MIAMI
The medics were gathering in Miami, Florida, on July 13-14 for the 4th International Medical Conference organized by the World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN). The theme of the event was “Spirituality and Medicine” and they examined actual case studies of miracles presented by various respected doctors and also some patients.
“There are no impossibles with God”
The conference kicked off with a talk by Pastor Charles McKnelly, a veteran missionary to Hong Kong, who said, “The greatest hindrance for healing within the church is tradition.” McKnelly told the medical audience that he had suffered a heart attack some years ago. “A Christian woman prayed for me and, in two hours, God gave me a new heart,” he said amid applause. “There are no impossibles with God.”
Honduran-born Dr. Armando Pineda-Velez, US Director of WCDN, Dr. Armando Pineda-Velez, a nuclear medicine physician, who helped to organize the conference said that there are a lot of doctors today who “not only believe in God but believe that God is healing today.”
“The Gospel of power can be manifested in the 21st Century”
He said, “They are putting their prestige on the line for something that they know; that the truth that the Gospel of power can be manifested in the 21st Century.
“This is a different kind of organization,” he continued. “There are a lot of Christian medical organizations all of which are much respected, and I love them, but we at the World Christian Doctors Network are different in the sense that we are going into the miracle part of the healing. We are not going to stop being doctors, but we are going to use a superior tool – the healing power of God -- in order to be helping our beloved patients.”
Dr. Pineda-Velez said that he encouraged Christian doctors to lay hands on their sick patients and pray for their supernatural healing. “I think that the power of healing and faith has to be used by doctors,” he said. “Anyway, we are not the one who heals – it is Jesus.”
I then asked him what happens when people are not healed.
“Healing resides only in the sovereignty of a merciful and gracious God,” said Dr. Pineda-Velez. “It’s not only up to us in this equation. There are two involved here -- God and you. Does He decide to heal you? I don’t know. Does He have a purpose for your disease? Maybe; maybe not. Do you have enough faith? I don’t know. Yes the measure of faith you have is important, but we also have the sovereignty of God. He still rules your life.”
One delegate who came all the way from Chennai, India, Dr. Philip R. Anbarasan, the former State Medical Commissioner of Tamil Nadu, who was among the many medical doctors raising their hands in worship as various bands and performers made their spiritual music.
Addressing the topic of the conference, Dr. Anbarasan said, “Spirituality in Christian medical professionals would certainly enable them to live a vital Christian life and have an ethical medical practice.”
So if you are sick, and you have a Christian physician, why not ask him to prescribe a miracle for you? That’s what these doctors who met in Miami would do.
For more information on WCDN go to http://www.wcdn.org/.
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission
