“Give Back the Gifts”

One time when I stood before Jesus, having the opportunity to ask Him for anything I wanted, I didn’t know what to ask for. He would have given me anything! If I had asked for gold, I would have gotten gold, but at the same time I would have been finished. I, then, asked Him for the gift of healing and He gave me the gift of healing. However, as I was using it, the gift was leading me away from God. Have you ever thought of that? The gift of healing was leading me away from God, away from God’s perfect will. Let me tell you what happened.

People were coming in droves from all over the country so that I would pray for them. They began to bring mad people in chains and these would be loosed. I was getting all kind of healings done and felt so good about it. However, I was taking the place of Christ in the peoples’ lives. Instead of asking Jesus to help them, they were coming to Brother Cecil. They were coming to me. I kept praying to God, “I want your will, God.” Do you know what God did? He let the same people turn around on me, slander me, lie about me, and break up the church. What was it all for? To save me from the gift of healing!

Then one day, Jesus came to me and said, “Remember the gifts I gave you?” (He gave me not only the gift of healing, but the eight other gifts of the Spirit, too.) “Yes, Lord,” I replied. He said, “Give them back to Me.” How do you give back a gift to God? It is not difficult. It just means that this man must not use it anymore. God must use it when He is ready to use it. And so I laid the gifts before God. Any time God wants to use them, they work. I have seen them work in India, I have seen them work in Africa, but they always work at places where people need to believe God. God took the gifts and they now belong to the church. When the church needs them, they can be used for the church. I am not going around building a name for myself by using the gift of God. I will not put up a tent to get people healed, because that is not my business. My business is to preach the gospel and God’s business is to heal the people. Amen.