Dear Church Family,

Some of you have known me for many years. Others have crossed my path through the Methodist Church, Panthers Basketball Club, youth ministry, Super Herbs or, more recently, Acts4Transformation.

Today I simply want to share a part of my own story.

This message is especially precious to me because it was the very first sermon I preached in the Methodist Church many years ago. Looking back now, I realise that while I thought I was preaching to others, God, in His gentle way, was also preaching to me.

Over the years He has continued to reveal areas of my own life where He wanted not merely to stop the bleeding, but to bring complete healing.

Today I return to that same passage, older now, hopefully a little wiser, and certainly more aware of the amazing grace of God.

It all begins with one question.

Do you want to be delivered, or do you simply want the bleeding to stop?

My Story

I grew up in a community where I watched alcohol destroy lives.

It broke homes.

It stole fathers from their children.

It robbed people of their dignity.

More than thirty years later, I still see the same pain in many of our communities.

When I went to high school in Pietermaritzburg, I encountered exactly the same culture, only on a much bigger scale.

Like many young people, I wanted to fit in.

I began experimenting with alcohol, not because I particularly enjoyed it, but because I wanted to belong.

Things became so concerning that my father wrote me a letter.

He asked me one simple but searching question:

"Do you really want your life to end up like the many lives we have watched alcohol destroy?"

I still have that letter.

It has become one of my life's treasures.

His words, together with a few well-deserved hidings, caused me to stop drinking while I was still at school.

But looking back now, I realise something important.

I had stopped...

but I had not been delivered.

The wound had simply developed a scab.

As long as nobody touched it, everything looked fine.

When the Scab Was Knocked Off

Then university arrived.

Orientation week.

Freedom.

New friends.

New pressures.

The scab was knocked off.

The bleeding started all over again.

During those years I attended a Christian conference and responded to an altar call.

The following evening the preacher invited those who had responded to share their testimonies.

I remember thinking,

"My struggle is too private. Too embarrassing. Too confidential."

I could not bring myself to tell the whole truth.

Two years later, in my final year, it happened again.

Final examinations were over.

The celebrations had been planned.

One last drink.

One last binge.

But God had other plans.

Immediately after writing my final examination paper, I was admitted to hospital with severe stomach pains.

I missed the binge completely.

At the time it felt like terrible timing.

Today I recognise it as extraordinary grace.

Sometimes God rescues us before we even realise we need rescuing.

The Woman Who Had an Issue

Years later I began seeing my own story in the woman who had suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years.

She believed that if she could only touch the hem of Jesus' garment, she would be healed.

She was right.

The bleeding stopped immediately.

But something remarkable happened next.

Jesus stopped walking.

He looked for her.

Trembling with fear, she came before Him and, the Scriptures say, "told Him the whole truth."

Only then did Jesus say,

"Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

The bleeding had already stopped.

But now she received something even greater.

Peace.

Freedom.

Wholeness.

Healing is one thing.

Deliverance is another.

Perhaps Your Story Is Different

My struggle happened to be alcohol.

Yours may be something completely different.

It may be anger.

Pornography.

Gambling.

Bitterness.

Anxiety.

Fear.

Shame.

Grief.

A broken relationship.

Unforgiveness.

Perhaps you are carrying wounds caused by an absent father.

Or a parent whose words still echo painfully years later.

Perhaps someone betrayed your trust.

Perhaps there is a secret you have carried for years.

The names are different.

The wounds are different.

The Bible simply calls them... issues.

The woman in Mark chapter 5 had an issue of blood.

Today we use that same word almost casually.

"I've got issues."

"Don't make your issues my issues."

"He's got anger issues."

"She's got trust issues."

"They've got family issues."

We laugh about it.

We hide behind it.

Sometimes we even define ourselves by it.

The question is not whether you have issues. Every one of us does.

The question is: What are you doing with your issue?

Beneath every issue is a wound.

And beneath every wound is a Saviour who still asks us to come to Him.

Jesus was never frightened by her issue.

Neither is He frightened by yours.

Whatever your issue may be...

Tell Him the whole truth.

The truth does not frighten Him.

It is where healing begins.

A Personal Response

If I have learnt anything from following Christ, it is this.

We spend enormous energy trying to hide our wounds.

Jesus spends His time trying to heal them.

Ask yourself honestly:

What is the wound I have learnt to manage instead of surrendering?

What is the scab I keep trying to protect?

What keeps bleeding every time life knocks against it?

Today may be the day Jesus is passing by.

Do not let the moment pass.

Reach out.

Believe.

Tell Him the whole truth.

Then receive not only healing...

but peace.

Imagine If...

Imagine if fathers were healed before trying to raise children.

Imagine if husbands and wives found freedom from bitterness.

Imagine if young people no longer had to numb their pain through alcohol, drugs or destructive relationships.

Imagine if churches became places where people no longer pretended everything was fine, but found the courage to tell Jesus the whole truth.

Imagine if communities were transformed because hearts had first been transformed.

That is where every genuine revival begins.

Before there can be an Acts 4 community where "there were no needy persons among them," there must first be a Mark 5 encounter where someone falls before Jesus and tells Him the whole truth.

Acts4Transformation does not begin with projects.

It begins with people.

People whose wounds have become testimonies.

People who have discovered that Christ did not merely stop the bleeding.

He made them whole.

May the Lord grant each one of us the courage not merely to seek relief from our suffering, but complete freedom in Christ.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

John 8:32

Grace and peace,

Timothy Hugo Canham

Methodist Exhorter

Founder, Acts4Transformation (A4T)