SID: What I love is when these gifts happen…when you’re having a cup of coffee. You were in Israel having a cup of coffee with your wife. What happened?
STEVEN: Well I went down to get a cup of coffee. I sat at the table. This was at the Jerusalem bus stop in a very busy area. I wasn’t doing anything spiritual. Matter of fact, Sid, I didn’t really want to have to pray for anybody or have to do any type of ministry. I just wanted to drink my latte. So my wife went in line to get me a cup of coffee and she got herself one. And two elderly Jewish ladies were there in line and my wife overheard them talking about how much pain they were in. One basically was saying, “My back is killing me.” The other was saying, “Yes, I’m in tormenting pain as well.” And my wife said, “Well my husband, he’s sitting right over there. Why don’t you go over and ask him to pray for you. He’ll pray for you.” So they came over to my table. They kind of interrupted my coffee time. But I said, “Okay, I’ll pray for you, but I have to use the name of Jesus.” And they said, “Sshh, don’t say that name here, you’ll start a riot.” And they said, “We don’t want anything to do with that name.” I said, “Okay. That’s fair, but I have to use his name because that’s where the authority comes from.” They said, “Okay, just be real quiet.” I said, “All right.” So I reached out to pray for the first lady. I felt an anointing, but nothing dramatic happened. I just touched her and I said, “Receive God’s healing power.” And then I reached over to touch the second lady. When I did that, the Spirit of God came on me with tremendous power. My hand from my elbow down to my fingers caught on fire.
SID: Now when I hear you say that, caught on fire, describe.
STEVEN: It was a spiritual feeling.
SID: I know it was spiritual, but describe what it felt like.
STEVEN: I felt flames leaping off my hand. Both ladies jumped back. One of them said, “Dear God, what is that?” I said, “It’s the healing power of God.”
SID: Can you picture, some of you young people, walking up to your teachers and putting your hand on them and the flames of God go right into your teacher? Forget class that day.
STEVEN: I had to calm them down. I said, here it comes. In other words, don’t be afraid of it. Here it comes. And I touched her also and they, she began to be like on fire herself. She said, “I’m burning up.” And I said, “It’s God’s healing power.” The other lady said, “I’m on fire, too.” She said, “I thought they spiked my coffee and put some liquor in my coffee.” And I said, “No, that’s God’s healing power.” Then they looked at their watch. They said, “We’ve got to catch our bus.” And they staggered out of the bus stop. They looked like two drunk ladies. They were overcome with the Spirit’s power. I don’t know what happened to them, but I know God got their number.
SID: And again, this is God’s dinner bell. They knew that Steven prayed in the name of Jesus. They knew that something supernatural happened to them and I believe as they went home they realized the pain was totally gone. Now you said that you want to demystify the gifts and you said that knowledge is so important. Explain.
STEVEN: Well the apostle Paul said, “I do not want you to be ignorant of the spiritual gifts.” And so what that word “ignorant” means is, it means uninformed or misinformed. And so I found out that the better we understand the gifts, we unlock them in a sense that now we know exactly what they, are and they come forth and begin to manifest so much easier when we have a proper understanding of what they are and how they operate. The rest after that is a very easy process. After that, really all you have to do is just step out in faith because they will come forth.
SID: Now speaking about stepping out in faith, tell me about the gift of faith. This is a gift.
STEVEN: The gift of faith is very powerful. And Sid, we have to understand it that all nine gifts mentioned in 1st Corinthians, chapter 12 are supernatural. We cannot pull them down and try to explain these as like just basic gifts. They’re all on a supernatural level. And when we keep them in the place that God assigned them to, then we see the power that comes with them come forth and build up the body of Christ, and reach out and touch the lost. So the gift of faith is not ordinary faith. In other words, this is not like, I believe Jonah was swallowed by a large fish and then later, three days later, he went and ministered to Nineveh. This is a supernatural faith that comes upon you and it won’t stay forever. It might rest for three minutes. It might rest for three days or three hours.
SID: Okay. Tell me about the person that had a problem with their feet.
STEVEN: Well I had this leap of faith come upon me one time when I was ministering to the sick, and I said, “Somebody needs a miracle.” And there was a young man. He was 17 years old and his feet were as flat as a pancake. He had no arches in his feet. And so his mother said, “Would you pray for his arches.” I said, “I will.” And I had such faith come upon me. I said, “Take off your shoes. Take off your socks and anybody who’s never seen a miracle, come watch, and when I pray for him, do not close your eyes. Keep your eyes open and you will see arches form in his feet.”
SID: But wait a second. What if it didn’t happen? You realize the faithful of the whole group would go [unintelligible].
STEVEN: Right if it wasn’t going to happen, I’m in big trouble.
SID: For sure.
STEVEN: But when that gift comes, it obliterates doubt.
SID: You knew.
STEVEN: There’s no doubt. There’s no fear. You know God is going to do that.
SID: Okay. So people are watching you grab his feet, flat as a pancake. What happens?
STEVEN: I took his, I took, it was the right foot, if I’m correct, I took in my hand. And before I could even pray, “In the name of Jesus,” an arch formed right in front of everybody. I couldn’t even get out the full prayer and the arch went [unintelligible] and a perfectly formed arch in his foot. I grabbed the other one. I started to pray, “In the name of…” and there went the arch. It formed completely in his feet. He stood up and I received the written testimony of his mother of this tremendous miracle that happened in his feet, and now his feet are normal. That’s not just a healing. That’s a miracle. And the reason it happened was because special faith came upon me. If people want to move into the gifts of healings and into the working of miracles, they have to go through the door of special faith. And of the power gifts, the greatest one is the gift of special faith. Sometimes I call it super faith because when it comes on you, you feel like Superman and it’s the power of God to do what you’re called to do, and step out and do it boldly.
SID: Okay. You also operate in, he actually operates in all the gifts of the Spirit, all nine. However, tell me about the gift of discernment, discerning of spirits.
STEVEN: This is a fascinating gift. Out of all the gifts, Sid, I used to look at them, I felt I was beginning to get a handle on some of the gifts and I would look at discerning of spirits. And one day I just set my Bible down and I said, “Lord, I haven’t a clue in the world what this gift is. Would you please help me understand it so it can begin to come forth in my life.” And many people call it perhaps a gift of discernment. But discernment is not necessarily a gift. We all should have good discernment. We should all be able to have what also we call good common sense. But this is something different. This is discerning of spirits. So it can be discerning of evil spirits. It can be discerning of angelic spirits. It can be discerning of the realm of God and His Glory or it can be discerning the realm of the satanic world. But discerning the spirits is when our senses are opened up, and God can open it up, and it can come in different facets. To be in the Spirit we can hear, taste, touch or smell in the spirit realm through the gift of discerning the spirits.
SID: And you know what I think is so neat? When we come back, I’m going to have Steven pray for you for just a release of the gifting that God has already put within you, maybe for healing. But he has the ability to see or smell when something is evil and when something good is going on. I want him to teach on that. We’ll be right back.
