A NEW YEAR AGENDA FOR MEN

As that meeting progressed, such laws like liberalisation of abortion, recognition of same-sex marriage were used as examples. But it could be deduced that regulations and policies that make free and fair elections difficult, if not impossible; a rotational arrangement that throws up such political permutations that leads to the removal of the right of a vice-president to act as president even while his principal is incapacitated, cannot meet this standard. A wholesome, godly agenda for men for the year and beyond must therefore include a consciousness of events in our environment and a readiness to join with others in influencing public policies and related matters

By the time you read this, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua may well have returned home from medical exile in Saudi Arabia. If the media is to be believed, it won't be because he is well enough to resume work as captain of the drifting ship of the state known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It won't be because his presence in person, well or not, has become a matter of life or death for the nation. It would simply be because a certain cabal, claiming to be representing the interest of a certain geo-political region of the country, love the nation too much to let her out of their stranglehold. It would be because we operate a socio-political system based on the basest of instincts: everyone for himself, the devil can take the hindmost.

The events of the recent past have demonstrated very clearly that we are a people governed, not by laws or conventions or principles, but by expediency. We are a people who have forsaken the path of honour, equity and justice and therefore, the God whose quintessence is located in these attributes. Yet it's this same God that we claim to worship.

All of this reminds me of the kernel of one item on the agenda for Christian men, set at the last Men's Breakfast Roundtable, a monthly event of KINGDOM MEN. It developed from a presentation by Chris Azu Aligbe, who some readers might recall, was image maker of Nigeria Airways, our defunct national carrier. Now an aviation and communication consultant, Chris is also a sub-council member of the Catholic Church’s Knights of St Mulumba. He pointed out that all human activities, all interpersonal engagements, all laws and conventions put in place by society, must be built around the dignity of the human person. This is for the simple reason that God made man in his image and after his likeness. For laws, conventions and public policies to be valid and earn our obedience and support, they must be such that honour the God-image in man.

As that meeting progressed, such laws like liberalisation of abortion, recognition of same-sex marriage were used as examples. But it could be deduced that regulations and policies that make free and fair elections difficult, if not impossible; a rotational arrangement that throws up such political permutations that leads to the removal of the right of a vice-president to act as president even while his principal is incapacitated, cannot meet this standard. A wholesome, godly agenda for men for the year and beyond must therefore include a consciousness of events in our environment and a readiness to join with others in influencing public policies and related matters.

Rev Ajibola Oluyede, a lawyer who pastors the Ikeja Centre of Christ Chapel International Churches (where I worship) agreed. A politician of the Tunji Braithwaite wing of the progressive movement himself, he pointed out that, the motivation for putting engagement with public policy issues on a man's agenda must be love; love, as in agape, selfless, unconditional love. Even where the issues involved might not hurt or affect your interest directly, perhaps because of your social or economic status, you still have a duty to the vulnerable segment of society to get involved. As Christian men we are commanded to love one another as Christ loved us, and therefore to be our brother's keeper.

Responding to a contribution by one of the scores of men present, on the need for verbal de-escalation in the engagement process, he said if our involvement is love-driven, it would include love for those we might even consider responsible for, and/or are benefiting from the things we want changed. In that case our methods and language will reflect that love, and so it will reduce the chances of violence.

It goes without saying that this is a call to Christian men to get up from their knees, where they've been bombarding the gates of heaven in prayer, and begin to do some work in addition. As James, the apostle, put it, faith without work is dead. That is what Pastor Tunde Bakare of The Latter Rain Assembly is exemplifying with his vanguard role in the newly founded Save Nigeria Group, which organised a series of rallies recently. More men need to take a cue from Bakare and others like him. The Anambra elections this week and the national elections next year demand no less.

Earlier in her contribution, Mrs Aramide Oikelome, Faith Editor and Senior Correspondent with The Independent Newspapers, who was the feminine voice at the meeting, urged men to determine in the new year, like never before, to take their place at home, from where everything flows. She identified three key places of the real kingdom man at home, as being those of priest, provider and protector.

On priesthood, she described man as the crown of God's creation and perhaps because the woman was taken from the man's rib, women have tended to depend, as it were, on their physical source - men. So, a man is a covering for his woman. And being a covering, your wife, feels more secured, protected and fulfilled when the man is doing the praying, even if she's a prayer warrior herself.

Oikelome, who is also president of Bestspring Children & Youth Development Foundation, a non- governmental, non-denominational organization “committed to healing hurts and restoring hope in children, youths and singles”, said men must realise that as high priest at home, they are the mediator between their family and God. Her words: "You receive direction from God for the family. When you are too busy to pray, read the Bible and fellowship with God, things are bound to go wrong."

Other items which found their way unto "Manhood 2010: A Comprehensive New Year Agenda for the Kingdom Man" are: Be more like Jesus, compassionate and ever willing to give; developing or maintain a lifestyle of giving, no matter how the economy turns and; be certain that God is the centre of all your activities. If as many of us are hungry for change in our lives and our nation, operate this five-point agenda; our nation will begin the journey to restoration.

Men’s Breakfast Roundtable 3, on the theme, “Love in the Kingdom” is slated for Saturday, February 20 at the same venue: CTEM Auditorium, Jeho-Shammah Plaza at the Ogba Bus Terminal, Ogba, Ikeja. Patrick and Iretiola Doyle are one of the two couples on the panel. Won’t you like to hear them speak on love from a kingdom perspective? Let's meet there!

A MAN, HIS MONEY, HIS WIFE AND HIS DRIVER!

Men are too busy for their own good! The search for significance, the race to put food on the table, the ingrained belief that we don’t need anyone to tell us what to do – all combine to keep us away from the self-same places we need to be. Which caused one of the speakers to note: ‘Men...rather than attend events like this, they prefer to go out to make money, because they think that’s what the women want. So, they go out and make the money and are surprised that their wives are sleeping with their drivers. And don’t deceive yourself that it only happens outside the church; no, it is happening right amongst us Christians…

For the second time in two months, I had the privilege of anchoring breakfast meetings for men. The first edition in saw a panel of two women and a man lead the search for the Irresistible Husband. It was an exciting three-hour-plus event which the organisers, KINGDOM MEN, an independent men’s ministry brands Men’s Breakfast Roundtable. The second edition themed Manhood 2010: A Comprehensive New Year Agenda for Men held two Saturdays ago.

Both events confirm a number of things that those of us in men’s ministry already know. Men are too busy for their own good! The search for significance, the race to put food on the table, the ingrained belief that we don’t need anyone to tell us what to do – all combine to keep us away from the self-same places we need to be. Which caused one of the speakers to note: “Men...rather than attend events like this, they prefer to go out to make money, because they think that’s what the women want. So, they go out and make the money and are surprised that their wives are sleeping with their drivers. And don’t deceive yourself that it only happens outside the church; no, it is happening right amongst us Christians…”

So, attendance was sparse; though it got better the second time. But as with all things God, the Holy Spirit caused the various speakers to deliver His heart on several issues to those who present.

Leading the search, as it were, was Mrs Agatha Edo (first right in photo), a journalist with several years experience as an “agony aunt” in a number of newspapers, described the irresistible man as that “man who has Christ in him, the husband who knows his onions and knows that his first ministry is his marriage. He is that man who knows that God created his wife as a partner, a rock at home; He is a man who knows that God in creating his wife created for him a friend, a companion, a mother, a sister, an adviser, a counsellor. A man who appreciates the essence of womanhood and is humble enough to know that nobody is perfect, that the only perfect being is Christ.”

Continuing, Edo who is currently with the Independent Newspapers Ltd where as Auntie Agatha, she responds to tonnes of letters from hurting or confused men and women, said the irresistible husband also knows that marriage is a wrapped gift the content of which you don’t get to know until you open and having opened it, is man enough to accept what he has chosen. He must also be man enough to know that when imperfection comes, you go back to Christ and that Christ being the head of the home will always provide a path to eternity.

Addressing the issue of sex, she said the irresistible husband “has the duty of making the perfect sex partner out of his wife”, because as with everything else, he must provide leadership, pointing out that, anointing flows from the head.

In her own contribution, Deaconess Titilayo Shoroye (second left in the photograph), a counsellor and wife of over 25 years who declared that she is enjoying her marriage, said the irresistible man is one “who recognises that he was created after the image and likeness of God and reflects this truth in his behaviour. He respects, loves, communicates with and shares the leadership of the home with her. He is that man who initiates quick resolution of issues in the home even if the wife is the cause. He is a man who says of the wife, despite all your shortcomings, I will love you. He is able to continue to see those things in his wife that he saw when they were courting.”

Shoroye, a grandmother, who partners with the husband in business, said the irresistible man is one who shares his challenges at work with the wife and listens to advice. This, he does because “he realises that if God knew that men could handle things alone, he would not have created women, and that God has endowed his wife with the necessary qualities to complement him.”

The deaconess emphasised that the irresistible man has to be a great communicator who shares his heart with the wife on every issue, holding nothing back.

Pastor, author, speaker and singer, Dr John Akachi Ahamzie, (speaking in picture), who spoke last, chose to begin by showing who the irresistible husband is not. He explained that good looks, charm and wealth which many women find irresistible do not an irresistible husband make. He pointed out that thousands of traumatised and unfulfilled women are married to handsome men or moneybags. The irresistible man is therefore not born, he is formed. His mother doesn’t give birth to him. He may grow up as handsome and charming and talented but he is formed into irresistibility. He has to make up his mind to know what it is to be irresistible and go after it. You don’t put it on him. It’s a decision; it’s a calculation, a determination; it’s a function of wisdom, of discovery, of pursuit. He has to sit down and tell himself, I want to be irresistible and then find out what it takes and begin to pursue it.

Defining the irresistible husband, he said his first qualification is that he is born again, truly born again. He said if all the men were truly born again, programmes like the MBR would be unnecessary. The reason he has to be born again is because he would then be able to keep his focus on Jesus who is the original irresistible man. Irresistibility is first of all inner based, so if he has some outside qualities it’s just a plus. He needs to be spirit-filled and spirit-led so that he can pursue Christ-likeness. He needs to be born again so that he can grow in the fruit of the Spirit.

Continuing, the prolific writer, who pastors Holy Fire Overflow Church in Ogba, said “the irresistible man is a student of the marriage institution…who understands the intricate dynamics between love, romance and sex, which are like the three fold cord that is not easily broken.

The interactive session that followed featured very frank and incisive contributions and questions from the men who found time to attend the event. I’ll tell you a bit about the second edition next week.

ORAL ROBERTS: HIS LIFE AND LEGACY (5)

“But was he a perfect man? Mark Rutland, current President of the university Oral founded and was chancellor of to the end, addressed that in his funeral oration “We do not today celebrate the passing of a perfect man; none of us is perfect…He was an extraordinary man; he was a giant who served a perfect God.” And the secular media has ensured that we never forgot that! They remind us that he once “cajoled” believers into raising $9million by telling them God was going to call him home if he did not raise $8million. They remind us of the controversy over his City of Faith Medical Center, a $250 million investment that didn’t quite fly, and the law school that he founded that had to close. They won’t let us forget that his son, Richard, had to step down as President of Oral Roberts University because he was accused of mismanagement of funds. All of which are reminders of his humanity."

God had told Oral Roberts to break from the mould. Don’t be like other men; be like Jesus, He told him. Heal like did. It was a marching order. But, as we saw, he didn’t know where or how to begin. He had an idea of what God was asking him not to be. But, what did it mean to be like Jesus? He posed the question to God and promptly came the answer: take a crash course in “Jesus-ology.” It was to be a 90-day course of reading on his knees, the gospels and the book of Acts. It was a study in the birth, growth, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, as well as, its immediate aftermath.

Oral obeyed and what he found was to shape his own ministry. Of great import to Oral’s legacy was his discovery that Jesus had a three-fold ministry – preaching, teaching and healing. In the Ultimate Voice, Oral last book, he emphasised that these “three worked together. In other words Jesus was not a preacher who also taught and healed. He was not a healer who preached and taught. He was all three in one. He didn’t have three ministries. He had one ministry which preached, taught and wrought miracles.

Oral defined the ministry this way: “To preach is to proclaim the good news that God wants to have an intimate relationship with every person. To preach is to tell the plan of salvation and God’s desire to meet every need in a person’s life.; To teach is to tell others what the Bible says about the way men and women are to live in right relationship with God. Teaching involves explaining the lasting principles and concepts of God—His nature, His commands, and His promises (and); To heal is to remedy whatever might be lacking or faulty in a person’s life—whatever is not in keeping with God’s original creation and design. It is doing whatever you see to do to help another person be made whole.”

He was also fully persuaded that what God was asking of him was what Jesus had authorised his disciples to do. His words: “Finally, I came to the quick conclusion that what Jesus did, He not only wanted but authorized His disciples to do. He expected His disciples to have the same faith and compassion for the deliverance of lost and suffering humanity as He had. He transmitted His power to them and gave them full authority to cast out devils, heal the sick, preach the gospel, win souls, and inspire people to believe for the full blessings of God in their lives. Jesus wasn’t about religion. He was about relationship. He wasn’t about protocol. He was about powerful persuasion. He wasn’t about compromise. He was about change. He wasn’t seeking fame or fortune. He was seeking souls for heaven.”

He also saw in the book of Acts that “…the followers of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit that Jesus had sent to them, conducted their lives as if Jesus was still present with them and working through them. The spirit within them was His Spirit! I saw that the apostles of Jesus had the power to heal, to work miracles, and to cast out demons. Miracles were not a rarity in places where the apostles preached; taught, and healed—miracles were the norm! (So) I didn’t believe for one second that the days of great miracles, signs, and wonders were over.”

This set of beliefs form the bedrock upon which Oral built his ministry and life. That explains why he famously said, “After I'm gone, others will have to judge how well I've obeyed God's command not to be an echo but to be a voice like Jesus”. Happily, most of the tributes paid him at his passing adjudged him as a consistent voice of faith, propagating, like Jesus, the love of a heavenly father who wants his children whole, spirit, body and soul. CONTINUES BELOW

But was he a perfect man? Mark Rutland, current President of the university Oral founded and was chancellor of to the end, addressed that in his funeral oration “We do not today celebrate the passing of a perfect man; none of us is perfect…He was an extraordinary man; he was a giant who served a perfect God.” And the secular media has ensured that we never forgot that! They remind us that he once “cajoled” believers into raising $9million by telling them God was going to call him home if he did not raise $8million. They remind us of the controversy over his City of Faith Medical Center, a $250 million investment that didn’t quite fly, and the law school that he founded that had to close. They won’t let us forget that his son, Richard, had to step down as President of Oral Roberts University because he was accused of mismanagement of funds. All of which are reminders of his humanity.

One of the areas of his early life though, that I identify with, and which as a minister to men, I find we must pay very special attention to, is this. Roberta, his only surviving daughter made this insightful statement his home-going event: (Our father) "left his family behind, knowing they would be hurt…He chose to go where God's light is dim, then he chose to build that university that God called him to build. ... There may be some of you whose fathers or grandfathers made a similar choice. It hurts…” Although she went on to say that “you have to make the decision as to whether you believe he made the right choice (and that) I know my father made the right choice…" it was clear: it took its toll on the family. That his oldest son committed suicide in 1982 after problems with morphine is instructive.
Oral Roberts died six years after he told the Hagin Family in a condolence letter that his “heart feels the tug of Heaven as it won’t be long until I am with him (Brother Hagin) face to face in Heaven;” and three weeks after he told legendary contemporary, Billy Graham that “he was near the end of his life's journey.” Incidentally, Billy Graham’s also contained a longing for heaven: “I look forward to the day that I will see Oral and Evelyn Roberts again in Heaven--our eternal home.”

I conclude this serial in the words of Dr Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel” who said: ““If God had not, in His sovereign will, raised up the ministry of Oral Roberts, the entire charismatic movement might not have occurred…Oral shook the landscape with the inescapable reality and practicality of Jesus’ whole ministry…He taught concepts that spread throughout the world and simplified and focused a spiritual lifestyle that is embraced by huge sectors of today's church.” I wholeheartedly agree. (CONCLUDED)

ORAL ROBERTS: HIS LIFE AND LEGACY (4)

“Then one day in May 1947, God spoke to Oral: “Son, do not be like other men. Do not be like your denomination. Do not be like other ministers. Be like Jesus, and heal the people as He did.” He heard Him clearly and he knew that it was time for him to make a choice - remain like other men in his denomination, or hearken to God’s voice and “be like Jesus.” He chose to obey God. But, how was he to go about being like Jesus? It was a throwback to the days immediately following the miracle healing of Deacon Clyde. He didn’t have a clue then how to have the healing power “all the time”; nor did know now how to “be like Jesus.” As he told it in “The Ultimate Voice”, he immediately began to ask, “But how, God?” God answered, “Read the four gospels and the book of Acts on your knees, three times within thirty days, and I will show you how to be like Jesus.”

As we saw last time, Oral Roberts was still a neophyte in ministry when God wrought a miracle healing through him. He had been invited to pray for Clyde Lawson, a deacon in one of the Pentecostal Holiness churches in Georgia, where he was the pastor. He arrived at the deacon’s mechanic workshop and found him in unimaginable pain. One of his feet had been crushed by a heavy motor he accidentally dropped as he worked on a car. Oral, filled with compassion recalled that he knelt down, touched the end of the man’s shoes, said a few words in earnest prayer and stood up. The man result was instant: the pain vanished, foot healed, crushed toes perfectly normal.

Roberts had been accompanied to the scene by Bill Lee, an associate. On their way back, the duo had a brief conversation: Bill: Brother Roberts, do you have that kind of power all the time? Oral: Bill, I wish I did! Bill: If you had that kind of power all the time, you could bring a revival to this world. Oral didn’t have any doubt about that. But in his words, “I just didn’t have any clue as to how a person might develop that kind of power all the time”.

That was the starting point for Oral. He knew that God was desirous of changing the lives of His people. He knew that miracle healing was part of the gospel; after all had he not been healed of tuberculosis and of stuttering? And hadn’t he seen Deacon Clyde healed through his simple but earnest prayer? But as he put it in his book, The Ultimate Voice, there was a “chasm between what God was saying, and what I was experiencing…”

For twelve years, he worked as a minister in a number of churches. He said of his experience in those twelve years: “On the one hand, I was excited about taking God’s healing power to my generation and freeing suffering people from the shackles the devil had put on their lives—and was eager to do so, but instead, I found myself preaching doctrine and trying to appease the small group of people in any congregation who seemed to have control over what should be preached, how the church should be run, how much the pastor should be paid or not paid, and what kind of balance should be struck between a minister’s work as a pastor and as an evangelist…”
CONTINUES BELOW

As that 12-year phase of his ministry was drawing to a close, he began to hear what he described as “echoes of what God had said to me twelve years before on my way to Brother Moncey’s tent: ‘Son, I am going to heal you and you are to take My healing power to your generation’. I’d be sitting in a classroom and I would hear God say, ‘Son, I am going to heal you and you are to take My healing power to your generation…’” It was, he recalled, as if wherever he was, whatever he did, he could escape the commission.

He had no doubt that he was not where God wanted him to be; that he was not doing what God wanted him to do. He was dissatisfied and unfulfilled. He continually felt that “profound chasm between what I believed could happen in a setting in which God’s power was fully manifested, and what was happening in the daily routine of my life. I felt increasingly that going to church just for the sake of going to church was about the dullest thing a person could do. When the anointing of God is not upon the pastor or the people, and His presence is not experienced, there isn’t very much of interest to the soul of man. Even as the pastor, sitting on the platform about to preach, I often wished I was somewhere else on a Sunday morning.”

He realised that sick people weren’t coming to church; they stayed at home. They kept whatever problems keeping them awake at night neatly tucked away at home and came to church wearing their finest dresses and their happiest faces. Oral “felt a tug-of-war”, deep in his spirit.

Then one day in May 1947, God spoke to Oral: “Son, do not be like other men. Do not be like your denomination. Do not be like other ministers. Be like Jesus, and heal the people as He did.” He heard Him clearly and he knew that it was time for him to make a choice - remain like other men in his denomination, or hearken to God’s voice and “be like Jesus.” He chose to obey God. But, how was he to go about being like Jesus? It was a throwback to the days immediately following the miracle healing of Deacon Clyde. He didn’t have a clue then how to have the healing power “all the time”; nor did know now how to “be like Jesus.” As he told it in “The Ultimate Voice”, he immediately began to ask, “But how, God?” God answered, “Read the four gospels and the book of Acts on your knees, three times within thirty days, and I will show you how to be like Jesus.”

With eager anticipation, Oral did what God told him to do. This was in spite of the fact that he had already read the entire Bible through a number of times, and the New Testament more than one hundred times. He obeyed, and the hidden treasures of the gospel began to unlock before his very eyes. His words: “I saw and understood Jesus as I had never seen or understood Him before… I saw Jesus in three dimensions…doing His work as a preacher, teacher, and miracle-working healer... I saw Jesus as a man of power, yet a man of deep compassion. I saw Him as a man of action. I saw Him as a simple man without any complications. I saw that He came against life-limiting suggestions and life shortening ailments with life-saving power. I saw that He had no tolerance for and came strongly against four great enemies of mankind: sin, demons, disease, and fear. I saw Jesus was a man’s man, strong in body, strong in soul and mind, full of love and tenderness. I saw that He spent two-thirds of His time healing the sick. In fact, I saw that Jesus had a three-fold ministry. He preached…He taught…and He healed. The three worked together…” (TO BE CONCLUDED)

ORAL ROBERTS: HIS LIFE AND LEGACY (3)

“Tuberculosis…had stalked two generations of the Roberts. Pleasant Roberts, Oral’s grandfather fell to it, as well as, two of Oral’s father’s older sisters. Although early symptoms generally include coughing up blood and chest pain, as it advances, patients become prone to night sweats, appetite and weight loss, frequent fever and fatigue. You can therefore imagine the feeling of déjà vu, when one day in February 1935, Oral was driven home by his basketball coach, Herman Hamilton. He had collapsed during a tournament. Thereafter, in the words of one of Oral’s biographers, Roberts became “bedridden, subsisting on raw eggs and milk”. Oral, pining away in bed, unable to do much else and even unable to communicate his pain to anyone properly, being a stammerer, was simply waiting to go the way of his grandfather and two aunties. Until that day of destiny…"

Welcome, my dear precious readers, to the year 2010. I wish you another Kingdom-centred year; one in which you will find joy in doing His will, in His way, to His glory and to your blessing. I pray that all things would work together for your good all through this year, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Yes, all things, no matter how seemingly bad, can work together for our good, because the Scriptures say so. And it did for the celebrated faith healing icon, Glanville Oral Roberts whose life and legacy we’ve been celebrating these past two weeks. Tuberculosis worked for his good – and by extension, the advancement of Christianity!

The deadly, infectious, bacterial disease, marked by the presence especially in the lungs, of small rounded swellings, known as tubercles, had stalked two generations of the Roberts. Pleasant Roberts, Oral’s grandfather fell to it, as well as, two of Oral’s father’s older sisters. Although early symptoms generally include coughing up blood and chest pain, as it advances, patients become prone to night sweats, appetite and weight loss, frequent fever and fatigue. You can therefore imagine the feeling of déjà vu, when one day in February 1935, Oral was driven home by his basketball coach, Herman Hamilton. He had collapsed during a tournament. Thereafter, in the words of one of Oral’s biographers, Roberts became “bedridden, subsisting on raw eggs and milk”.

Oral, pining away in bed, unable to do much else and even unable to communicate his pain to anyone properly, being a stammerer, was simply waiting to go the way of his grandfather and two aunties. Until that day of destiny…that day when news that an itinerant preacher was holding a tent revival nearby.

That preacher was a man known as George W. Moncey, described by one writer as "an elusive and shadowy figure, one of that generation of roving revivalists who continued to fight the devil in the depths of the Depression..." It was also said of this tool of God, much like the four lepers in the book of Kings, that he “had no address but a post office box and virtually nothing is known of his life before or after his encounter with Roberts”.

Anyway, Oral Roberts was driven to Brother Moncey’s revival and records had it, that the revivalist prayed on the sick 17-year-old in these words: “You foul, tormenting disease, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, come out of this boy. Loose him and let him go free!" And as he recalled it, Oral felt “a blinding flash of light and the feeling of electricity going through me."

The rest, as the cliché goes, is history. He was not only healed of tuberculosis, he was delivered from his stutter and, within two months of all that, he was in full-time ministry! He began by joining the Pentecostal Holiness Church, to which his minister-father belonged. He wrote for its publication, pastured some of their churches only but resigned his pastorate in 1947. Within one year of going independent, at the leading of the Holy Spirit, he bought his own tent and began a career that eventually changed the face of Christianity leading. It is that career which included more than 300 crusades on six continents, that has been celebrated world wide since his recent departure.

Incidentally, Oral Robert’s first experience with faith healing in his own ministry predated his first crusade. In fact it happened while he was still with Pentecostal Holiness Church, where faith healing was still a contentious issue.

In “The Ultimate Voice”, his last published book, Oral recalled that when he first went into ministry; the healing anointing was on-and-off. So, he could not claim to have “a genuine anointing of God to heal the sick for more than a decade.” He said he felt the healing anointing “at times…but not very long at a time.” Although fully persuaded that God could heal and desired to heal, yet, he was certain that the anointing there was upon his life, was not powerful enough to embolden him to overcome his fear of facing the sick and demon-possessed.

One incident, which was to give him an idea of the power that was available to him, happened while he was still pastor in one of the Pentecostal Holiness churches in Georgia. One of the deacons in that church, Clyde Lawson, had accidentally dropped a heavy motor on his foot while working on a car in his mechanic’s workshop. Oral was invited to go and pray for him. When he and his associate, Bill Lee, arrived at the workshop, they were confronted with a crushed foot and a he-man crying like a baby, from the great pain he was experiencing.

Roberts recorded the rest of the incident in these words: “Feelings of compassion came over me and without thinking I knelt down and touched the end of his shoe with my hand. I said a few words of earnest prayer and stood up. The moment I straightened up, Clyde Lawson quit screaming. He tried to move his toes in his shoe and found that he could. The pain was gone. The bleeding had stopped. He jumped to his feet, stomped his foot on the floor of his garage, and said, ‘Brother Roberts, what did you do to me?’ I said, ‘I didn’t do a thing.’

“He said, ‘yes, you did. The pain is gone. My foot is healed.’ I was as amazed as he was. He tore off his shoe and showed us his foot. His toes were perfectly normal. Bill said to me as we drove away, ‘Brother Roberts, do you have that kind of power all the time?’

“I said, ‘Bill, I wish I did.’ He said, ‘If you had that kind of power all the time, you could bring a revival to this world.’ I didn’t have any doubt about that. I just didn’t have any clue as to how a person might develop that kind of power all the time”.

That we are celebrating Oral Roberts today, more than 50 years later is evidence that he sought and found “the clue”. The enemy meant his tuberculosis affliction for evil; God allowed it for good. So shall your experiences be this year and beyond, in the precious name of Jesus.