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by Michael Dow
It was October 2002 when Jesus came looking for me. By that time in life, I was a drug addict, I was drug dealing, I was diseased, I was angry, I was violent, I was broken, I was hopeless. And I didn’t walk into church that night because I was looking for the Lord. I didn’t even know if God existed. I wasn’t looking for God at all. In fact, I walked into church that night because I was trying to get into a fight with the pastor’s son. And by the end of the night I ended up at the altar, praying a prayer and not even believing or knowing if something was going to happen to me or if anything would ever be different. And I ended up with a visionary type experience with Jesus where I saw the one who is alive from the dead. And Jesus embraced me in a time when many had walked away from me. In that moment, that night, in one encounter, I was a radically different person, instantly delivered from addiction, from anger, from violence, from lust and perversion, and so many other bondages that gripped my heart and controlled my life. It was shortly thereafter I was baptized publicly and then filled with the Holy Spirit.
A few weeks after being filled with the Spirit I was sitting in a service, I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Mike, I want to heal you this morning if you would let me.” You see it was years prior that I was at the doctor’s office. I made an appointment that day because I woke up with a lot of issues, and as I ran into an appointment as fast as I could get there I had a professional sit across the desk from me and tell me for the rest of my life I would now bear in my body the marks or the consequences of my lifestyle choices.
He said I would never have a spouse and be able to be intimate with that spouse without the transference of a disease that science had no cure for. He said if we had children it couldn’t be in a natural fashion without them being tainted because of the decisions that I gave my life to. You see it was hopeless for me in the moment because the professional told me that I had herpes. But that Sunday morning as I sat in the crowd and I heard the voice of God say, “I want to heal you if you would let me,”
I decided to respond to God and I walked down the altar and when they laid their hands on me and they prayed a prayer of faith it felt as if someone dumped a hot bucket of water over my head and it ran down through the floor and going home to now have a face off with my pills not really knowing if anything was different or if even what had happened meant something.
As I extended my arm into the drawer to take my medication, which I had to do on a daily basis, I felt the voice of the Lord speak to me one more time and this time he said something very different. He said, “Mike, you don’t need those anymore.” You see that day back in January 2003 the blood of Jesus gave me an answer that science still has not found. I have a wife for almost 10 years now that is whole and perfect. My 3 children who we had natural are whole and perfect and beautiful. I have committed the rest of my days to lead people to the One who came looking for me on that day back in October of 2002.
Michael Dow
Cofounder/ President of Burning Ones
Author, Fasting Volume II: Your Life as a Weapon in the Hand of God
Orlando, FL