Remember Love

The Day a Deaf Girl Taught Me How to Minister

*photo: Canva Ai

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G’day Everyone and welcome to another edition of The Holy Go!

A special welcome to my new subscribers who I met at the Operation Mobilisation Leaders Retreat, where I had the privilege of speaking about mission as Overflow.

Over the past month or two we have been looking at Love being the motivation, and Love being the message of discipleship.

This week we turn our attention to the method… and you guessed it, it is Love. I believe the “How” we do ministry is of extreme importance.

Equip

Remember Love

One day I was overseas and visiting a Compassion project. As we were leaving they asked us to pray for them. The more we prayed for people, the more prayer they wanted.

At one stage they brought to us one of the staff’s daughters who was deaf. We all began praying for her. Pretty quickly people were passionately shouting and praying out loud. However, I looked at this young girl and she looked terrified.

I stopped everyone from praying, and told them to look at the girl, pray in faith, and try not to scare her. We prayed again but nothing seemed to happen. I wondered if I had just stopped the passion that would lead to her healing…

We continued praying for others, and as we did it was like Heaven manifest right in front of us. We could all sense the tangible presence of God, people were crying before The Lord, lying down on the floor, and there was an overwhelming sense of the holiness of God.

I looked up and the deaf girl caught my attention. She was now sitting on the side of the hall and I felt prompted to pray for her. I wondered over to her and motioned with my hands if I could pray for her. She looked at me and smiled and gave me a little nod. I prayed a simple prayer,

“In Jesus name, ears open!”

I then asked her, “Can you hear me?”

Straight away she said yes! The woman sitting next to us was absolutely shocked. She had known this little girl her whole life and was awestruck at what had just happened.

I went and found the mum on the floor crying. She was on the other side of the room and so I told her what had just happened to her daughter. Excitedly she got up and as she did, she called out her daughters name across the room. The daughter who could now hear looked straight at her! The whole room erupted in praise as they realised this girl was healed.

As we left I was told this young ladies name. I can’t remember how to say it in the local language, but it was translated “Love.” Her name was love. As I sat on the bus and reflected on what had just happened, I sensed God say,

“James, remember Love!”

The Two Meanings

When I heard those words I immediately knew it had two meanings.

First, remember “Love” the little girl. When we are preaching the gospel and ministering, remember the person in front of you has a name.

The Lord has convicted me on several occasions when I have realised that I loved ministry more than the person in front of me. It is easy to get caught up in doing good, that we can easily forget that the whole reason we do what we do is because each individual person matters to God.

Secondly, remember “Love” is how we operate. Whether we are preaching, serving, feeding, or whatever else we may do, we must remember to do it in love.

Love is our motivation.
Love is our message and,
Love is out method.

Integrity

I believe integrity is when there is no gap between our words and actions. When we share the gospel of love, we must remember to love at the same time. When our words and actions don’t match up, we end up hurting people and perverting the gospel.

How we do ministry matters.

Therefore, we must always remember Love.

Activate

This weeks challenge is about acknowledging peoples names.

Is there someone you regularly see who you don’t their name? Make it your goal this week to ask their name, then remember it and use it next time you see them.

Another option is when shopping, refer to people by the name on their name tags. Take notice how people react when they feel seen and valued.

Let’s Go!