And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.

John 5:5-9

The story of the healing of the paralytic proves to us that Jesus did not attempt to do supernatural things unless He saw that God was doing them.

Jesus went to the Pool of Bethesda and met a man who had been there for thirty-eight years. This man had been at the pool for such a long time because he did not have any nurses to help him.

I once saw a similar situation in a hospital. There was a man who had an accident that broke his hip joint such that he couldn’t walk. He needed to have surgery but this man didn’t know anybody who could help him. He was not a rich man. He was also not an important person. So every time he was scheduled for surgery, somebody else was given his place. This man continued to lie in bed even though his case needed immediate surgery! Eventually, one year later, he had his surgery which was too late to be effective.

He was just like the man by the pool of Bethesda who had no one to help him. Jesus selected this man for healing and ignored all the others. There was a large number of very ill people there. Would He heal all of them? Did He heal all of them? Did He attempt to line them up and minister to them? The answer is “no”. Jesus simply ignored the large number of sick people around Him and ministered to one person.

Why did Jesus heal only one person? How did He select this man out of the crowd? He followed the visible appearance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not talk to any of the sick people. Seeing this man and suddenly knowing a little about his condition made him sense that God was interested in that man. We would probably say that Jesus had a “word of knowledge” about that man.

The unspiritual and faithless would say that Jesus just healed the first person He saw. However, the spiritual person does not operate by chance, by luck or by good fortune. He knows that God is at work even in his thoughts.

As soon as Jesus saw and knew something about this man, He believed that God was leading Him to help that man.

Six Keys to Cooperating with the Supernatural

1. Work only when you see the Father working.
But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto,

and I work. John 5:17

The key to aligning yourself with God is following the Holy Spirit. The key to following the Holy Spirit is to watch what He is doing and where He is doing it. In other words, Jesus was saying, “If I see my Father working, I will jump in and work. If I see my Father ministering to someone, then I will minister to him.”

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he

2. Wait until you see the Father working.

For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater

doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.  John 5:19

Jesus restricted His ministration to what He could see the Father doing. Unlike some of us, who want to pray for everyone and heal everyone, Jesus restricted Himself to doing only what His Father did. Jesus knew that He could fulfil the purposes of God better by restricting His activities to what the Father did.

Jesus did not feel embarrassed that only one person would be healed. Jesus was not embarrassed by the fact that people would think, “There were not many miracles today.” Jesus did not care whether people thought He was powerful or not. If His Father wanted one miracle, He would do no more than one miracle.

works than these, that ye may marvel. John 5:20

Be patient! Don’t rush! I must wait till I see my Father showing me His miracles and His works. When God loves you, He will show you what He is doing. When God loves you, He will show you whom He is healing and whom He is touching. If you do not wait to see what the Father is doing, you will stumble in the dark and experiment with unworkable things.

Occasionally, you will find something that works. But most of the time, you will be found beating the air and sweating away to no purpose.

You cannot do anything until God does it. If He is not making your church grow you cannot make it grow yourself. If He is not healing you, you cannot be healed. If He is not delivering you, you cannot be delivered. God doesn’t just do everything for everybody.

God is always doing something in particular. We must wait and see what God is doing. We must be patient! We must flow with what He is doing. We must move away from what He is not doing!

3. Accept and follow the manifestations of healings.

Healings are a special manifestation of the Spirit. It is the manifestation that marks out the new covenant. People can fake crying, screaming, shaking and trembling. But, no man can fake healings. People are either healed or they are not. Following the visible appearance of the Spirit is the great key to a successful healing ministry: Follow the visible appearances of the Holy Spirit. This is the key to the healing ministry: pray for those that God is healing. Avoid praying for people that God is not healing. All your past failures in ministry can be attributed to your doing things that God was not doing. Every time we pray for someone whom God is not touching, there is an impression that God’s power is not there. There is a feeling that there is no anointing. The most successful ministers are those who strictly follow the Holy Spirit.

I remember praying for a twenty-five-year old lady who was dying in hospital. I knew that God loved her and would never let her die at that age. Unfortunately, she did die in spite of my strong and fervent prayers for her. This was a confusing experience for me because this lady was a faithful long-standing Christian who loved God with all her might. Yet she died in the prime of her life, leaving behind a husband and a child.

Why does God do apparently insignificant miracles in a miracle service when there are really ill people who need healing badly? It is these looming questions that caused many of the great healing evangelists to question the healing ministry and eventually stop ministering healing

4. Accept and follow all of the eighteen manifestations of the Spirit.

The key to successfully ministering the Spirit is to watch out for what God is doing. If you can see that God is touching someone visibly, then you simply also touch the person. You must accept when God is ministering to someone who begins shaking, trembling, screaming or crying! Notice if people are being healed! Notice if people are falling under the power! Notice if there are prophecies! If the Spirit shows you that He is touching someone, touch that person. Leave all the other dry bones! This is the great key to successfully ministering the Spirit.

It is important to accept what God is doing and flow with it. If you flow with the move of God, He will be with you. If you fight against what He is doing you will never succeed. After years of walking with the Lord, I have simply lost all confidence in my ability to do my own thing. I just have to trust Him and do what He wants to do. Ultimately, we belong to God. We can only do what He is doing.

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

Ephesians 4:15

We must grow up into Him in all things. This means that we must grow up in healings, miracles and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. We must grow up in our understanding of the administration of the Spirit. We must grow up in Him in the workings and the moves of the Spirit.

5. Accept and follow men whom the Spirit is using.

Unfortunately, the Lord is not as predictable as we would like Him to be. Human beings love predictable things. We want to be able to say, “This is what God will do!” We want to be able to say, “God will heal this person tomorrow.” We wish we could predict whether God will use this young man and not the other one. However, most of the time we are wrong. God does not fit into our stereotypes.

You can never tell whom God is going to use. You can hardly tell whether God is going to heal someone or not. It is very difficult to tell whether this person will live long or not. No one can tell if God will use the pastor’s son or a stranger from nowhere.

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How to Cooperate with the Supernatural

I have seen large families, in which the parents predicted which of their sons would be a priest. They also predicted which son would be a wicked businessman. Surprisingly, the wicked man turned out to be the priest and the priest turned out to be something else.

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I

hated.

Romans 9:13

This is a Scripture that confuses many people. We wrestle with the fact that God would choose a thief and a trickster. Why would God leave the decent firstborn son, who pleased his father and replace him with this con man?

Align Yourself with God

God cannot be predicted and stereotyped! What we need to know and understand is: “What is God doing at this particular moment?” This is often different from what we expect God to do. There will be more miracles, more successes, more victories when we get to walk with God. After all, it is God who will do the work. It is God who will build the Church. It is God who will make you successful. The Bible says it clearly: the God who called you is the one who will actually do it.

Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:24

6. Accept and follow what God is doing in churches.

One of the keys to successful church planting and church growth is to plant your church where God is visibly working with churches. Your new church is likely to work in a city where God is obviously working to build churches. A city in which large churches flourish is a city where the Holy Spirit is visibly causing churches to grow. A church will never grow without the power of the Holy Spirit at work.