← The Wake-Up Call
The Wake-Up Call
Healed People Become a Testimony
00:21:21
This episode centers on the idea that healing is not only physical, but often deeply emotional and spiritual as well. Dan reflects on Matthew 8 and the story of Jesus healing the man with leprosy, using it to show that shame, fear, and brokenness can be at the root of what people need most. He shares a personal story of being healed in his vocal cords and explains how our own healing experiences can become a testimony that builds faith in others. The episode also offers practical guidance for praying for others. Dan encourages listeners to slow down, listen for the Holy Spirit, and lean into their spiritual gifts, especially encouragement and intercession, before jumping straight to prayer. The activation challenge is to identify someone carrying shame and begin praying for them with compassion, while remembering that Jesus is the healer and we simply join Him in His work. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Prayer of Consecration 01:05 Healing as a Testimony 05:47 The Role of Faith i...
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Foreign. Sower Nation Today is Friday, July 3rd in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm Dan Wilt and this is your wake up call. Wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray our prayer of consecration together as we begin today's meeting with with Jesus. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you and we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, today's entry continues in this theme of healing over the last few days and it's called Healed People Become a Testimony. And at the end of this entry I'm going to be sharing in the activation part a story and some ideas for some next steps in in learning how to pray for others for healing. Our passage and text for Today is from Matthew 8:1:4. Hear the word of the Lord. When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing. He said, be clean. Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, see that you don't tell anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift. Moses commanded as as a testimony to them the word of the Lord. Consider this. Braden had an issue with his ears all his life. They felt full of fluid and he couldn't hear as well as he wanted to. He had asked God to heal his ears many times, but there was never a change. One Sunday morning during an altar call, Braden came forward to respond to an invitation to receive healing prayer. His healing was his instantaneous. His ears opened and something else began to happen. Shame that he had carried for so long was lifted off his heavy soul and he experienced a new level of joy in his relationship with God. And the reference for that story is in the book. Leprosy in the time of Jesus was a pain package deal. Not only did you have a horrible and irreparable skin disease, but you were also cast out into leper colonies where you all slowly died together as an object of fear and disgust in your community. This created a shame wound of an incredible magnitude. Jesus knows that healing is never just about the body or relief from from pain. Jesus knows that the heart is the hardest spiritual organ to heal and that sometimes to Reach the heart. You must start at another place. This is why it's so important that we do not get ahead of ourselves when we pray for healing. I've been praying for a person many times, and though the person wanted me to pray for one thing, I sensed the Spirit in me guiding me to pray for something else. And over time I began to experience that was often the Holy Spirit's guidance into another area of their life. We always eventually get to praying for the illness or the request. But sometimes the real need is related to a broken relationship, maybe with a sibling, a nagging sense of shame over something we've done, or a spirit of fear that's held us captive for far too long. This is why it is so important to learn to let the Spirit guide us in prayer rather than diving right in and praying straight from empathy or compassion. A listening spirit can go where the master living in us is going. An attentive spirit can see what the Father is doing and join him. Steve Siemens reminds us to never forget who is doing the healing when we ask, may I pray for you? And he says this, never forget. Jesus is the chief actor in ministry. We are called to participate in his ongoing ministry of healing, to join him in his ministry rather than asking him to help us carry out ours. He is the healer, not us. Our job is to follow the healer. The man who had leprosy was, as the last verse says, a testimony. When God heals someone, the story spreads. The more we pray for others, the higher the chances that someone will be healed. We can partner with Jesus in seeing people transformed from experiencing a test to becoming a testimony. So let me just share a few thoughts as we move into our prayer today. In this I had two experiences that I'll share very briefly. One of them the other day I was thinking about a healing that I had in my own life, and I shared that here. And it was a healing where I had nodes and assists on my vocal cords. And in the scope appointment right before the doctor was preparing for surgery the following day or days, somewhere in that I prayed, laid my hand on my throat, prayed in the doctor's office, and I was healed. The scope went in and everything was healed. Even though I had been experiencing the damage that morning, it was miraculous. And right after that I had a conversation with someone who had someone they love going through an issue with their vocal cords. And this has been fascinating because through the years I've prayed for a lot of people who have had vocal damage. But in this moment of hearing this, immediately faith quickened in me because God had touched me in a particular area. And so I had faith to pray for the person. And I've prayed for people for years who have issues with their, their. Their voice box or their, their just anything, nodes, cysts, anything happening on their vocal cords. And I realized I come at it not only with faith, but with joy, because it's the one time. I mean, I've probably had some others in different ways, different kinds of healing. As Steve Siemens talks about his five pathways of healing that God uses. But in terms of an instantaneous, miraculous healing, this is one of my primary ones that I've experienced in my body. And it just. I realized it set off tremendous faith in me. I'm just eager to pray for people who have that issue. I have also found myself eager to pray for people who have back issues. I've had major surgery in my lower spine, and I get to pray for people who have back issues. And there might be things in your life that you've experienced that make you a testimony. And so you can come to a moment with some faith and some encouragement to a person. God can minister to you. Now, I always say, step back from making it sound like because God did this for me, he's going to do it for you. Because again, this is a long story that Jesus is working in many lives. And none of us, as CS Lewis said, will be told someone else's story. We're just told our own, and we don't know what their story is. So as we discern, as we listen, as we pray for people with compassion, as we encourage them, we take one step back from this will happen. And we say we have faith to pray for them. Because God did something in our life, we become a testimony, and that stirs faith in people for their own journey. So I'd encourage you to lean into that. And then a second thing, because some questions have been coming in that I thought I'd drop off is when you're feeling fearful or you're not sure if you should pray for someone, you get to decide. Remember, I really believe that Jesus is not knocked off his throne. When we step in, step out, we want to obey, but at the same time, we're seeking to discern. At the same time, we might have this great confidence, and it's an opportunity the Lord's opened up very beautifully before us. At other times, it might feel like we're not quite sure. Here's what I'd like to say to you. Begin to discover what your spiritual gifts are. And again, I've pointed to the book Convergence. I've talked about that, that we can learn about our spiritual gifts. And one of mine that God often uses, in which I think is a bit of a natural gift that I've cultivated, and then the Holy Spirit puts some extra oomph on every now and then, is the gift of encouragement. So when I'm in a situation and I'm not sure if I should pray for someone or not, especially if it's a stranger or someone I might not know as well, or they're not a believer, I'll pause and I'll just lean into my gift of encouragement because I don't think anyone can ever receive too much encouragement in their lives. And I just encourage. And another gift for me is in the area of intercession and prayer. I love to pray for people. And so I'll go back to my secret place, I'll pray for them, but lean into the gift. So in a conversation, I'll lean into encouragement. And one of the things I found is as I'm encouraging someone, as I'm seeing a little bit of hope and belief rise in them that, well, maybe I could get through this situation. Maybe Jesus is in it, maybe I am telling myself the wrong story about it. As that interaction goes on, I find that I have greater discernment as to whether I should now say, you know, could I pray for you for a moment? Would you mind? Or I'm going to be praying for you because I believe that God wants to heal you or God wants to touch your life in a certain way. And again, the words we offer around these things are so important. That' why I encourage you to read books like Follow the Healer. This is not a paid commercial announcement, but Follow the Healer by Steve Seamans is one of the best books on healing that I've ever read. And he's a dear friend and I just love the way that he explores it and helps us all learn how to pray for others related to healing and to think well about healing. It's really meant to be a theology about healing. And then of course, there are some practitioners in that we're going to be sharing more about that over even the next year. So today it's good. Lean into your gift when in doubt. Because healed people, whether we're healed, emotionally healed, mentally healed in our body, healed in all the ways that Jesus does it, in a moment or over a long period of time, we are being transformed. We are being transformed, transformed it however he does it. You have a testimony, I have a testimony of his faithfulness. And we should just lean into that because it stirs faith in us and others as we share it. All right, so our prayer for today. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I believe that it is you doing the work of healing. I welcome your spirit in me to give me fresh faith to pray for healing for others. I want to see people become testimonies. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. Amen. All right, so here are our journal prompts for today. How have you become a testimony of God's faithfulness to those around you? I would encourage you tell your stories, tell your testimony, even write it out so that you can make it concise, get it in a paragraph or two so that you can share that with others. But how have you in your life, journal this out, become a testimony of God's faithfulness to those around you? And then secondly, write down what you think people see about Jesus when they see you. Write down what you think people see about Jesus when they see you. Okay, those are some good journal prompts for today. And today's activation is this. Do you know someone who seems to be carrying a lot of shame? Do you know someone? And again, just a simple definition of shame I've always really found helpful is shame is not I did something wrong. Shame is I am something wrong. And if you see that, you perceive it. And sometimes I've seen it out of my own life. I'm sensitive to it because of my own journey through shame. And out of shame and a continued healing related to it, I can perceive it in others. Do you see someone who seems to be carrying a lot of shame? They're under the weight, like that story of the leper. It's just a shame festival almost going on in that person's life. And they're not really. It's running unchecked today. Begin to pray for them. Begin to pray for them when your door is shut, as the scripture says. Begin to intercede for them for God to make a way for that shame to be lifted. Then be open to the part you might play in their healing. So that's our activation for today. And just to go back to what I just said, there have been moments with people, even recently while we're in this series, where I've wanted to pray for someone. This happened to me the other day. I wanted to pray for someone, and I felt old fears, well, what if you're wrong? What if you haven't done that for this person before? They don't know, you know. And I started to wrestle with it And I just felt like the Lord said, you haven't prayed for them first. You haven't shut your door and just met with me about them, presented them to me, brought them to me before me and said, lord Jesus, begin to do your work. Soften this ground, make this connection, this moment occur where I know that you're doing this and I partner with you. So again, lean into your gifts. Pray for people before you pray for people. Does that make sense? Pray for people before you pray for people. There's a good one for us. And bless you as you enter into the all the things ministry of Jesus today. And we both do. All right, let's sing our hymn for today. It is hymn number 279. We're going to sing All Hail the power of Jesus Name. We're going to lift up our voices and just proclaim his victory over all things. And we'll celebrate together his goodness, his love and his majesty as we sing. We're going to sing verse one. We're going to sing verse two. We're going to sing verse four, and we're going to sing verse six. And there are six verses. So we're just going to step away from two of them just for time's sake today. But these are all such powerful verses. Let's worship together.
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All hail the power of Jesus name Let angels prostrate fall Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all Bring forth the royal diadem and crown Him Lord of all. Ye seed of Israel's chosen race Ye ransomed from the fall Hail him who saves you by his grace and crown Him Lord of all Hail him who saves you by his grace and crown Him Lord of all.
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Verse 4.
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Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball to him all majesty a scribe and crown Him Lord of all to him all majesty ascribe and crown Him Lord of all.
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Verse 6.
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O that with yonder sacred throng we at his feet may fall. We'll join the everlasting song and crown Him Lord of all we'll join the everlasting song and crown Him Lord of hosts of all.
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Amen. One of the things I love about this song, I. I always say that songs are a place we go. They're a place we go to meet with God. Is that in this song? When. When we enter this song and this song enters us, we're moved to a place of complete adoration, thanksgiving, blessing, praising the God who is. All the things that we read about in the scriptures and so many things that we have yet to discover of his goodness and of his grace. And I had a friend say to me many years ago, you want to get to know yourself better. In a generation that's really focused on getting to know yourself better, he said, get to know Jesus better because in knowing who he is, we begin to discover who we are in Him. We begin to see who others are through the eyes of Jesus, through the eyes of love. All right. Bless you. As we enter into all the things ministry today, let's get those seeds together, and I'll see you on the field for the awakening. I'm Dan.