Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
A Personal Experience
If you know me, I want you to remember who I am. Ask yourself if I am someone you would call a liar. Everyone lies, I do not claim I never do, but I do not make a habit of it. I do not even like to exaggerate. I believe they are both one and the same.
When I was in high school, I played baseball. I loved playing ball. Then late one summer, I developed a lower back problem. Any wrong motion would cause me a very sharp pain in the lower back. A pain so bad it would instantly drop me to my knee.
Every morning when I woke up, I would not be able to just get up from bed. I had to roll over to my stomach, slide my knees off the bed and from my knees I could use the bed to support myself as I rose to my feet. This was depressing because I knew I would not be able to play ball that year if it didn't get better.
One day the pastor of my church made an announcement. He was going to hold a special service on a specific night. I do not remember if it was Sunday or Wednesday night. He would hold a healing service.
Now you need to understand, though the church believed in all the works of the Holy Spirit, I had never seen them hold a healing service.
I attended that service and it was a packed house. Keep in mind this church sat 2,000 people and had a balcony. The balcony was where I sat. As the service went on, the pastor began speaking in tongues. This was not unusual. This church did a lot of speaking in tongues. Something I am not so strong a believer in today. I believe it is real, but not so common, but that is another subject. The pastor was walking back and forth along the front of the stage, speaking in tongues and laying hands on the people who went down there. Just like in some of those televangelist conventions you see on TV, the people he touched were falling backwards to be caught and laid gently down by stewards.
I know the vast majority of people who read this will think this is ridiculous. Those events known as being slain in the spirit are fake. I believed the same way. I still do believe nearly all of what you see on TV is fake. What I now believe however, is that not all of it is fake.
I watched the people being slain in the spirit and the pastor would stop every so often and call for people with certain problems to come down and more people would go down.
I did not believe in this so much as I already said. So I bowed my head and prayed to God. I told God I was not so sure I believed in that and if he wanted me to go down for my back, that He would need to make it very clear to me He wanted me to go down there.
The very moment I said amen, the pastor stopped and began to speak again. I looked up and saw him on the other side of the church, facing away, off to my left. He stopped and said that there was someone out there who has a back problem and they are afraid to come down. He went on to explain in detail how this person had to roll over and slide their legs off the bed and get up from their knees in the mornings. He described it so perfectly and the fact that it happened the very moment I said amen, I could not deny it. God was calling me down.
I went down there and I stood among the others. I had my hands up, worshipping the Lord with my eyes closed. I could hear the pastor draw nearer and all I felt was just a simple soft touch to my forehead and he moved on. My eyes were still closed and I felt myself falling back. I don't remember ever feeling any hands grab me to lay me down. I never felt an impact with the floor. I only felt the motion of my head doing a bit of a bounce as if I had hit the floor. It was like falling on a cloud. I never felt the fear of falling backwards or anything.
I laid there for a while. I don't know if it was a minute or several minutes or half an hour. I laid there praying and worshiping the Lord in my mind, unable to move. After some time passed, I began to feel weird still laying there and I wanted to get up, but I could not move. Not a single muscle. So I continued to just lay there. Suddenly I felt a release. I have no other way to explain it other than I felt a release. With that release, I knew I could move again. I sat up and got to my feet and walked back to my pew in the balcony.
When I got up, I felt no pain in the motion. I never felt any pain that night or the next morning. When I talked to my mother about it, she warned me that the devil would try to take that healing away from me. She said that if I ever felt the pain again, to thank the Lord for healing me. A few days later that happened. It was nothing bad. Just a small twinge of pain in my lower back. I did as my mother told me. I prayed and thanked the Lord for healing me and refused to accept the pain. I have never dealt with that same pain again. I was 16 or 17 when that happened. I am 55 right now. I have dealt with pulled muscles and such but my back has grown weak and out of shape with age, but I have never felt that same pain again.
This is one of a few different experiences I have had that have proven to me that God is in fact real. That jesus is truly Lord. If you know me, you know I would not make this up. If you know me, you know that what I tell you here is the truth. If you do not know me, well, it is up to you whether you wish to believe me or not.
The truth is, we are saved by faith in Jesus. Only those who believe in Jesus as their Savior will go to heaven. If you do not believe, when you die, you will burn in hell. That may not seem logical to you, but I assure you, I can explain why it is, and I do so in the first three articles in this link.... Salvation.
My point however is that God is not going to prove Himself too often to those who do not believe. IF you are waiting for God to prove to you He is real, by the time He does, it may be too late. Because He wants you to have faith that He is real. That Jesus is His son. That Jesus died on the cross to save you and that He raised Jesus from the dead. That is how you are saved. Once you believe that in your heart, and you focus on building a relationship with Him instead of serving the world, that is when He tends to prove Himself to people. The more you believe, the more He proves Himself to you.
This was just one real experience I have had. Two other times I have felt His presence embrace me. He has also revealed things to me through His Word as I have studied it.
I ask you to think about this story. If you know me, you know it is true. If you believe it made up, then you clearly do not know me. And if it is true, then how can you continue to not believe yourself? How can you continue to ignore God in your life when so much evil is happen around us in the world today? Time is truly growing short. The times of the end are drawing very near. The Bible has proven this to me as well. Please do not continue to push the limit of how long you can wait before finally turning to the Lord. For nobody knows when they will die. If you die, it will be too late.
When I was in high school, I played baseball. I loved playing ball. Then late one summer, I developed a lower back problem. Any wrong motion would cause me a very sharp pain in the lower back. A pain so bad it would instantly drop me to my knee.
Every morning when I woke up, I would not be able to just get up from bed. I had to roll over to my stomach, slide my knees off the bed and from my knees I could use the bed to support myself as I rose to my feet. This was depressing because I knew I would not be able to play ball that year if it didn't get better.
One day the pastor of my church made an announcement. He was going to hold a special service on a specific night. I do not remember if it was Sunday or Wednesday night. He would hold a healing service.
Now you need to understand, though the church believed in all the works of the Holy Spirit, I had never seen them hold a healing service.
I attended that service and it was a packed house. Keep in mind this church sat 2,000 people and had a balcony. The balcony was where I sat. As the service went on, the pastor began speaking in tongues. This was not unusual. This church did a lot of speaking in tongues. Something I am not so strong a believer in today. I believe it is real, but not so common, but that is another subject. The pastor was walking back and forth along the front of the stage, speaking in tongues and laying hands on the people who went down there. Just like in some of those televangelist conventions you see on TV, the people he touched were falling backwards to be caught and laid gently down by stewards.
I know the vast majority of people who read this will think this is ridiculous. Those events known as being slain in the spirit are fake. I believed the same way. I still do believe nearly all of what you see on TV is fake. What I now believe however, is that not all of it is fake.
I watched the people being slain in the spirit and the pastor would stop every so often and call for people with certain problems to come down and more people would go down.
I did not believe in this so much as I already said. So I bowed my head and prayed to God. I told God I was not so sure I believed in that and if he wanted me to go down for my back, that He would need to make it very clear to me He wanted me to go down there.
The very moment I said amen, the pastor stopped and began to speak again. I looked up and saw him on the other side of the church, facing away, off to my left. He stopped and said that there was someone out there who has a back problem and they are afraid to come down. He went on to explain in detail how this person had to roll over and slide their legs off the bed and get up from their knees in the mornings. He described it so perfectly and the fact that it happened the very moment I said amen, I could not deny it. God was calling me down.
I went down there and I stood among the others. I had my hands up, worshipping the Lord with my eyes closed. I could hear the pastor draw nearer and all I felt was just a simple soft touch to my forehead and he moved on. My eyes were still closed and I felt myself falling back. I don't remember ever feeling any hands grab me to lay me down. I never felt an impact with the floor. I only felt the motion of my head doing a bit of a bounce as if I had hit the floor. It was like falling on a cloud. I never felt the fear of falling backwards or anything.
I laid there for a while. I don't know if it was a minute or several minutes or half an hour. I laid there praying and worshiping the Lord in my mind, unable to move. After some time passed, I began to feel weird still laying there and I wanted to get up, but I could not move. Not a single muscle. So I continued to just lay there. Suddenly I felt a release. I have no other way to explain it other than I felt a release. With that release, I knew I could move again. I sat up and got to my feet and walked back to my pew in the balcony.
When I got up, I felt no pain in the motion. I never felt any pain that night or the next morning. When I talked to my mother about it, she warned me that the devil would try to take that healing away from me. She said that if I ever felt the pain again, to thank the Lord for healing me. A few days later that happened. It was nothing bad. Just a small twinge of pain in my lower back. I did as my mother told me. I prayed and thanked the Lord for healing me and refused to accept the pain. I have never dealt with that same pain again. I was 16 or 17 when that happened. I am 55 right now. I have dealt with pulled muscles and such but my back has grown weak and out of shape with age, but I have never felt that same pain again.
This is one of a few different experiences I have had that have proven to me that God is in fact real. That jesus is truly Lord. If you know me, you know I would not make this up. If you know me, you know that what I tell you here is the truth. If you do not know me, well, it is up to you whether you wish to believe me or not.
The truth is, we are saved by faith in Jesus. Only those who believe in Jesus as their Savior will go to heaven. If you do not believe, when you die, you will burn in hell. That may not seem logical to you, but I assure you, I can explain why it is, and I do so in the first three articles in this link.... Salvation.
My point however is that God is not going to prove Himself too often to those who do not believe. IF you are waiting for God to prove to you He is real, by the time He does, it may be too late. Because He wants you to have faith that He is real. That Jesus is His son. That Jesus died on the cross to save you and that He raised Jesus from the dead. That is how you are saved. Once you believe that in your heart, and you focus on building a relationship with Him instead of serving the world, that is when He tends to prove Himself to people. The more you believe, the more He proves Himself to you.
This was just one real experience I have had. Two other times I have felt His presence embrace me. He has also revealed things to me through His Word as I have studied it.
I ask you to think about this story. If you know me, you know it is true. If you believe it made up, then you clearly do not know me. And if it is true, then how can you continue to not believe yourself? How can you continue to ignore God in your life when so much evil is happen around us in the world today? Time is truly growing short. The times of the end are drawing very near. The Bible has proven this to me as well. Please do not continue to push the limit of how long you can wait before finally turning to the Lord. For nobody knows when they will die. If you die, it will be too late.