If you want your faith to grow, you’ve got to nurture it, practise it, act on it – and it will grow! That’s what has happened in my life. How did I have the boldness in the prison to pray, “Lord, 2000 years ago when Paul and Silas were in prison, You worked a miracle, broke down the prison walls and set them free. If You could do it for them, You can do it for me, get me out!”?!! I prayed like this, not just because I knew the Scripture, but because, in the back of my mind, it was only 8 years after my throat cancer had been miraculously healed! Because of this I could say, “Lord, You delivered Paul and Silas, You healed my throat cancer – and You can get me out of prison!” You see, my faith grew – experimentally!
Somebody asked me, “How can I grow my faith?” How do you grow anything? By feeding it and practising it. I’m hopeless at cooking, but how do you become a good cook, a chef? It’s by putting into practice what you have learnt. No, not everybody will make a good cook, but we can all learn the basics! I know how to turn an oven on and use the microwave, but if you want to be a good cook, you’ve got to work at it! If you want to grow faith, you do it by putting it into practice, by experience, by using it, by working with it. I like driving, I’m a reasonably good driver, but learner drivers, who are just starting out, learn by practice! In order to pass the test, you practice. It’s the same with faith. Faith will only work if you put it to work! In my life, my faith has grown. This is why, aged nearly 90, my testimony is so important! I’ve had more than 70 years of ministry. When I look back on the early days, my evangelism was basic. But I put it to work!
When I had the lung cancer 20 years ago in 2002/2003. They offered me an operation and chemotherapy. I said, NO! Because I said to the Lord, “I cannot go back into Russia after having preached all these years there, saying ‘You are a God who works miracles’, and continue to pray for people to be healed – if I myself am not healed!” Don’t talk to God like I do! Because I said, “Lord, I only live to evangelise, if You don’t need me anymore, take me Home. But if You still need me and want me to go back into the former Soviet Union, then I need a miracle so that I can go back as the living evidence of Your Power.” As you know, the Lord healed me, the cancer came out of my mouth. When He healed me of throat cancer in 1964, He literally cut it out and left a scar and to this day, I carry the mark of God in my body.
But it comes back to this concept of sacrifice. When we get back to this sacrificial worship, your life on the altar, I believe the Glory of God will come back to the Church, just as in 2 Chronicles 5:14, when the Glory of God came down, or in Chapter 7:1, when the Fire came down. If we want the Glory of God, if we want the Fire, we have to be in that position where we can call upon God and make it happen! We’ve got to put our faith to work in our lives. In my life God has filled me with His Fire and His Power – because I have put my faith into practice. What’s the point of the Fire if you don’t put it to work?