While she was taking skiing lessons as a young girl, Elizabeth Chatka found herself struggling to keep her balance. She later went to the doctor and after a series of tests was diagnosed with Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSH), CBN reports,
FSH is an inherited disorder caused by a genetic mutation, hence no known cure, that results in a weakening of the muscles particularly in the face, shoulders and arms. Though not deadly, 20% of cases result in people having to use a wheelchair.
It is a rare condition with less than 40,000 cases reported in the US, and it usually shows up in people between the ages of 15 – 30.
Because of her condition Elizabeth struggled with constant pain and found herself needing to rest while others were out having fun.
But she had grown up in a Christian home and for several years sought God for healing. But nothing changed.
She eventually married and while both she and her husband continued praying for healing, Elizabeth noticed that her symptoms were getting worse. At this point, they were considering selling their home and buying a new one that didn’t have stairs to make life easier for Elizabeth. They also realized the way her condition was deteriorating, a wheelchair was inevitable.
Eventually, Elizabeth said she just stopped praying, and believed she would never be healed.
“There comes a moment where you pray and you pray and you pray, and it was a 20-year prayer, where you just stop. And we did,” Elizabeth’s husband David said.
But then an incredible thing happened during a service at their home church in Canada in 2009.
There was a guest speaker and while he was speaking he stopped and interjected a word of knowledge about a miraculous healing that had just taken place.
“He said, ‘Someone here has weakening face muscles, is extremely fatigued, has shoulder pain, sagging shoulders, sagging back,” Elizabeth recalled. “Their hips are weak, and that person will end up in a wheelchair if the Lord doesn’t intervene, and that person, I am here to say, is healed in the name of Jesus.’
He then continued on with his sermon.
But his description of the symptoms perfectly matched Elizabeth’s condition and the speaker said that whoever had this problem had just experienced a miracle.
Elizabeth was instantly healed. She finished the service with her hands raised in worship and has been functioning normally ever since.
There was an interesting promise that Jesus gave His disciples. He stated that those who believed in Christ would perform even greater works than Christ:
12 Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. (John 14:12-14 NASV)
There are two things that we can take from this passage.
First, the Lord was speaking of those who believed in Him, and importantly the works the Lord did.
This will be our challenge, believing not only in Christ, but the Biblical record of Christ’s miraculous three-year ministry.
Over the past several decades, there has been a constant attack on the Bible, in an effort to discredit it, and undermine our Christian faith and authority.
Secondly, Jesus said that those who did believe, would do ‘greater works,’ than Christ. The Greek word for greater, meizōn, means literally greater or more by comparison.
What does that mean?
Though there were miracles in the early church recorded in the Book of Acts, you certainly don’t get the impression that they were greater, by comparison, than what we see in Christ’s three-year ministry.
Because of that, some believe ‘greater works’ refers to the overall expanse of Christianity, who over the following centuries, would perform more and by comparison greater miracles than Christ.
But can we put centuries of miraculous works on the same level as three years?
I don’t think so.
I believe there is a time coming when there will be an intense release of the Holy Spirit, that will result in a concentrated time of miraculous healings.
We see a hint of what is to come through Elizabeth’s healing which may have even included a remarkable rewriting of her genetic code.
OpentheWord.org 