My mother died on Easter Sunday when she was only 49-years-old. She was the single most powerful spirit-filled Christian woman I’ve known. She was a strong Bible-believing woman. She believed for a healing of cancer for herself and was healed of it…twice!
That day in the hospital, she didn’t have to die. Between my daddy and me, we had enough faith to keep her alive. In fact, we did just that for a while, but do you know what? My mama wanted to go home to be with Jesus. She was tired of fighting. She no longer had a burning will to live. That was the clincher. Sure, she didn’t really want to die sick. But since it was happening, she made a decision in her heart that going home to be with Jesus was better than hanging out on the earth.
We fought her decision tooth and nail. My daddy wanted his wife. My family and I wanted our mama. We wanted her to stay in Louisiana more than anything else.
Mama let us pray over her. She even agreed in prayer with us. But she was an honest woman, and she couldn’t let us keep praying when her heart was hiding a secret that fought our prayers at every turn. Eventually she told us point blank and bluntly, “Leave me alone! Let me go!” We hollered, “No! You’re going to be healed!”
She was such a strong-willed woman. It was hurtful and irritating to see her letting her life slip away. She had the power to fight! I knew this from first-hand experience. Sick or not, this woman had the strength of God in her. Yet, she was slipping.
Angry, I left the room. My eyes hot with tears and my heart thumping with adrenaline, I flew into a torrent of angry prayers to God. I was mad at my mama. I was mad at the situation. I was mad at God, too. Wasn’t He listening?
With fierce prayers and determination to see my mother healed, I started talking to God. “What is going on here?! I’m praying! Dad’s praying! Why isn’t she healed? You cannot allow death to defeat me, God. You made a covenant with me through Jesus’ blood! And that covenant says by His stripes we were healed! Where is that healing? If you break this covenant with me, you’ll have to cease to be God! You must keep covenant with me. You must obey your Word!”
I was honest with God. He knew how I felt, so what was the point in hiding it? I was confused. I was hurt. I didn’t know what else to do.
That is when God spoke up, “Jesse, I have a covenant with you, yes. However, I have one with your mother as well. You are praying for her healing. She is praying in her heart for Me to take her home. Now, I will obey My Word. But you and your daddy are battling your mother’s will. It is her life at stake. You have Me in a hard place, Jesse. Someone has got to give in. Get yourselves together and tell Me what I am to do!”
I flew back into my mother’s room. I looked at her. She was the most hard-headed woman in the world. You know, my mama never listened to anybody. She did what she wanted to do most of the time. She always said that when all her family was saved, she’d go home to be with Jesus. Well, we all had come in and here she was, obeying her own negative words of death. It made me mad. How stupid! Only 49-years-old! I knew I couldn’t fight her forever. She had more staying power than all of us. We knew that.
So, I talked to Dad, and with hearts wrenched with anger and sorrow, we released my mama. We let her have her way. Do you know what? The second we agreed to let her go, she stopped breathing. The sound of her heart monitor went flat. I heard her breathe her last slow, raspy breath. Then…she was gone.
Immediately my sister, who was in the waiting room, heard mama’s voice, “I’m free, Debra! I’m free!” Debra didn’t know what happened. She came running in the room. Mama had just gone home to be with Jesus. It was Easter Sunday morning, 1982. It was just like Mama to go out dramatically. Just like her to die on the day all of heaven would be having a party.
See, I believe God’s Word. I believe His Word over man’s experience. I could say that God didn’t heal my mother, but that would be a lie. God did heal her. She just didn’t accept the healing. God cannot and will not lie. Stripes were laid on Jesus’ back for healing and health for all. But they are received through faith. I know this because Jesus said it over and over throughout the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Faith isn’t lip service, it’s heart service.
Although the words of your mouth are powerful, they don’t mean much if they aren’t coming from the heart. I believe that it’s not what you pray with your mouth so much as what you believe in your heart that counts when it comes to faith.
My mama agreed with our prayers, but it was lip service. She was honest with us in the end. Some people aren’t honest about what’s in their hearts; they’re afraid of what people will think. I’m glad that Mama let us know what she really wanted. I thought she was being stupid, acting like a crazy woman. I still think she should have tapped into that healing power and saved herself from death. However, I couldn’t break her will with my own. She wanted to go.
I wonder how many have died because they were surrounded by unbelieving, negative-speaking people who sowed unbelief in a situation that requires pure belief? How many were too weary to fight their doubt and the sickness? How many Christians pray in lip service, while their hearts contradict those fervent prayers? How many others have been on their deathbed and, like my mother, would rather die and go to heaven than fight the fight of faith? How many die not telling their loved ones that they are finished fighting, ready to go home?
There are all sorts of issues in situations such as these. Not one of those issues changes the Word of God. His Word is eternal. It is Truth. It is Life. It is all these things to those who receive it.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Jesse Duplantis, minister of the Gospel, motivational speaker, television personality, and best-selling author, has been in full-time ministry since 1976 and is the founder of Jesse Duplantis Ministries, located in the Greater New Orleans area of south Louisiana in the United States of America. With over four decades of sharing his unique blend of humor and faith around the world, generations of believers have been inspired by his messages and countless numbers have come to know Jesus Christ as Savior through his ministry.
Known for his unflinching, status-quo-breaking messages and humorous take on experiences in the life of the believer, Jesse continues to draw large audiences of believers through social media, television, and meetings held around the world. With speaking engagements booked years in advance, Jesse Duplantis continues to keep an intense traveling schedule, flying throughout the United States and the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With no booking agents pursuing meetings for him and no set fees imposed upon churches for speaking engagements, Jesse chooses his outreach meetings based on the same two criteria he always has: invitations that come in and prayer over each one. This uncommon way of scheduling in today’s world means Jesse’s many followers may find him speaking in some of the largest churches and venues in America and the world, as well as a great many small and growing congregations, too. No church is too big or small for the Holy Spirit, as he says.
Side by side with his wife Cathy Duplantis, the co-founder and chief of staff of Jesse Duplantis Ministries and the senior pastor of Covenant Church in Destrehan, Louisiana, Jesse continues to fulfill his life’s calling by daily taking up the Great Commission of Jesus Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Through social media, television broadcasts, books, and other ministry products, as well as through many evangelistic meetings, the JDM website, the JDM app, and Voice of the Covenant magazine, Jesse Duplantis continues to see growth in his ministry and expand each year while maintaining his roots. Jesus is the center of his life. The salvation of lost people and the growth of believers is the purpose of his ministry. And for both he and his wife, every day is another day to “Reach People and Change Lives, One Soul at a Time.”