ and I had lost immediately the
craving for nicotine. I had not smoked nor cared anymore about smoking; and now
I had cancer.
“Well it
could not have been cancer that time for by now you would have been dead,” said
very positively, the nice doctor in the hospital.
“By the
way” said I, “Do you know that I had an X Ray in 2005 and they saw a shadow in
my lung but they did not follow it up either.”
“It could not have been cancer that time
either for it would have likewise been developed fully in these six years” he
replied.
“What about
if it were cancer and Jesus had put it in remission until I would be able to
deal with it?” I asked.
“Be serious, don’t be daft” came the reply.
Daft? I
thought. I cast back my mind to the last 17 years.
At that
time I was a person that even the memory of the things I had done and said
would makes me not only be ashamed but even vomit in disgust. I was the lowest
of the low. A slug has and should have more self-respect than the person I was
until that time.
And then
for 3 nights up to Wednesday 30th of March 1994 I started seeing the
same dream, Jesus calling me to go to Him.
“Why me,
how can you have some like me in your family?” I asked Him, “Even I would never
have anything to do with someone like me,” I confessed.
“There is no level so low in hell that My Mercy can’t reach,” I heard Jesus telling me.
And I,
thanks be to God, responded. I went to Him and I accepted him to be the Lord
and God of my life- such as it was He could have it.
At that
time I was living in the streets and cemeteries because I was gambling all my
money away.
I
remembered the last time I gambled. Early May 1994.
I remember
the tears I cried for 3 hours asking God to forgive me for going back to the
addiction that had left me homeless and destroyed my self confidence, self
respect and dignity.
And then
exhausted from crying I fell asleep and I saw a dream where I was a tiny man
into a huge room, hangar like, and I could hear a waterfall and through the
waters a loud voice speaking.
And He
said: “When you called me in your house you did
not expect me to clean it on my own and at once. But you and I will clean it,
every nook and cranny. Get up and cry no more and go pay your debts.”
“You must be
kidding,” I thought. “How on Earth can I pay my debts? I owed to nearly
everyone. I owed to a Credit Union some £2000 and I even owed to numerous
priests to whom I had gone and asked them for money to pay my electricity bills
or rent or by giving any other excuse I could think of, that would help me to
get money out of them. How could I pay
all these people? I did not have a job or any hope of getting one.
“Oh well, it was
only a dream. ” I said to myself.
And yet in a
week I found a job –which in the past I would have stuffed down your throat if
you had offered it to me. That is I had to go around putting leaflets into
house’s mailboxes. I was getting €15 today’s money for a 1000 leaflets. I had
to walk 20 -25 miles to complete the task, and that was in housing estates. In
the county areas I had to walk more than 40 miles to service a thousand houses.
Two to three days work for €15, and yet somehow I did not mind. My attitude to
work had changed.
Jesus is an expert in changing people’s
attitudes. In 18 months I had paid all my
debts but 2 of them, which I had forgotten I owed, but the Lord sure enough
reminded them to me and I paid them off as well.
In 5 years
I was the owner of a small business, in a year more I was married to Marion, a
woman who was and still is, much, much better than my ideal woman. A year after
that I owned my own house, my own car and neither smoked, nor gambled nor
fought nor swore anymore, but peace, blessed peace was the core of my life.
Many people thought I had gone mad but as I put it; “When I was reasonable I
was miserable, now I am mad I am happy, so madness becomes me and so I’m
deciding to stay mad. Period.”
17 years of
happiness, sorry madness, and now here comes a team of doctors that after they
had passed me from X rays, pulmonary tests, scans, pet scans, bronchoscopy and
numerous blood test they tell me that I had malignant lung cancer, metastatic
lymphoma etc.
“Do you
have any pain? Do you take any medicine?” asked the nice doctor.
“When I get
a pain I put my hand on the pain spot and I command the pain in the name of
Jesus Christ to get lost and it does,” I replied.
The doctor
looked at me his eyes widening more by the minute.
“Well look
at it this way,” I said, “if I take panadol, dispirin or something similar,
even if we accept that it will work, it will take half an hour minimum to take
effect.
In my case
praying against pain it takes 2 seconds for the pain to leave. So I feel fine
for 29 minutes and 58 seconds longer than I would if I were taking medicine, so
I will stick with the prayer.”
“The
prognosis is one year maybe 15 months of life” said the nice brochologist, head
of the diagnostic team.
“God bless
you,” I said “but I am going to my God and Healer for His prognosis and I know
he will ask me to stay around for much longer than that.
“God some
times lets people down doesn’t He?” quipped Kathy the nurse.
“No He does
not,” snapped both my wife and I.
“Well, we
will leave Him be in Heaven for now” said Kathy being taken back by our
reaction to her words.
“No we
won’t, He is in us and He stays there,” replied even more sternly both Marion
and I.
Kathy
looked at us bemused and decided to go to speak to another patient.
“Doctors
and nurses are sceptics you know,” mused my sister in law, who herself is a
nurse.
“Indeed many people that believe in God also
believe that it is God’s will for them to be sick.”
“They do if
they believe in a false and weakling of a God but they should not if they
believed in the real God,” said I.
“What do
you mean?” she asked.
“A god that
puts sickness in people for any reason at all is not a loving god.” I
explained.
“Surely you
don’t push your children under an oncoming truck to teach them how to cross the
street. And even more surely when your children ask you for bread you don’t
give them a snake, do you?
If then you
who are human don’t treat your children so cruelly, how can you believe that
the God of Love would do to His children what you would never dream to do?
And if a
doctor and nurse succeed to heal the sick –which in itself is an act against
the will of that god – then that doctor and nurse are stronger than this god.
This in itself proves that this god is a weakling and can’t be the God almighty
but a phoney god.” Said I smiling.
“Furthermore,
every person that believes that God wants him sick and dares to go to a doctor
to be healed, defies this god. So if he really believed in such a god he should
have stayed home waiting to die there. Of course only an idiot would expect a
doctor or any other human being to be able to overrule the will and power of
the true God.
Also a
Christian that believes that our Father in heaven wants him sick is like
declaring that there is, not only rebellion in heaven but even schizophrenia.
For the Father and the Son are one, and if the one person of the Trinity – the
Father, puts sickness in people and the other - Jesus Christ the Son of God
heals them, then we have rebellion to say the least. For Jesus did go around
healing ALL SICK people. And He STILL DOES.
But even
more importantly, He did always claim that what He was doing was what His
Father wanted and taught Him to do. And He Jesus healed them because it was the
will of the Father. And that proves that the true God does not put sickness in
people, He is not cruel but loving and caring and wants them well. And for that
reason, His love, He sent His only begotten Son to save the World. And He
healed them all, not a few, not many but all. God does not play dice to see
whom He will save and whom He won’t. He saved us all and He healed us all, it
is up to us to accept it or reject it but let us not pass the buck to God.
Jesus
became curse for us, that is, He took our sins, our infirmities upon Him so we
can receive the blessing of Abraham, By His wounds we were healed. Only a
misguided, ignorant, blind person taught by religion rather than by God could
disregard the evidence of love and blessings of God to all of us, which is
stated and proved most clearly not only in the Bible but also in our lives. It
is total madness and a fatal act indeed to disregard the real evidence and to
believe instead in a cruel, horrible lie against the God of Love. That’s what I
mean,” said I and closed my eyes and prayed for her to see the Truth.
“How do you know
that it was the Lord that told you to take the treatment?” Asked my friend
bewildered.
“I know His
voice,” said I.
“Well I always
recognize Him because He speaks a language that I understand, it could be
English but nuances and the expressions when He talks to me are very personal
and don’t come from any known source, not even from my subconscious.
Like when I
started spitting blood the story in the 3rd chapter of Daniel
(about the 3 Jewish children) had no connection with my mind.
Left on my own I
would have quoted Scripture from the New Testament rather than from the Old
Testament. So from things like that and other similar things I know when my
spirit is hearing from the Lord or when someone else tries to pretend that is
the Lord. Furthermore His tone is always so gentle that even the gentlest
person can’t imitate it.
The Devil can
pretend as much as he likes that he is the angel of light but his light has
neither warmth nor gentleness in his appearance or his talk whatsoever. He
can’t pretend that he loves me for there is only hatred in his voice and his
pretence is easily uncovered.
In this case of
accepting the treatment; well, it started with my beautiful wife coming and
saying:
“Basilis I don’t
feel in peace about you not having treatment,”
“But love,”
I said,
“You know
that we followed and adhered to the law of healing that our Lord instructed us
to. We prayed and commanded the death of cancer. We went and asked to be prayed
and anointed with oil by the very elders that our Lord Himself after prayer,
revealed to us that He wanted us to be prayed by.
We believe
with all our hearts that the Lord is faithful, by His stripes we were healed
and for that reason we don’t allow any sickness to inhabit our bodies.
I am not
going to have chemotherapy for I am fine. I am not in denial, I don’t deny I
had cancer but I do believe that after commanding it to die in the Name of
Jesus that is dead indeed.
I feel fine
and I don’t think I should have treatment for a disease that is no more in me.
But since I
know you are a child of God and you hear from Him often so I will go to the
Lord for instructions and whatever He instructs me I will do, I promise you.”
……………………………
“Anybody
else and I would not bother asking you,” I said to the Lord Jesus.
“But my wife is a different kettle of fish as
you know yourself. She hears more from you than I ever do, so here I am and
asking for directions. I don’t want to take treatment but she says she does not
feel in peace about my decision so if you have other instructions for me I will
like to hear them and of course I will do whatever you tell me.” And I prayed
He would agree with me not to take the treatment.
Two minutes
passed in silence.
“Would you say that the blind man that I spat and put mud in
his eyes and asked him to wash in Siloam, owes me fewer thanks than Blind
Bartimeus? After all he had to walk
with muddy eyes for a distance where Bartimeus had to do only a few steps to
come to me to be healed. So he worked so to speak harder than Bartimeus. Should
he be less grateful than Bartimeus? What do you think?” asked
the Lord.
“I think
that both of them owe you the same gratitude,” I replied.
“Who are you to tell me how I will heal you? ” Jesus
asked very gently.
“Oh Lord,
this is not my objection but it is that if I take the treatment then people
will give credit for my healing to the medicine and doctors and not to you.
That is my problem,” said I weeping.
“If you had a scan this very moment and you were found clear
of cancer, people will say that the doctors made a mistake and you never had
any sickness.
If you get healed through treatment people will believe that doctors
healed you. The question is not what people believe but what you believe. Your
testimony is always for your own sake not for others. You will always find
people that will accept even the biggest lie as the truth itself and others
that will disregard even the truest testimony as false. It is you and your
belief that counts. I told you before, it is not your business what other
people think; you follow me, Take the treatment,” He said.
“I will take the
treatment said I to Marion.
“God told
me to take the treatment so go ahead and do what you will, I will take the
treatment,” I said to the Doctors.
“Well we can’t
give you Radiotherapy for the field is too large and we will damage more cells
than we care for,” said the nice doctor. “The cancer has spread in your
mediastinum –in lymph nodes, and has passed on the top of the other lung. So we
will give you three months of chemotherapy and we will see after that. This
being the first time you will have 3 drugs and the session will last some 7
hours.”
“Thank you” said
I, and watched Kathy the nurse trying to find a vein to set the line. I looked
around the room at the other people that already were receiving chemo.
“Now I have to
give you all the details about the drugs that you will receive and the side
effects of each one,” chirped Kathy.
“Leave it out,”
said I. “I will read the notes later.”
“No, I must tell
you I am obliged to do so by law.” she insisted.
And I stayed
there looking at her lips moving - squeezing the hand of Marion’s and blocking
out Kathy’s voice that was quoting all the side effects that I was -or supposed
to get. I tried to be very polite to her, it was not her fault that I did not
care for all this procedure and I was sorry for her that she had to repeat all
these thing to someone like me who could not care less for any of these things.
Praise God she
did not realize my total indifference to her words for I liked and I
appreciated the kindness and politeness that all the nurses and Doctors showed
not only to me, but also to each and every patient in their care. God bless
them and I thank God for them.
READING MATERIAL
“Why did you not
want to hear about the side effects?” asked another friend.
“Well” said I.
“I gave up reading medical stuff when I read in the first page of a website
informing about cancer, that if you have cancer is good to be positive but it
is not good to have unreasonable expectations. So because these two statements,
positivity and unreasonable expectations, according to me, are contradictory to
each other, I thought of asking them what yardstick do they use to measure what
is reasonable and what is unreasonable expectation?
Is it an
expectation to live a year positive and reasonable and what about an
expectation for 2 years? When does the unreasonable expectation start? 16
months? 26 months maybe? 3 weeks?
What about my
certainty that I am healed by the Grace, Love and Power of God. Is it an
unreasonable certainty and how much of it should I abstract or add?
Don’t you see
that every word and advice of this World is for the people of this World and
not for us?” I smiled at my friend.
“We have our own
Advisor the Holy Spirit, who gives us His own brand of Wisdom, why would we
bother about the World’s knowledge and wisdom that comes to nothing when we
have the Great I AM to guide us in our ways. I thank God that the piece about
positive and unreasonable expectations was in the first page of the cancer
website and so I did not have to read further than that and waste my time any
more.”
Finally, I know
and accept that I am the least of all people to give advice about spiritual
things and definitely the last to pass any advice to a cancer patient or to
anybody else about what to read or what to do.
I can only say what I did myself and before any person does the same let
him/her go to the Lord Jesus to ask for instructions.
Some Friends
gave me books and videos of healing sermons by Copeland ministries, Andrew
Womack Ministries, Charles Capps, Dodie Osteen. All these I read and watched
the DVDs and I enjoyed all and I was greatly encouraged doing so.
I excluded all
Worldly books and newspapers. I refused to watch news on Television and even in
the Internet I slowly restricted my watching only to sport pages.
But more than
anything else I increased my time I spend with the Lord to two –three
fold. The revelation I got in these
last two months since the diagnosis has been 20 times more than I had had in
the last 17 years of my walk with the Lord.
The devil tried
to condemn me by accusing me that I increased my time with the Lord because I
was with cancer.
I told him to
get lost and to mind his own business; I belong to Jesus and to nobody else so
beat it.
After all you
need a life ring and/or life jacket when you are drowning and not when you are
in dry land. So what’s more natural to go to Jesus when you are in trouble? And
when has anybody ever found Jesus reluctant to help, to comfort, to strengthen
when a person is in trouble? NEVER. He
has been always the rock I stood on, my comforter, my guide my friend.
Today is 7th
of June 2011, nearly 70 days after the diagnosis, and He has spoken and
encouraged both Marion and me numerous times.
OF VISIONS AND
MESSAGES
Mind you, I
don’t ask anybody to believe that the following were messages from the Lord
Jesus.
What I am saying
is that both Marion and I are certain that these messages were truly from the
Lord to us as a couple and they gave us great comfort and strength, but I don’t
ask anybody else to accept them either way.
…………………………..
·
On the 15th
of April the Lord told me to go to ask the elders to pray for me and to anoint
me with oil.
“Where and which
elders” I asked. “I am not committed
member of any church so to which church do I go to ask them for their prayers
and anointing me with oil?”
The Lord told me
the church and the people I should go.
I won’t mention
their names as all the Christians are the same and equal loved by God and I
don’t want anybody to think that the Lord chose those brothers and sisters for
they were better than anybody else; for that is not the truth. We are all equal
in His sight.
I did what the
Lord told me, that’s all.
·
I was reading
Romans 8:26, “for the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we don’t
know what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit Himself makes
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
“Don’t you think that if I can help in the spiritual weakness that I am able to
help also in your physical weakness?”
Asked the Lord.
“Praise God that
not only you can help but you are also willing to do so” I said.
Oh yes I forgot
to mention that I had a bad back pain which left straight away after that.
“When the Devil attacks you with physical pain, use the weapon
of praise and thanksgiving to stop the attack. When he attacks you through
other people then use the weapon of intersession. Intersession for other people
can even free these people away from the trap of the Devil and turn them to
God. Nothing is more hateful to Devil
than seeing people escaping his clutches.
And don’t stop your counter attack if you don’t see the victory
immediately. Keep on attacking the Devil for the harder the war the greater the
victory and greater will be your growth spiritually.” the Lord advised me.
·
On the 3rd
of May, He told me that He had not given me His armour for me to be beaten up
to a pulp but to fight the enemy with it.
What happened
was that a sister in Christ phoned me to say that she heard that I was with
lung cancer. She went on to say that at the moment indeed, she had a friend
dying with the same kind of cancer. I told her I would pray for her and her
friend and put down the phone.
My wife Marion
was very much put out and really upset by such a discouraging and indiscreet
phone call.
That night I was
attacked by pains all over my body. I stayed until 4.25 in the morning reciting
psalm 23 and Isaiah 41:10,13 over and over.
At 4.25 in the morning – I looked at the clock- the word “your
sermon” flashed on my mind. I only had one sermon. The kingdom of Heaven is
taken by the violent.
Never play dead
with the devil. I hate the Devil with all my heart so much that I take pleasure
in fighting him. For even if I lose a battle even then I know I have damaged
him even a little bit in some way and that’s my pleasure.
Imagine the
degree of my pleasure I get winning the war.
“So what are you
doing laying there being beaten to a pulp” came flashing another thought. “Get
up and fight; fight everything and everyone that will come between God’s gift
of healing and yourself receiving it.”
“How stupid can I get,” I screamed at
myself.
So I got up and
attacked the Devil with the Sword of the Spirit and with all my anger I felt
against him. One minute later the pain had gone.
In the morning I
called Marion and I was ready to tell her that we had sinned. But she spoke
first herself and she said that she was feeling very sad that we had taken
offence against the sister who had discouraged us the night before with her
report about her friend. We both agreed that she most probably did not mean any
harm and she just made a simple mistake. But we by taking offence against her
we had opened our door to the Devil to attack us.
“I prefer to
fight the Devil in the next neighbourhood rather than on my doorstep,” said I.
Both Marion and
I repented there and then and asked our God to forgive us for getting upset
against the Christian lady of the night before.
Peace returned
instantly in our hearts.
In the morning
of the Friday 27th of May I promised –like I do every morning – that
I was going to glorify Him by loving people no matter what they will do and say
against me.
A half an hour
later a driver crossed the road by trying to overtake a car and started hurling
straight at me. I flushed my lights to warn him that it was dangerous to do so;
he started gesturing profanities at me. I blessed him and did not pay much
attention.
In the afternoon
as I was coming home, a taxi driver called me a moron, I am still trying to
figure out why. My wife told me not to lose my peace but I got so angry with
him that I started getting out of my car so to ask him for explanations of his
manner, but he drove off before I was out of my car.
Few minutes
later I felt crest fallen and a real idiot that I had got so angry because
someone swore at me, “so what?” I thought. It was not the first time, “what’s
the problem with you?” I screamed at myself.
I stopped at a
church, I confessed I was indeed a moron since I got angry for such a stupid
thing and I asked the Lord to forgive me.
But as I had not
forgiven myself when I went home I went upstairs alone in my room and started
crying for being angry with the taxi driver and I asked God to help me. I saw
myself as a toddler 3 years old stretching my arms up and bawling; “I am only a
child I don’t know what to do and how to go about pleasing you. Give me a task
of good works so I can forget my bad behaviour. Please Jesus, but if you talk
to me this time let it be from the outside not the small voice inside me not
the thought no nothing but the voice from the outside, Please, please.”
What else could
you expect from a toddler?
I went
downstairs and my wife started crying. “What is wrong what are you crying for?”
I asked her alarmed.
“Because you are
crying” she answered still crying.
Talk about
sympathy pains.
I went to watch
the God channel. There was a preacher I liked but I did not like the subject
she was dealing with at the moment. So I flicked the channel, and there was a
preacher that I did not like because of the way he was dressed – I am a
cantankerous person am I not?
Anyway, I was
ready to flick the channel to another one when the guy looked straight at the
monitor and he pointed and said:
“Why do you come
down from the Mercy seat and you want to be justified by the works of the
law? The law was into the arc of the
Covenant; the Mercy seat was above it. God forgives you when you confess your
sin because of what Jesus did for you and not for what you good you did or what
good you will do to be forgiven. Mercy, not the law, justifies you.”
“Of course it
does,” said I and I asked God to forgive me for my self-righteousness asking to
be justified by doing good rather than accepting His Great gift of Grace.
And then another
preacher named Joyce Meyer came on the screen and she looked straight at me and
said: “I know you hear me, I know you tell God every morning that you are going
to please Him today and you screw up every day, so what? We all do one way or
another. The trick is to go to Him, to spend time with Him, to praise Him, to
get strength, God loves you does not hold it against you because you fail, God
loves you.”
“Yes I know
that, ” I replied, “God help me I am talking to a television screen, I have
gone totally bananas.” I thought to myself.
“I know that and
I do spend time with our Father” I continued. “The trouble is that when the
anger comes is unexpected and the first 2 seconds is the ones that fail me. It
is then I move to get out of the car to
have a fight, if I could control myself these 2 seconds all would be Ok,” I
explained to the television!
Joyce Meyer
looked up back at me: “Oh I know how difficult is to control your anger the
first few moments after it raises up inside you, but when you are with the Lord
in the morning prepare yourself thinking of the possible situations you will
face. Make a decision not to react and when and if the anger comes turn to the
Lord and say: Jesus help me.”
“I don’t believe
it, she is answering your questions. It is like she is able to hear you,” said
Marion with a surprised voice.
I picked my jaw
from the floor: “She sure does,” I stammered. “Talk about asking the Lord to
speak to me from the outside not inside me. He would do anything to help his
children, even spoiled brats like me. To Him be Glory and my Thanks.”
And then I saw
myself as a 3 year old again, only this time I was not crying nor stretching my
arms up to the Lord. For this time He had lifted me up in his arms and I had
put my arms around His neck and I was perfectly happy. The last thing on my
mind was healing or anything else of this World. And I don’t know how long it
lasted but I would not have cared if it had lasted an eternity.
But I heard a
voice saying that: “God is Holy and nothing
unclean can survive close to Him. Sickness is evil and can’t survive close to
Him. So draw close to God and no sickness will ever survive in you.”
Marion came in
from the kitchen room she was studying the Bible and she said she had a message
from God and she read it to me.
It was 1
Corinthians 3:16, “Don’t you know that you
yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone
destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred and you
are that temple.”
“When sickness
tries to destroy the body of a Christian which is the God’s temple God will
destroy that sickness.” Said Marion.
Well I never
heard this Bible verse applied to sickness but praise God for His revelation.
I was greatly
encouraged once more.
On the Sunday 29th
I slept and I had a lovely dream. I saw I was in a bright valley with lovely
colours. One Sun but each ray had a different colour but all were very bright.
I was happily walking along when I found myself into a dark forbidding valley.
And there was an
old man who looked at me with hatred and said that it was time for him to kill
me.
He was some 10
feet high and I was like a grasshopper in his sight and he was a giant in mine.
Still I faced him and shouted at him: “I am not afraid of you, no weapon formed
against me can kill me and my God is my Shepherd. He sets a table for me in
front of my enemies, My God will never leave nor forsake me and his rod and
staff comfort me.” And then a huge warrior some 50 feet tall came down from the
sky and he was dressed in full armour and He had a rod in his hand and He
passed it to me; and when I touched the rod I started growing in height to the
same height that the warrior was. And the old man was like a mosquito in my
site and I could see the terror in his face. . And I lifted my hand and I
backhanded that filthy entity and I watched him disappear like a bullet in the
distance. And maybe it was my imagination but I could feel the warrior was
pleased, as for me I knew I was delighted.
On the Monday 30th
of May as Marion and I were reading a lovely little booklet that a Catherine
O’Brien -precious sister in Christ had put together a scripture came out and
hit us between the eyes so to speak.
I had read this
scripture possibly 400 times by then but never jumped out like that, neither to
Marion nor me.
It was John
14:19, “Because I live, you also will live.”
And after that
my friends, one thing I have to say, is this: “I will continue say that for 17
years since I became a Christian, I had a great, really beautiful life and I
don’t lie. But since I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer some 75 days
ago, I don’t have just a lovely, beautiful life but a Real BALL.
Nothing can
change the fact for Marion and myself that the closer you draw to God the
greater life you have and nothing, no matter what it is, even a terminal,
according to the Doctors, disease that tries to hinder this bliss that you get
being with Jesus can succeed in spoiling it.
And I am not a
betting man thanks God not any more,
still I believe that the bliss of being near to God will destroy the
sickness instead the other way around.
In the Name of
Jesus and with Jesus To God the Father and the Holy Spirit be Glory, Thanks,
Power, Honour and my gratitude forever and ever. Amen
SCRIPTURES
In the Bible, I
have not a favourite scripture, however, I use Scripture according to the need
of the moment.
In this case of
Cancer I use:
Joshua 1: 9,
Isaiah 41:10,13, Hebrews 13:5.
Psalm 18: 1-3.
Psalm 91, Psalm 103
Romans 8 and
many, many others.
However the ones
I try never to forget are the,
Ephesians
6:13 “…. And having done all STAND.
James
4:7, “Therefore submit to God. RESIST the Devil and he will flee from you.
1
Peter 5:9, “. RESIST the Devil STEADFAST in the faith…
I found out, a
long time ago, that is fatal to roll over and play dead with the Devil. He has
no mercy for me and he will never stop attacking me.
But that does
not bother me for I am more than conqueror through Jesus that loves me and I
have found out that if I stand up to the Devil and fight him there is not a
chance in a trillion that he can overcome Christ Jesus the Lord of all.
There is nothing
but nothing that the Devil can do to win any fight against Jesus. So it is up
to people to laugh at the Devil or to get scared of him.
Personally I
find him detestable and any pleasure I ever get out of coming in contact with
him is when I see him under my feet.
EPILOGUE
Some people said
that it is too early to finish this booklet and I should wait to see the result
of the treatment etc.
Result of
what? I believe that Christ never
changes, He was, is and He will always be the same. So what’s the point of
waiting to see any change? Change of what, of whom?
Let me finish by
trying one more time to make my point, my belief nay my knowledge very clear.
If I had not
given my life to Christ in 1994, I would be dead and buried by now. Either
killed by the company I was keeping at the time or from the life-style I was
living – addictions etc. But even if I had survived for even 2 months more of
that kind of life, then, I would have killed myself. For that life I was living
was absolute Hell and I would not have gone living for very much longer, not
willingly.
Now, after
giving my life to Jesus, for 17 years I have had a ball, a great life, a true
life, and a happy life. The rest is cheap philosophy.
Christ is all
that counts not I, His Glory does not faint nor my thanks and praise to Him and
with Him to our Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.