From the archives of Evelyn Roberts – Three of four parts
When God opens a great door of opportunity for you, the devil will often send an adversary in the form of someone – or even an entire group of people – who doesn’t understand what God is asking you to do. They’ll do their best to talk you out of doing what God has called you to do. When that happens, they are “adversaries.”
Soon after Oral entered the healing ministry, a man in our town came to him and said, “I see you’re getting in on the healing ministry. There’s a lot of money out there in the healing ministry, and I want to get in on what you’re doing so we can both make money.”
Oral was devastated. He came home and said, “Evelyn, I’ve decided I’m not going into the healing ministry.” I said, “You’re not?” And then he told me about this man and he said, “People will think I’m just in it for money.”
I said, “Oral, has God really called you into the healing ministry?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Then you mean you’re going to let one thing that one man has said keep you away from what God has called you to do? Why, he could have said that about any profession or opportunity or any job you told him about. If one person misunderstands you, and misjudging you can keep you from following God, what are you going to do when others don’t understand down the line?”
Oral made a decision that day; not only to continue in the healing ministry, but to continue regardless of what others might say. Sure enough, in the years that followed, there were many people in our denomination and our community – some whom we had known for many years – who were to say, “You can’t preach that it’s God’s will to heal everybody. You can’t preach that God wants to prosper people.” The wider the open door of opportunity to take God’s healing power, the more the adversaries seem to have come.
Is someone trying to talk you out of following God today? Are they misjudging you and trying to get you to back down from what God has called you to do? Don’t listen to them. Hold fast to God’s word to you.
