WHAT CAN A 85 YEAR-OLD MAN DO?
by Steve Pegram
I want to share with you today a message that I posted on our old ministry web site back in 2006, five years after my health started to fail me. I share it here with you unedited so that you can feel the passion as I wrote it then.
--------------------------------------------------------
I just wanted to come on today and wish everyone out there reading this a Blessed and Prosper Filled Day! You know what? I think sometimes we all get so caught up in our own problems and our own needs that we tend to forget that we are not placed on this planet to only minister to our needs, but rather to the needs of others! One thing is for certain, none of us are ever going to have all of our problems just magically go away and never have any more problems ever again. Nope. Not going to happen. We are not promised that our lives are going to be a bed of roses and that we get to wake up each morning with nothing but blessings and prosperity flowing our way like a mighty tidal wave. But what we are promised is that each morning when we wake up and put our feet on the floor to begin our day that the Lord's mercies are renewed each and every day! It doesn't matter what happened yesterday, and it doesn't matter what is even planned for that day. The Lord's mercies are renewed in our lives each and every day and it is up to us to choose whether or not we will seize them and hold on to them, or whether we will let them pass us by as if nothing has happened at all. But, for me and my house, we will not only serve the Lord, but we will also Seize the mercies of the Lord as tight as we can hold on and believe that this is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad therein!!! Oh Hallelujah!
I was just on the phone talking with a Pastor friend of mine that I am supposed to preach at his church this coming Sunday September 10th, Bishop John Waters of the Alpharetta Church of God. During our phone conversation something was said that was a God Word through and through! As we were talking, Pastor Waters was asking me about my condition and was very concerned about all that I was going through. As I was answering his questions, I began to tell him how that the doctors have told me that my entire skeletal system is almost destroyed now. And that it is so bad off, that although I am a 44-year-old man, that my bones have already progressed, or maybe I should say digressed, to that of an 85-year-old man already. And as soon as I said that Pastor Waters immediately asked me a startling question that had to come straight from the Holy Ghost within that man! He asked this - Yes, but WHICH 85-year-old man do you choose to be?
That was all he said, but as soon as he said that something rose up inside of me and I immediately knew exactly what that question meant! Would I be the 85-year-old crippled-up man the doctors' say that I am that will never preach full-time again? Or will I be the 85-year-old man by the name of Caleb, who in the Bible at the ripe "young" age of 85 looked at Joshua in Joshua 14: and said, "Now therefore give me this mountain!" And as soon as that hit my spirit, the power of the Holy Ghost unleashed within me a mighty wave of power and I began to speak in tongues as the Holy Ghost ministered through me. Tears flowed like rivers down a mountain and a Holy Ghost heavenly language ushered out of me like a million arrows shooting forth into the wind! Oh, the joy of the Lord that filled my soul at that moment and that flowed out of me! For it was at that moment in time that I understood something that I had missed for so long! That my perspective had not been that of a mighty conquering warrior who knew what God had promised him and that was going to possess it no matter what! But rather I realized that I had been allowing the negative words of doom and gloom to slowly destroy me piece by piece! Inch by inch, day by day, and year by year, I have wasted away into nothing more than a mere shell of what I used to be in Christ!
But when those words were spoken by that mighty Prophet of God, Pastor John Waters, it released within me a tidal wave of Holy Ghost glory that had been locked away in a cavern of my heart that I had all but forgotten about. Don't get me wrong, I have served the Lord through this entire mess. For five and one-half years I have served my Lord faithfully and have never given up on the belief that He would come through for me. And even though the last three and one-half years has been nothing more than sheer hell that I have lived through, I still hung on. I used to joke and say that I knew when I died, I would not go to hell for sure. And when people would ask me how I knew that so emphatically, I would answer them by saying, "Because I have already lived in hell for five years, so I shouldn't have to go there again! LOL! Seriously, although I have lived almost every single day in such levels of pain that on most days even the Morphine would not take away the pain, I still held on to the belief that someday God would come through for me.
And let me tell you something right now that I feel like screaming out for all the world to hear - Those words that Pastor Waters spoke into my spirit today felt like they were the final keys that unlocked the deepest recesses of my imprisoned spirit man! I feel so free right now! I feel like I can march up that mountain right now and possess my inheritance! Oh Glory!!!!!
Listen to what Joshua 14:10b - 12 says in the NIV, "...So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country (Mountain) that the Lord Promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said." And then look at what Chapter 15 verse 14 says! "From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites - Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai - descendants of Anak. And from there he marched against the people living in Debir."
Oh Hallelujah!!! I LOVE what those verses said!!! And just in case you do not know it, these people living on this mountain that was promised to Caleb were GIANTS. They were part of a race of giants that are mentioned all throughout the Old Testament, that were mean, fierce, mighty warriors that stood on average between 9 feet to 13 feet tall! Don't you get it? These were the cousins of Goliath the Giant that David slew with a slingshot. And here goes an 85-year-old man walking up that mountain saying, and I quote, " but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said". I can just see Caleb now talking to himself all the way up saying over and over again, with God for me, who can stand against me? With God on my side, who can conquer me? I don't care if I am 85 years-old! With God inside of me, and with God going with me, and with God helping me, there ain't no giant, there ain't no mountain, there ain't no problem, there ain't no disease, there ain't no sickness, there ain't no devil that can stand before me and win! I am an anointed man of God and it does not matter what my birth certificate says! And it does not matter what the doctors say! And it does not matter what the pain in my body right now is trying to convince me of! With GOD on my side and with God fighting for me, who can stand before me and win? No One! Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world! As my strength was then for war so is my strength now for war!
I tell you my friends reading this, that as I type these words onto this computer screen right now, I too feel the strength and anointing of a mighty God rising up within my frame and within my spirit man! I not only hear the words that my dear friend Pastor John Waters spoke to me a while ago on the telephone saying, "yes, but WHICH 85-year-old man do you choose to be? But I also FEEL those words vibrating throughout every inch of my frame! As my strength used to be to work for God and to accomplish mighty deeds in the name of Jesus, so is my strength now returning unto me to preach the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ once again! I speak unto my body, "Body be healed in the name of Jesus! You are anointed and you are strong and mighty for battle! And all the promises that God has given unto you throughout all the years, prepare thyself to possess the land!!!! Prepare thyself to claim ALL the prophecies and all the Words that have been spoken over me by mighty men and women of God all across this nation! I AM as strong now as I was in any of the greatest of my days before! I am an anointed vessel of God that WILL possess EVERY promise, EVERY prophetic utterance, EVERY mountain that has been promised to me!!!! I say as Caleb did, " but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said" I WILL drive out this sickness in my body! I WILL drive out these diseases that have ruled my life for over five-years now! I WILL drive out all the mental attacks and depression that has beaten me down. I WILL possess the mind of Christ! It IS within me! And I AM more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus who empowers me and strengthens me!
It is done in the name of Jesus! This mountain is mine as it was promised to me in the name of the Lord God Almighty!!!!
I Sign My Name To This Letter To Make This Victory Official,
I AM Bishop Steve Pegram and I AM a servant of the Most High God!
Steve Pegram
--------------------------------------------------------
What an awesome story this is! Why? Because, even after this conversation, and after eventually having to spend seven-years in either a wheelchair or using a walker and spending many more years fighting through multiple health problems (57 all total), I am now out of that wheelchair and off that walker. I am now ready to possess my mountain!!! (Although I'm NOT 85-years-old.)