by Matt Sorger
The Forgotten Ones
I’ll never forget the day I entered into my first leper colony in India. The stench was almost unbearable. The site of rotting flesh, swarming flies, and dilapidated shacks shocked my senses. As I walked along the dirt road toward the leper colony, a gentle rain began to descend from above. I looked to see the faces of my team who had come with me from America. Some were in shock. Others were bewildered. As we passed dilapidated shacks, some with no doors and with walls that were falling down, lepers began to come out of their places of hiding to greet us. This was home to a group of fifty or more lepers who lived on the outskirts of the city of Chennai, India. One man sat in a makeshift wheelchair. It was more like a wagon that needed to be pulled by others. He had no hands, no legs, and was suffering from open sores all over his body and face. He sat there looking up at us with eyes of pain and despair. His face was half sunken in. Flies swarmed in his open wounds.
I stood amazed as my team entered into this colony of forgotten people, God’s children cut off from society. They were cut off from their families and long-forgotten friends, alone, rejected, despised, and cast out. Mother Teresa has said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”3 Imagine the deep pain of isolation and rejection these individuals have endured. This was their existence. Some would call it hell on earth.
An unusual warmth filled my heart as I saw my teammates running to these people, opening their arms wide, hugging them, and just pouring out the love of God. Some of our women sat in the dirt as the leper women lay in their laps. You could see desperate eyes being filled with hope and life. That day we wrapped our arms around each leper one at a time. We loved them. We prayed for them. We fed them. We held them—the rejected of the earth.
As I prayed for one woman, she began to wail and cry out with tears streaming down her face. The power of God was touching her. Something deep inside was being set free by the love and power of Jesus. Her face of desperation turned to a face of joy as she reached out her arms to hug me and thank me. It very well could have been the first human touch and contact she had in years, maybe the first in her entire life. Never underestimate the power of a touch! It can bring healing.
As I stood before each leper, I laid my hands on them, praying for their healing and freedom. Some may say, “Matt, don’t you know leprosy is contagious? Should you be laying your hands on them with open sores and wounds?” Well, I would say, “God is more powerful than leprosy! Love is more powerful than disease. Love is more powerful than the deepest pain and scars people carry, on the inside and out.” The ultimate answer for man’s need is love. Love is the one thing that will never fail. It has a 100 percent success rate.
Shortly after returning home from my trip to India, my phone rang. It was a pastor from India who had accompanied us on our trip to the leper colony. He was weeping on the other end of the phone. “Matt, I have to tell you what has happened. We have brought other ministers out with us to the lepers. One was so afraid of catching leprosy that he sat in the car and prayed for the lepers through the car window with the window up. Another team we brought in left the food at the front of the colony and wouldn’t go in. They didn’t want to get too close to the lepers.” He continued, “But you and your team, when you went, you sat with the lepers. You fed the lepers. You prayed for them.” He began to tell me how he went back to the leper colony two weeks after we were there to follow up. When he visited, the lepers told him, “When that white man came and prayed for us, when he touched us and put his hand on us, something happened. The leprosy has stopped in our bodies!” The pastor wept as he testified of the healing power that had touched these lost and forgotten people. It was the power of unconditional love.
A Cripple Boy Walks
On another trip to India, one of our team members experienced the amazing power of God’s love. I was praying on the platform, during one of our Healing Festivals, for those who needed healing. Our team was out in the field also praying for people. One of our team members, Rich, found a young boy lying in the dirt, unable to walk due to paralysis in his legs. Rich’s heart became overwhelmed with God’s love for this young boy. He picked him up in his arms and held him as he prayed. Suddenly Rich could feel the young boy’s legs beginning to kick. As he placed him down on the ground, strength came into his legs and he walked! He was healed by God! Oh, what healing power there is in God’s love!
I think the most powerful love of all is the love that gives expecting nothing in return. So many times we give with strings attached. We think, “Well, if I do this for you, then what are you going to do for me?” That’s not real love. Love gives expecting nothing in return. Love gives to those who have nothing for you. It’s this kind of selfless love that truly moves the heart of God.
Living a Life of Unlimited Power
How would you like to live with unlimited power? Power to heal the sick. Power to see people set free. Power to live a life of wholeness and victory over your own pain and weaknesses. I think this is what we all desire, but many times we live beneath all God has for us because either we haven’t fully received or we haven’t fully given His love to others. Love will not only transform you, but it will also transform others through you.
Tremendous supernatural power flows through love. Jesus was a man who saw all the sick healed. He never turned one person away. He never said, “Sorry, I can’t help you. Your problems are just too difficult. That’s beyond Me.” No. He had the power to help every person who ever reached out to Him. He was not motivated by selfish gain. He didn’t give to others based on what He could get back from them. He gave simply because He loved. This was His main mission in life, to reveal the love of God to broken, messed-up people—people who seemed beyond repair. These are the ones He came for.
As I study the life of Jesus, I realize a truth that has transformed my own life and ministry: love was the secret source of Jesus’s power. It’s what enabled Him to heal every sick person who came to Him. It was what gave Him the ability to move in a power that broke through the natural laws and limitations of the earthly realm. Let me explain.
Jesus really established a model and example for us to follow and learn from. One moment that stands out to me the most is in Matthew 14 when Jesus receives the news that His cousin, John the Baptist, just had his head cut off for standing up for truth and righteousness. It was a deep loss.
We must never forget that although Jesus was God in the flesh, Jesus was also a man just like us. He had feelings and emotions and was even tempted in every way we have ever been tempted. He has experienced it all. That’s why He can relate so well to us.
But as Jesus went to a solitary place to pray and work through what He was experiencing, the crowds found out where He was going to be. They followed Him. While Jesus was going through His own problems, He was confronted with the deep needs and pains of the people around Him. His response to this reveals why He had so much power present in His life to help others: “When He went ashore and saw a great throng of people, He had compassion (pity and deep sympathy) for them and cured their sick” (Matt. 14:14).
When Jesus saw the deep pain and needs of the people, He was moved with compassion. As compassion and love flowed in His heart, power flowed through His hands and body, healing the sick people around Him. Somehow love was connected to the power Jesus had. It was a selfless love that caused Jesus to put His own problems aside to help others in their moment of need.
If you really want God to use you to help others, you will quickly discover that ministry will not always be convenient. So many wait until everything is just right in their lives. They say, “When I have enough money...” “When this situation is dealt with...” “When this person acknowledges my call, then I will be used by God.” If you wait for every situation in your life to be perfect before God uses you, you will be waiting a long time.
Sometimes the greatest power flows through you when you feel the least ready. It’s not
about everything being perfect. It’s about having God’s heart for people. You can be facing serious situations in your own life, and in the process God will still use you to help others, but you have to be willing to be inconvenienced.
Not only was Jesus willing, but He also showed us why such power could flow through Him. He was moved with compassion. This was the key! He actually cared about people. His heart was genuine and sincere. Something happened in Jesus that day. As love flowed in Him, God’s healing power was released to minister healing and freedom to multitudes of others.
Compassion Draws God’s Power to You
Not only will God’s compassion in you release His power through you, but it will also draw His power to you! Delia Knox was crippled in a wheelchair for twenty-two years, paralyzed from the waist down. She couldn’t even feel her legs. For the first ten years of her paralysis, she woke up each morning wondering if that day would be the day for her healing. With each passing day, month, and year her hope became deferred, and she wondered if she would just have to live this way forever. Now twenty-two years had come and gone, and she found herself in a healing meeting; truthfully she didn’t want to be there. She was uncomfortable in such places because she didn’t want to be let down again, but something miraculous happened that night.
A mother brought to the platform her baby, who needed healing from a kidney disease. As Delia saw this child’s condition, her heart was moved with deep compassion. She began to pray, “Lord, You have to do something for that baby!” Then suddenly the evangelist and pastor came off the platform and began to pray for her. Her heart at that moment was filled with compassion for the baby, so much so that something deep inside of her softened. Suddenly she could feel hands on her legs! Sensation was coming back. As the pastor said, “Let faith arise in this woman,” she heard the Holy Spirit say, “Get up!” And up she went! For the first time in twenty-two years she was standing. As those around her helped her begin to take her first steps, God’s healing power surged through her.
Today she is 100 percent healed and is fully walking and praising God for her healing. She testifies that as God’s compassion filled her heart for another person, it actually drew God’s power back toward herself for her own healing. Delia’s husband says, “When compassion goes out, virtue comes in. What happened was a boomerang effect.” Faith came alive in Delia’s heart for healing through the power of compassion.4
A Personal Meeting With Dr. Oral Roberts
One of America’s great healing evangelists was Dr. Oral Roberts. Known for his large tent meetings across America in the 1950s, Dr. Roberts witnessed the tremendous healing power of God on a regular basis. A few months before he passed away on December 15, 2009, at the age of ninety-one, I had the privilege of sitting with him in his living room for several hours. We shared some wonderful conversation, and then he prayed over me. I asked him what the secret was to his healing ministry. I was amazed by his answer. He said, “Well, many think I would say faith. And true, faith is important, but I knew I had faith. The Bible teaches that all men who believe in Christ have a measure of faith. So all Christians have faith. Because the Bible tells me I have faith, I simply believe it. But I would find myself before a healing crusade meeting going into my hotel room and praying and seeking God for His love to fill my heart. I would pray for God to cause me to love the people and to care about their conditions. As I sought after the love of God, the miracles exploded in my meetings.” In another meeting Dr. Roberts shared, “If you want to heal the sick, you must love the sick.”
It was just as Paul taught in Galatians 5:6. Faith was activated by love, releasing the power of God to help people overcome the most impossible situations.
Releasing God’s Love
I will never forget the night I was ministering in Wales. It had once been the home of an amazing move of God back in 1904. I felt led that night to call people forward for prayer for healing. As I was praying for people at the altar, my eye caught a woman sitting down in her seat about halfway back in the auditorium. I felt prompted by God to go and pray for her. But my mind said, “God, if she wanted prayer, she would be up at the altar.” I couldn’t shake the impression I was feeling.
So I made my way back to where the woman was sitting. I asked her, “May I pray for you?” She looked up at me and with a scowl on her face said, “No! I don’t want you to pray for me!” She continued, “I didn’t even want to be here tonight. My husband made me come!” I looked up at God and said, “I told You.” Again I felt, “Pray for her.” So I asked again, “May I pray for you?” She said, “I’ve had everyone pray for me, and I’m still sick! I’ve gone to the doctors and had operations and nothing has worked. God doesn’t love me, and He doesn’t want to heal me!” She was mad, angry, and depressed—not a good combination for the prayer of faith. She began to tell me all the sickness she had in her body. It was a long list! I never knew one person could have so much wrong with them.
I finally had to stop her and ask her one more time if I could pray for her. She now reluctantly agreed. As she stood to her feet, she just looked at me with an icy cold stare. I wasn’t sure where I was going to muster up the faith to believe God for her healing. I was just acting in obedience to God.
It would have been very easy for me to react to her anger and animosity toward me. I could have easily walked away with my own flesh offended by her bad attitude. But I knew I had to obey God. As I closed my eyes and began to pray, suddenly something began to happen inside of me. I didn’t care one bit how angry this woman was with me. My heart began to be overwhelmed with a supernatural love for her! As this love filled my heart, I lost sight of her earthly condition and saw what God could do.
As love infused my heart, power flowed out of my spirit into her body. She began weeping and laughing at the same time. All the pain left her body, and she was completely healed and set free. Not only was she physically healed of all her pain and infirmity, but also she could feel God’s presence again. “I have felt spiritually dead for five years. I haven’t felt God’s presence at all! But it’s like a new life has flowed into me. I am close to God again,” she exclaimed.
Love has the power to pull people out of the deepest pits of despair, heal them, restore them, and give them a new life. God’s love can even overcome people’s depression, anger, and lack of faith.
I remember one trip our team took to India to minister in a healing crusade. God’s power was present to heal the sick, set people free, and bring people to faith in Christ. While I was preaching, my dad, Rich, was standing off to the side of the platform. As he was looking over the crowd, he couldn’t help but notice this one particular man who was near the front. The man kept staring at my dad with eyes that said, “If I get near enough to you, I am going to kill you.” My dad felt prompted simply to pray the love of God over him. Throughout the entire crusade meeting my dad silently prayed for this one man.
At the end of the meeting, as we were leaving, this man came running after us and was intercepted by some of our security. As he made his way through, he just wanted to testify of a miracle he received. For years he had suffered from mental torment. He said, “As I was staring at that man [referring to my dad], my mind was healed.” As my dad simply prayed God’s love over him, God’s power was released, completely setting his mind free.
The Spirit of Adoption
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep one self unspotted from the world.
—JAMES 1:27, NKJV
Another way of releasing God’s love to those who need it most is through the spirit of adoption. Christians are becoming a part of the solution to the world’s brokenness by opening their hearts up to foster parenting and adopting orphans—children that for one reason or another were given up by their natural birth parents. One such family is the Ragsdales, who began foster care about fifteen years ago and have had over seventy-five children in their home. Some children have sta
yed a few months, some for up to five years.
They adopted one child when he was four years old. He is eleven now. One day they asked their newly adopted son, “How did we become your parents and you become our son?” He replied, “I prayed to God for a new mom and dad, and God gave me you. When I get older, I will obey you. Now go and write that down.” They gave hima new name, Josiah, which means, “Yahweh heals.” “The Lord continues to expand our hearts with His presence, so we are able to reachout and pour His love into His children,” shared Denise Ragsdale.
Heidi Baker, a missionary in Mozambique, Africa, shared a heart-wrenching story with me about a young girl named Angelique. As a child she had been tied to a tree by her uncle and raped over and over again by the men in her village. When Heidi and her husband, Rolland, rescued this young girl, she had human bite marks all over her body. She had been brutalized by the depravity of man’s sin. But the love of God is more powerful! When she first came home with them, she couldn’t even raise her head up. She was so weak. But as Heidi, Rolland, and their team loved her, held her, and prayed over her, God’s healing power began to bring restoration. Soon she was not only able to lift up her head, but she also began eating and then walking. Today she is a beautiful young lady, healed and made whole by the power of God’s love. She was able to completely forgive her uncle and the men who abused her and live the life God destined for her, a life of joy, peace, blessing, and fulfillment. She not only was made whole by God’s love, but she was then able to release it to those who were the least deserving.
Fruit-Driven Life
But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all—love].