 |
|
 |
November 2009
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Powerful presence of God at Zinder ConferenceThe conference at Zinder opened with a word of knowledge given through my daughter Anna (14), about someone who had problems with their ears. A man came forward to be prayed for by Anna and was instantly healed. He had had pain in both ears for 40 years, but that day he went and sat down with no trace of pain left. So the conference was well underway even before the first day’s teaching had begun. |
After this, one of the nomad cheiftans, Ardo Baji, received another word of wisdom. God spoke to him about a hidden illness. The man this applied to was in the room and also was instantly healed. I was leading the meeting and preaching that evening, but the Lord did not give me any words of wisdom. This was a powerful illustration of what I was teaching on: the time has come when God will no longer use just a few select preachers, but when all believers will be raised up in the power of the Almighty. The Lord is raising up a people in power and love.The Lord is raising up a people who are genuinely living as sons and daughters of the Almighty. God’s purpose is not to only use well-known preachers to win the world, but that a people will be raised up who are powerfully led by God. On the first day of the conference this was exactly what I was teaching on. The whole of creation is longing for the revelation of God’s Sons and Daughters.When believers really understand who they are in Christ, as sons and daughters of the Father, this will also be revealed to the world around us. We will see an army of believers who live the way Jesus lived, close to the Father, full of love and full of God’s overwhelming power. Right from the first day of the conference, God touched many hearts. People developed a longing to become more like Him. In Romans 8:29, it says that we are “predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His son”. When this happens, Jesus will be the “firstborn among many brothers”. It is not possible for Jesus to be the firstborn among many until many have become like Him. Let us therefore long for the whole fullness that the Father has predestined for us. At the conference, we continued to teach on the theme of having God as our father, and about understanding the fantastic inheritance this means we have as His sons and daughters. We also spent a lot of time leading people to turn away from sin and bitterness etc. During the course of the days together, we experienced that God’s presence at the conference increased. Many participants said that they had never before experienced such heavenly glory as hung over us during that time. Thank you for all the generous gifts and the prayer that made this conference the breakthrough that we had hoped for. Pastors and leaders returned to their homes afterwards with renewed enthusiasm and full of thankfulness and love to our Heavenly Father. A dying man at the prime of his lifeOne day, about a year ago, we were driving around on the Steppes trying to find some nomadic friends of ours. Since nomads move around the whole time, it is often difficult to find where they are. We stopped to ask another nomadic family if they could give us directions, and they invited us to stop a while and talk with them. These poor people gave us some of their millet soup and apologised for not having anything better to serve us.
After a while, the elderly man mentioned that his son-in-law was very ill and was lying under a nearby tree. “He has been ill for many weeks,” explained the old man and pointed to the tree. “For last four days, he has been unable to even get up. His legs are so swollen and painful that he cries in pain all day long. We don’t know how we are going to cope. He was the only man among us with any strength.” When we explained to the man about the power of the name of Jesus, he said: “I beg you, please, go and pray for him immediately.” We got up and went over to the tree. At first we could only see a few sheep there, but when we got closer we saw that, between the sheep, there was a man lying on a straw mat. We prayed for him and then I asked if he felt any better. “No,” he answered, “I feel just the same.” We prayed for him again and I asked him the same question. His answer was unchanged; “No, I can’t feel any difference.” But I sensed clearly in my heart that God had touched him. “Get up and try to walk,” I said. He hesitated, and protested, “But….but….. You don’t understand. I am not strong enough to stand.” I took his hand to help him up, and repeated: “Get up and take a few steps..” . He looked at me in disbelief and forced himself onto his feet in considerable pain. “Now try to walk,” I said. Doubled up, he walked a couple of metres, looking as if he would collapse any minute. Then he looked up at me and smiled hesitantly. “I do feel a little better. My feet are better,” he said. We prayed and laid hands on him once more. “Now run round the tree!” I commanded. (I don’t usually talk to people like that!) He looked at me in amazement. First he took a few slow steps, then a little faster and then he started running round the tree. He came over to us and thanked us. When we returned to the father-in-law, he was overflowing with gratitude. He thanked us over and over again. We told him it was God he should be thanking. The whole family wanted to follow Jesus after what they’d seen. Liverød babyThe father-in-law was so excited. “Pray for me too,” he said. He had a minor infection in his mouth that was healed instantly.“And you must pray for our new-born baby girl,” said the man. The wife of the man who had been lying sick under the tree – the older man’s daughter, had apparently given birth just 15 minutes before we had arrived. It was only then that I noticed an elderly lady and a girl of about six or eight sitting by a bed nearby. On the bed lay a new-born baby and her mother. We blessed the baby and gave the mother some money. Then the elderly woman (the grandmother) called out: “This is a blessed day. First my son-in-law gets healed, then these white people demonstrate such love for us and then pray a blessing over us. In memory of this visit and this blessed day, we will call our new-born daughter Liverød. Her name will be Liverød Abdullah.” So now there is a little girl running around the steppes of Niger called Liverød, poor child! Please pray for this family that they will truly come to know the Father.
How healing led to persecutionOne evening, after darkness had fallen, a young woman came up to me as we sat outside the mosque. She introduced herself as Baraka. When she turned to exchange a few words with some others nearby, Emmanuel told us that she was one of the worst persecutors they had to put up with. “She has constantly attacked us verbally and persuaded others to join her”, he explained.“I really don’t understand why this is, considering what she experienced last time you were here,” he continued. “This is the girl who was instantly healed when you prayed for her at the market square. Several of the town leaders and many others witnessed what happened to her. I’m really disappointed. I thought that such healings in public would bring people closer to accepting the Gospel.” Emmanuel stopped talking to me because Baraka suddenly turned back to us. Possibly she had heard what we had been saying, because she started to ask: “About my leg – it had given me so much pain for so long but was healed when you touched me. What is it really all about?” She seemed genuinely interested and open. As we spoke with her, we started to understand what had happened. Because Baraka had been healed, people around her started to think that she was friendly with the Christians. This would, of course, have been risky for her; and it wasn’t true. (She had simply been a pupil in Remi’s English class and he had said that her leg was injured. When I had asked if we could pray for her, she had been taken by surprise and had said “yes” without knowing what this meant. Of course, she had been even more surprised when she had been healed.)
“How can that happen?” she asked. I started to show her a few Bible verses. But I only had my Norwegian Bible with me at the time. Emmanuel saw that I was struggling to explain in a mixture of French and Arabic. He fetched an Arabic Bible, and I showed Baraka a couple of passages in John’s Gospel.
After a while, an elderly lady (her mother) came over and told her off and made her come home with her. After a few minutes, she went unwillingly with her. “And throw away that book”, her mother said, “You can’t read that”. “No, I want to keep it”, she answered. “You don’t understand what is in this book. I’m not going to throw it away.” Her mother tried to snatch it from her, but without success. Baraka bent her body to protect it. After a while, they disappeared into the darkness.
Baraka and many other young people like her need your prayers. Many young people (and adults too) have been touched by the Spirit of God. Some, like Baraka, have only just felt a touch of God’s power, whereas others have got much further. But they meet with resistance. In Mauritania, they meet resistance from relatives, the local authorities, and the National authorities. Please pray for all who have been saved and for this nation who is feeling some drops of God’s goodness for the first time in history. Now I can paint again!
We have seen the Lord touch many people at home in Norway during recent months. The following testimony is from a young lady we met on the street in Tønsberg where we had a stand. “I had suddenly started to feel pain in my right hand. I didn’t know what it was. It had been really bad for at least two weeks; I could hardly do a thing at home. For example, cutting bread was difficult because of the pain. But I tried to be strong and just put up with it because I have young children to take care of. But I knew that God was going to heal me. I love to paint pictures, but this was no longer possible since I could no longer use my hand. But, praise God! We decided to go to Tønsberg that day, and deep down I knew that I was going to be healed. We went over to the WOM street stand. When Liverød prayed for me, the pain disappeared instantly! Today, some six or seven weeks later, I have no pain at all and have started to paint again. Thank you God for this opportunity to praise You. God is good! His mercy lasts forever! God bless you. Elvia Thank youWOM was started in 1991 while Solfrid and I lived in Sandefjord. We sold our house, bought a car and drove all the way to Nigeria. We gave everything to plant churches in West Africa, as we felt the Lord had laid upon our hearts to do.In 1994 we joined Elihu Church in Tønsberg, and a few years later we moved to Tønsberg. Right from the outset, we knew we had solid support from Jan and Torhild Hagen at Elihu and from the whole of the church, which became our base in Norway. In 1994, WOM’s work consisted of three shaky young churches in northern Nigeria/Niger. During the years that followed, this has grown to a number of churches in four different countries, two Bible colleges and many different projects. Pastor Jan has supported the work throughout, with a generous heart, never attempting to control it in any way. (WOM has always had its own board and separate finances.) It is hard to imagine today what this work would have looked like without this support from Jan, Erling Nilsen and many others at Elihu. Alongside this solid support from Elihu, more and more individuals and churches throughout Norway have started to support the work. We have increasingly ecumenical support. The work is no longer part of Elihu church. We follow the call the Lord has given us to plant churches in Norway, and to lead Norwegians into the presence of the Father, and to teach believers to live in the supernatural. At the same time, we continue to increase the work in Muslim Africa. With these few lines, I wish to express my thanks for all the support we have received in the shape of help, gifts, prayer and helpers. Not only have Elihu and Pastor Jan influenced the work in WOM, but we as individuals have learned and developed through our association with Elihu. I am so grateful to God for the generosity we have experienced from Jan and the church. In West Africa, many newly-saved Christians from a Muslim background, echo our thanks. Thank you Jan, and thank you Elihu for wonderful help over many years. We look forward to many years together in the future. Yours Terje Liverød School of Ministry Training for the supernatural Life with the Father is far more than theory. Jesus did not come to earth to start a new religion or introduce some special theology. Jesus came to teach us to live with God. This means that what we learn is very important, but that this is not the ultimate goal (remember the Pharisees? For them learning was the goal). The purpose of learning is to give us life. The school we are starting in Tønsberg has precisely this goal: we want the students to live in the Almighty God’s presence and love. Secondly, we will teach them to communicate this to others in Norway and to the ends of the earth – spread the Gospel throughout the world. Please join us in praying for the start up of our new school. We believe the school is important for what the Lord wants to do in Norway in the near future. If you would like to receive information about the school, please get in touch. If you know anyone who is considering starting at Bible school or something similar, please tell them about us. |
