This is a repost: “I know what I am doing.” A Testimony of Love Bonds!
Word For Today: This is a repost: “I know what I am doing.” A Testimony of Love Bonds!
Beloved,
As I am in the presence of the Lord today, I felt the quickening of the Holy Spirit say, “repost this word about “I know what I am doing,” there are many that need to read it or read it.
I believe there is a supernatural release and answer to someone’s prayer today, maybe that is you? This word may not be for everyone, but it is for those God is having me write to!
I added some edits the Holy Spirit prompted me to add at the end as well!
Much love and blessings!
Precious Saints of God,
Word For Today: December 12, 2019 “I know what I am doing.” A Testimony of Love Bonds!
Back in 2011, I had the honor to go Johannesburg South Africa. I was invited to minister for 10 days to a church there. I had to raise $3000 to cover my flight and expenses as well as the 2 others on our team had to as well.
The two that were going had an easier time of raising their funds. As for me, I was really hindered by the enemy to receive it. At that time, I had shared with a few Pastor friends I had I was going. I was blessed that they prayed for my trip, but no one felt led to help me to get to South Africa.
As the day grew nearer to get the tickets, I had mentioned to the Bishop in South Africa that I was having a hard time raising the funds. He had a church of about 200 but in a very poor area of the city.
The next day He sent me $100 for the trip. About a week later he asked me how I was doing, and I had to tell him that his seed was the only one I had gotten, but I was trying to put all the money that I normally received as offering toward the trip.
He and His church fasted and prayed for me. They sent another $100 seed. That second seed was a breakthrough seed for God touched one of the missionaries who was to go with us to purchase my airplane ticket. Praise God.
Now my flight was booked and I need to raise about $1200 to go. Again, as I presented the need to those I knew no one, but our ministry team sowed into the trip. I was to go there with only about $380. That is all I had.
When we arrived in South Africa, the Bishop was waiting for us and he brought us to a “boarding house” something like a motel. It was barricaded by high walls, barb wire, and dogs because it was a dangerous areas.
I heard gun shots outside my window every night. So he was not kidding. On one trip to the store, a car pulled up on the right side of us and the Pastor floored the gas and went through a red light. He said, “I am sorry, but that car next to us were bandits and they saw you were white and American and they would have tried to rob us.
We made it to the store, and we had to get bottled water and food for us to eat, and I went to pay for it, and he stopped me. He said, You are not paying for this, let me do it. I insisted that I did not want him to do that. I know they didn’t have much.
But the strangest thing happened in that store. He said, “Pastor Henry, I know exactly what I am doing.” We left the line and what I did not know is that he didn’t have all the money to pay for the supplies.
Yet right when he was going to pay, a man came up to him and said, Bishop how are you? I didn’t want to ease drop, so I told my missionary team lets go over here.
The man who knew the Bishop was not in church for over a month and handed him a month’s worth of tithes and offerings. It was more then enough to pay for our supplies.
Yet, there is still more. Because of the food and water situation we could only eat certain things. He found out we liked pizza, so almost every day for lunch he would order pizza. I wanted to pay for it each time, but he would grab my hand, look me in the eye and say, “I know exactly what I am doing.”
I was embarrassed by it, because I felt so bad that this man that had “so little” and apparently didn’t have much to give, kept giving and giving and giving.
We would sit in his office and he would watch soccer games and talk about the Lord. I said, “Lord why are we here? We are not having any meetings yet? On the second day we went to his office a knock on the door came.
The Bishop introduced us to this man, and immediately the Spirit of God touched him and he fell to His knees and said to me, “Man of God” pray for me. God sent you here to pray for me.”
I was overwhelmed and in tears by the Spirit of God. So I dropped on my knees and my team and me prayed over him and God touched him powerfully. The word spread amongst the people that we were there in the office each day.
More and more people started coming to the office for prayer. Each one, dropped to their knees for us to pray for them. I have never seen that ever before or after. It was so humbling. God did miracle after miracle.
The Bishop said, “we need to have prayer meetings every day” and then have meetings at night. I had no idea how many people would come each morning and afternoon, many of them had jobs.
There was about 200 people in the church, and on the first prayer time at 8 am, 195 of them showed up, and they kept showing up each day. Not only did each one drop to their knees to pray, we had to start laying hands on those in the church to help us pray with others. The Holy Spirit came in power.
Every day when we needed supplies, food, water, the Bishop would not let any of us pay for anything. All he would say when I would offer was, “I know exactly what I am doing.”
What I did not know, is that for the lady missionary with us, he had the ladies hand make her an African dress and he bought for me and the brother with me African clothes to wear as a gift.
When the meetings started, I put out my books and I wanted to give them away. He said, “no way, “ I am going to tell the people to give offerings for them and God will bless them.”
This Bishop made sure every single books we brought was purchased and he put the money in my hand and I said, “let me give it you and the church. Beloved, He said, I can’t Pastor Henry, I know exactly what I am doing.
During the service there were people that needed prayer and when the offering time came he asked the people what they needed from the Lord. Two specific people stood out to me.
One person needed a job badly and all they had was an 8 pack of gum to give as an offering. The Bishop took that gum like it was a million dollars. He prayed over it and then gave out the gum to the people and prayed for the Job. This was on a Monday of the second week, two days later that person had a job.
The other person needed and apartment. They came to the offering with a case of soda. The Bishop stopped them and said, “what do you need from God?” The person said, "I need an apartment."
The Bishop took the soda cans lifted to God, prayer over them and gave each person a soda. By the end of the week this person had an apartment.
One meeting He had to get up and leave in the middle of it. I didn’t know that they had to purchase electricity with a prepaid card. He didn’t have the money for that day never mind the rest of the week.
I did not know any of this until the last day we were there. He didn’t tell me his needs. All He did, was keep caring for us, loving us and providing for us for everything and then look me in the eye. He would just say over and over, “I know exactly what I am doing.”
What I found out on the last day was that on this particular service, the Lord touched him on the shoulder during worship. He told him to go get his suit jacket in his office. When he got in the office, he said look inside the pocket of your suit jacket.
Inside the pocket was an envelope with no name on it and it had 700 rand or South African money. That amount was enough to cover the whole electricity need for the next two weeks with money left over.
The next day in the service, I watched him get up and put his hand under the couch he was seated on. He got up behind it and reached underneath it. I never saw him get anything because I kept closing my eyes in worship.
What I found out at last service, the Lord told him to look under the couch. There was another envelop with 1000 rand in it this time.
God was providing for him and us supernaturally. Beloved, I did not know that the church had taken up an offering to pay for our boarding house.
It was the biggest offering they ever took up and that the Bishop Himself gave a lot of sacrificial money to get it. He gave up much for us to come!
The next Sunday morning service in the middle of me preaching he goes behind me to the curtain and reaches in to get something.
I thought he was fixing something but behind that curtain there was another envelope with $1500 rand in it.
Why is the Lord having me share this testimony? This man of God, this Bishop knew something by the Spirit of God. God told him to care for us, provide for us and not let us pay for anything.
He had nothing to do it with, but the Word of God. This is what he testified to in front of the congregation on the last evening. He said, God told him about me, and that He loved me and our team too, and that God wanted to show me and Bishop how much he loved us.
He took up offerings every night and collected it. I did not want to keep it. I had every intention to give it back to them. I did not go there for an offering, money, or anything they did for us. I have never felt such love from a people that God sent me to like that before.
He told the people that he had nothing to do any of this with, but he had never, ever experienced God’s miracle provision until the Lord sent us to him. The Lord said, “I will give you what you need to care for them.” He did and then some.
The Bishop said, this had never happened to him before and that the only word God told him to tell me was, “I know exactly what I am doing.” I cried like a baby and our team did as well. Never had we ever seen or witnessed anything like this in our life. It was truly a miracle that humbled us.
In the midst of this supernatural giving, great signs and wonders happened to the people. Many were healed, delivered, set free and encouraged. God even called and placed people in ministry like He did when he chose Paul and Barnabas.
On the morning we were leaving, He gave me the offering, but the Lord told me to lay it on his desk in a place he would not see it until we left. God was so good to let us leave even more blessing for him.
As I am getting ready to get in the car of the person taking us to the airport, His assistant who was driving us, puts an envelope in my hands. He told me, that God had him put money away for a few months and that he would tell him where to put it when it was time to give it.
He told me when he woke up, “The Lord told him to give it Pastor Henry.” That is why I had you put it away. I wept again. The Lord told me not to cash it in, but to keep it, and to pray over it, and I have kept it to this day.
I don’t know who the Lord is having me write to today to share this testimony. I don’t understand why God did not touch anyone of my Pastors friends to sow for our trip and just our team?
I didn’t know why it was such a struggle to get there. but never has anyone sown a seed into my life, look me in the eyes, and says, “I know exactly what I am doing.”
What a lesson I learned from that trip. What a lesson I learned that we should never say we have nothing to bring to the Lord. They brought gum and soda and God blessed it an answered their prayers. I learned how God’s word and a servants obedience in his giving and loving us, that we were all blessed.
I believe that is the heart of true giving, and giving to the workmen of God as the church in Philippi loved and gave to Paul. I wish we could learn what this Bishop learned. He did not hold unto a thing.
It cost him much. He gave all he had to find a place for us to stay, feed us, care for us, and God provided in his hands everything he needed to do it with much left over for him.
I guess God is not a liar.. of course not.. he said, “give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together, running over SHALL MAN POUR INTO YOUR BOSOM.”
Edit for today:
Beloved, I saw it with my own eyes in miraculous love and instant results. So in this new year of 2020, let us keep things in God’s perspective. Isaac sowed in a time of famine and he reaped 100%
One thing I forgot to mention in the original post is this. One of the saints who came with us hurt her back before we came.
Do you know what the Pastor did, he got her a chiropractor and paid for it for her to get the therapy she needed. No one asked him to do this. He also had all the ladies in the church make her an African dress to her size. He also had the men give us African clothes to wear and remember them by. I still have them today.
All I can say to this, is “he that welcomes you, welcomes me, and he that welcomes Me, welcomes the Father that sent me.” This was a welcome of love that released miracle power and glory I believe as a foretaste of what God wants to do in 2020!
Beloved, Did not this Bishop sow in a time of famine and receive even more than 100$ back. God loves and prizes above all things a cheerful giver.
I can’t explain how these miracles happened. What I do know is that God moved supernaturally to meet this Pastor’s needs as he gave as God told him sacrificially. He listened and obeyed and put his seed in the good ground God told him to.
May we hear our Lord direct us in the same way and may the miracle provision he has for you come forth as it did for this precious servant of the Lord!
SELAH!
