#85 S4 EP 5: The Mystical Interplay of Faith and Healing: David Chotka's Tale of Divine Intervention and Spiritual Awakening

Hello, hello, and welcome back. God's diamonds in the rough. Y'all know who it is, amen. This is Catherine. Amen Hubby is away, he is at work, so y'all just got me. We are so excited to be before you one more time, another week. I hope that this past week has been a good week for you. Um, right now, as we're recording, uh, it is actually new years. It's a brand new year, 2000 and 24. And we are just excited about what is going on, what is about to go on, amen. So, um, today we have a guest with us and his name is David. He is a man of God, amen, and ready to give us a conversation, amen. So, before we do that y'all know what we got to do we must pray. So, father, we thank you so much for your grace and your mercy. Thank you for allowing us, uh, to come into this place one more time. I pray God that every person that is here, their heart and mind, is hearing on you. I pray God that whatever it is that they need to hear and whatever it is they need to understand, whatever needs to be, uh, moved and shaken would be. So, pray God, that you would just have your way. Touch the man of God, touch myself, touch anyone who hears this word. God, we pray. The blessings of the Lord be upon your people and I pray God, that we would do what is pleasing and acceptable in your site. We bless your name and Jesus Christ's name. We do pray, amen, amen and amen. So, mr David, see, I didn't even try to mess up your name. I was going to, but I'll say I knew who's going to do it. You want me to pronounce?

it for you? Yes, please do so please say my name is David Chotka Chotka D H O T K A. It's a Ukrainian name, so most people in the States would have confused that with a Russian name some time ago, but now they won't. It's Ukrainian 100%. All the way back to the, to the land of my ancestors.

Oh, okay, okay. So tell us a little bit more about yourself. Outside of you are a man of God. Tell us more about you.

Well, I'm a Canadian and I have been in the ministry for three decades. I have pastored um. Church is large and small. I started off being a church plant. There were six people to me and the Lord drew that, drew that to 120. And then I wound up studying at region college in Vancouver. I met my wife there and married her. I'm I'm now a somebody who's on the other side of 55 and I've got two adult children and I've had a ministry where, um, where the word and the spirit have come together, and I have just written a book on healing prayer and my burden with that book is to teach that when the spirit moves, it's in harmony with the Bible and when we study the Bible, the Holy Spirit moves. I want to talk about healing prayer and how that works. Hey man, awesome. So yeah, go ahead, you have a floor Talk about healing prayer.

Well, you know what I'd like to tell you how I started with this.

When I first got saved, I was, I was just a young buck and I didn't meet anybody for probably eight, nine years who had ever been healed by what the Bible calls the prayer of faith. And uh, I wound up studying for the ministry and I wound up going to this seminary and some of the prophets, uh, believed that the Bible's word was true. Some of them didn't. Some of them thought it was true. Some of them thought it was just um stories that had been made up. And whenever that, whenever one of those prophets would say something about scripture not being true, I would defend the Bible and I'd say, oh, by the way, those counts are historical. Uh, the word of the Lord is true. It's not compromised, it's not been, it's been handed down from generation to generation. And there was a student in the class and he could have been a standup comedian and he didn't develop quite what he believes, but, uh, he always liked to have a laugh and anytime I would defend the history of the scripture. Or I talked about how Jesus walked on water or Moses split the sea, he would throw uh, he would throw a joke in the middle of the room and the whole room would explode and laughter, but usually it was to make fun of my faith. And you know, we laughed so hard and he started to cry because the guy was just amazingly funny. But at the end of it all I started to avoid him because every time I said something about the Bible being true, he would make the class laugh and I would become a bit of a mockery to the class. So you know, after a couple of weeks of that um, you say to yourself well, I'm obviously never going to be your friend with that man. Anyway, one day I was, I was walking across the plaza to get to my class on New Testament Creek and there was a classmate there and she was a kind and sweet and gentle other centered person and in the healing prayer book I call her Suzie and she was a friend with this guy and his wife, who was also very sweet, and she was a friend with me that she was a friend to everybody. She, she honestly, was one of those gentle, sweet, kind, other centered people that every church needs a hundred of. Anyway, she saw me and she said how you doing, david? I said fine, I'm going to my class and she said, well, look, you know the guy who's the comedian. They said yeah, she said well, he's in the hospital and I said I didn't feel bad for about three seconds Dang. Anyway, I was, I was in this hospital area to the university I was going to had a university hospital at it. She pointed down the road, about six blocks down. She said he's in that hospital over there. I said, oh, what's the trouble? What's he got? And she said he has something called the bicep. I said what's that? She said there's a clot in the vein in his arm and if the clot breaks free and goes to his lung or his brain it could kill him. I said oh, that's very serious. She said yes, it is. I said he's getting good care and she said yes, he is. But he asked me to ask you something. I said what did he want? She said he wants you to go and pray for him. I said what you want me? I don't believe that at all. He wants me to go and pray for him. She said yeah, he's very sick. So I looked at the girl and I said, susan, listen, every single time I have descended the faith. That man has attacked my faith convictions in front of our peers and he's mocked what I believe. She said you know he has been cruel. I said yes, he has. She said I will talk to you. The way she went the next day in the coffee lounge I saw her again and I said how you doing? And she said fine, and oh, by the way, I talked to our friend and he's terribly sorry and he wants you to come and pray for him. I said I don't believe it. Wow, anyway, this happened a third time across the same plaza and finally there was this moment. She asked me a third time and I looked her in the eye and said I am just not going to go and I don't know if you've ever been told off by your mama. Have you ever been told off by your mom? Yeah, anyway, my mother would always put my middle initial in my name. She would get fire in her eyes, she'd stomp her foot and she would say my name out loud, as she told me off, david R Chotka, and then she would come in. Well, this girl knew my middle initial. She stomped her foot on the sidewalk, she got fire in her eyes, she looked at me and she said David R Chotka, aren't you going around this college, this university? I'm telling everybody you meet that the Bible is true and it's supposed to be obeyed. I said, well, absolutely right. And she said well, how about this scripture? I was sick and you visited me. And I thought oh no, I'm going to have to go. So I looked at the girl and I said it says sick and visited, didn't say sick and prayed, for she said sick or not, you're supposed to go. So I realized I had to. But now there was something else going on here. Number one I had never seen somebody healed by the prayer faith. Number two I'd never received any training. And number three I was afraid that I was going to make fun of me. Anyway, I walked into that hospital room oh, but now I have later and it was very clear the man was in terrific trouble, you know, you could see there were monitors there and there were little tubes going into his body and he was white as a ghost and he was just not in a good way. So I looked at him and I started to visit with him about the winter because I was afraid he was going to make fun of me. And number two I didn't know what to do. Anyway, when the thing was all said and done, he looked at me and I said well, I visited you, now I can go. And he stopped and he looked at me, catherine, and he said well, aren't you going to pray? I said look, every single time I've said anything about the Bible being true, about the miracles being historical events, about the power of the Holy Spirit, about the cross, about the resurrection, anything you want to name it. You have physically made fun of me in front of our peers and you've embarrassed me. Why, in the name you can think of, I was ranger than him. But I did remember in the Bible, Jesus placed his hands on people when he prayed for them to get well, and so I said, may I place my hand on you? He said yes, and I went around to his bedside and I said where's the phlebitis? He said left arm, just above the elbow. So I put my hand there, I put my other hand on his head and I started to pray, and to this day I cannot remember what it was that I said. All I remember was that it was some blubbery kind of prayer asking God to intervene, asking the Lord to give this man healing, and this was the defining moment that changed my life forever. At that moment, suddenly, fire filled the atmosphere. It was like I was inhaling compassion. I could feel this energy from the Lord rise up inside of me, and it was a combination of peace and compassion and fire and conviction and complete and total focus on this man with the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth really did indeed want him well. But the whole room was filled with this fiery presence and then I felt it rise up inside of me and it flowed down my arm and went into his arm. And then he looked at me and he said what is that burning fire that's going into my body? I said that's the spirit of Jesus. He's healing you. And then I ran out of the room because I was so scared. He was going to make fun, but I had never felt that before. It was the very first time in my life I'd ever experienced anything like that. And the next day he was in the coffee lounge at the school and I said you're here. He said yes, I am. I said well, what happened? And it was an old 19th century stone building with fluted columns in the hallway. He pulled me into a corner around one of those columns, looked in all directions and then he said that prayer, it changed my life. I said thank you and I ran away again. I thought he was going to make fun of me. So months later, we're talking months later. Here's what happened in the next class where he was in the class, somebody said something about the scripture not being true. I said something about the scripture being true and he told a joke that made fun of unbelief and defended me. Now, this went on for a month and then we all and that's the nomination At that time we were all given a summer assignment and we had to go off and help some pastor and some church over to summer. And he gave me a piece of paper and his phone number was on it and he said if you get in trouble, you call me. I said okay, anyway, I went off to my summer field, I had a great time. I came back in the fall time for my courses. Again, he raced up to me and said you didn't call me. I said I didn't have any trouble and he said well, if you're in trouble, you call me. And a couple of months later we were doing a little social gathering for the students, you know, and we're all gathered together laughing and teasing each other and having some fun. And he was there together with this nice, kind girl that I call Suzy and his wife who was there, and I walked up to them and the two girls started to give this guy the elbow, you know, and they looked at him and said you need to tell David Chottkin what happened, tell him, tell him. And he said well, I want to tell him. But eventually they looked at him and persuaded him. And here's what happened On the day that I prayed for him, when I raced out, a nurse walked in and said to him you know, I'm here to just run some tests. And the guy said look, I can go home now. My friend from the Bible school came Jesus is healed, I can go home now. They said we don't do that around here. We got a run some tests. And he said well, run them then. And she said well, I was just coming to get you because it's time for your next exam. They rolled them into a room. They checked his body over. There was not a trace of phlebitis in his body. All of his veins were normal and ordinary. And then that night he went home and he looked at his wife and of course they were very grateful, very thankful, and they prayed and they hadn't been in the custom of praying much. They prayed and they thanked the Lord and they went to sleep and in the night he dreamed a dream and he heard the voice of Jesus telling me. My servant David defend the integrity of my word. When he defends my word, you defend him, and he kept that up all through the remainder of my time in that school. It was the most amazing and remarkable thing, and he testified to God's power to heal. In that school so began the journey of attempting to understand how prayer for healing works. How does a Christian enter into it? What do they need to do to make this work? How do you know when God wants you to say yes and pray for someone's healing? How do you know when their time is done? How do you know when you're supposed to pray for an intervening step? What about a pathway to a remedy? All those kinds of things started in that moment when I discovered that the Lord's power was actually real and that Jesus is in fact the healer and he does do miracles. Today. That's what is at the beginning of that book healing prayer.

Wow, okay, well, talk about the book.

I mean, don't stop now, keep going Very intriguing, okay, well, the book itself describes a whole bunch of miraculous acts of power and it also, to be fair, the book also describes the times when medicine and miracle and mystery intertwine. There are seasons when we prayed and were given a medical solution. There were seasons when we prayed and were given a miraculous act of power. There were seasons when we prayed and the person did not recover, but they received guidance to something else. And there were seasons when we prayed where there was a combination of all of those things together and what we wanted to. But that's a co-write and my fellow author's name is Dr Maxie Dunham, so there was just a revival over at Asbury Seminary. He was the president of Asbury and so he's the past president of that school and he was there in 1970 when the other revival happened at Asbury Seminary. So he's a man who believes in evangelical revival and he and I wound up meeting by miraculous series of events that led us to each other. He's from the Southern United States, of course I'm from Canada. We didn't know each other. The Lord ordained for us to meet and then I invited him to one of my churches. I served five churches in Canada. He came and I had just prepared a brochure teaching my prayer teams what it was like. What does it feel like when the Lord's power starts to move on? You and you're in the prayer point that at the front of the church when somebody's coming for prayer. He had just prepared a brochure teaching his altar prayer teams process and spiritual preparation to get ready for healing prayer, and so when he was speaking in my church, we compared notes and we put those two things together and created a little brochure and in the course of time, whitaker House, the publisher, noticed the brochure. So, as it turned out, maxie came to my church and we compared notes and put the brochure together. And then Whitaker House, which is a large publishing house in Pittsburgh, noticed the brochure and asked us to expand it. So we have included sections in there about what it feels like when the Holy Spirit lands on you, what it feels like when you know that a signal is inside of you to pray for another. It includes spiritual preparation and what you need to do, and one of the most intriguing parts of the book is where we examine what it felt like inside Jesus prayer life when he raised Lazarus from the grave. You know it says that when I go to do conference I very often look at people and I say what's the shortest verse in the Bible? And they all yell Jesus wept. And then I say what's the second shortest version of the Bible? And they can't tell me. And if anybody can give me a short verse I'll give them a gift of some kind, one of my books or something. But the question that's raised by this is why did Jesus wept? And if you follow the story, it describes how, at the beginning of that chapter, jesus was told by emissaries from Mary and Martha that Lazarus was sick, he was dying. He refuses to go and then he gets a download and he was going to raise Lazarus from the grave. And then he travels. Lazarus is now five days dead. He sees Martha, then he sees Mary and it says this interesting thing in the passage it says he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled. Then it says Jesus wept. Then he's taken to the tomb and it says he was deeply moved again within and then he shouts for the resurrection of Lazarus. So in the book we've opened up this moment from the prayer life of Jesus. I am now completely convinced that there is something called whole body intercession, where every part of your anatomy, every part of your physical body gets caught up in a prayer assignment and the Lord moves upon you and births the prayer inside of you and it impacts your mind, your physical being and the interior of your spirit. I am aware that Jesus told the apostles he was going to raise Lazarus from his sleep and he said well. They said well, if he's sleeping, why are you going to raise what? We're just letting him sleep, he's going to get better. He said Lazarus is dead and I'm glad for your sake that wasn't there and he goes down and raises him from the dead. So what you have going on in that passage is a picture of Jesus in a deep intercession for at least five or six days. It says that he was dead four days when he got there and if you do the math, jesus would not have arrived in time for him to pray for Lazarus' healing and instead he raises him from the dead. Now the point I'm making is that there are seasons and everybody who's been in a church and been called to be a prayer warrior knows about this there are seasons where you've grown in your spirit as you pray and for what it is that God wants done in your churches. I am utterly convinced that when Jesus prayed for Lazarus to be raised from the grave, he knew five days before that he was going to raise him from the dead. And when he actually gets close to the grave, his whole body and his spirit begin to respond to God's movement inside of him and then he shouts to raise the man from the grave. Now I don't know anybody else who said that, but it's right there in the Bible and you can compare that to the apostle Paul when he talks about how the Holy Spirit prays through us with groaning that are too deep for words, and he actually talks about his groaning in his session for the Israelite. So the book describes what it feels like, what it looks like, how you can organize a prayer team, how you can train them and what you're going to do to get yourself ready to be able to do prayer for him. That's the reason we wrote it is because we want to train people to get themselves ready to notice when the Holy Spirit's presence and power starts to increase inside hearts and souls and minds. I do believe that the Lord himself wants to restore the healing ministry to his church and he wants us to train people to get ready for that.

That was like a fresh wind. Wow, that was deep. That was deep because the thing that's lacking in the church is belief. It's like the word is not a lie. The word is not a lie, it's just do you believe it or not? And if you believe it, he can use you to do the same, to do everything that he did, because that's a verse in there that says you know greater works that I've done, but we're going to do even greater. And I just fathom it. It blows my mind. It's like you raised that from the dead. What else can we do?

Well, you know what I mean. I become more and more aware that what God wants to do is a whole lot bigger than what we're prepared to do.

Yeah, I mean, it's just like I think all the time. I'm like, OK, he raised. He raised Lazar from the dead. He said you're going to do even greater works than I did. And he also says that the works that he, if they wrote, really wrote out all the miracles he performed oh my gosh, it's a whole lot we don't even know nothing about. And it's just like that's absolutely right man, what will he do? Go ahead, honey, go ahead. I'm sorry, sir.

But that's what this whole book. That's what the book's about Actually. That's in John, chapter 14. That's the miracle of the raising of Lazarus. It's just a few chapters before that. It's the same book and if you look at the way the material is put together in John's gospel, it is very clear that it's not referring to us winning more souls or something by having large canton. It refers to the activity of God's Holy Spirit working in the church to accomplish the things that God wants to continue to see done, so that the world can believe that God was in Jesus of Nazareth, saving us, redeeming us, calling us back to himself. So I've been given the great privilege of being able to see some of those acts of power, as well as being in those places where there's holy mystery. And let me tell you the other side of the equation I am very aware. In the life of Jesus there was one time where he walked into the temple where there was the pool of Bethesda Now that's a medical ward. It was the place where everybody who had no opportunity to become well would go. And Jesus walks up to a man there who was 38 years sick. 38 years, now, think about this with me. That means if he got sick when he was 12,. Jesus meets him when he's 50, and he's not done a day of work in his life. And so his first question to this man is you want to be well? I used to think that was a dumb question, but think about it. If you've not worked a day in your life and somebody has brought you to that pool every day from the time you were 12 until you're 50, and you have not learned how to wait on customers, you don't know how to handle a tool, you have never learned how to do social intercourse with people, you don't know how to make a sandwich. Jesus is saying to this guy do you want to start from scratch when you're 50? The man answers in a way that sends the message that he wants to be well. Jesus commands him to get up and carry his bed and walk, and he does. The Pharisee is asking what do you do in carrying your bed and the Sabbath? And he says oh, some guys, I don't even know who was. Anyway, jesus tells him. But the thing that struck me from that passage there must have been 206 people in that place the only year of one. And the secret to that lies in Jesus' personal devotional life, because all the way through John's Gospel and he says it like 12 times in John's Gospel he says I can do nothing unless the Father shows me. And so Jesus had no choice except to pray to see what it was that God wanted done. In that very narrative, when the Pharisees confront him and say why did you break the rule, he said oh, don't you worry, guys. The God that you love, the God that you worship, the one that told me to break you, to break the rule. And oh, by the way, the Son can do nothing of himself unless it's something he sees the Father doing. And he says that about healing, he says about judging on the resurrection day, in John 5.30. He says it about his acts of power, he says it about his teaching, he says it about the cross and he says it about the resurrection. He says it about every aspect of his ministry. And this is what we have to learn. We have to learn to pay attention to the movement of the Spirit so that we can enter into the actions that God is are doing for us to walk on. And so the command of the Lord is to learn how to pay attention to the movement of the presence of the power of the Holy Spirit. And as we start to pay attention to those signals, god opens up doors of opportunity for us to walk in. And most churches don't teach people to listen to the voice, let alone to do acts of power, healing prayer. So I've written two books actually. The other one is called he and the Eternity of God how to Listen, test the Know and God's Need, and I teach people how to pay attention to the signals that God sends when he wants to communicate, and most of his signals are non-verbal. He'll give you an increase in peace as he puts ideas into your head about what he wants you to be or become, and as you take those steps, the presence of the Spirit increases and God flows through that with power. So my burden in writing those two books was to reappropriate for the 21st century church that God wants to speak with us and he wants us to learn to pay attention to the signals that he sends to accomplish the things that God wants done. If Jesus of Nazareth had to pay attention to the signal and he was God's Son, zimbabwe, how much more do you and I have to do that.

I know that's right, oh, right now. So where can we get your book?

Well, the Healing Prayer book anywhere books your soul. Just take the title Healing Prayer, reach yourself to a Barnes and Noble or a book familiar. Amazon or christensbookcom and Whitaker House has that book available. Anywhere books are sold. If you want to learn the one, get the one on listening to the voice, you have to go to Amazon and the title of that book is hey, are you there? It's Me, god, how to Listen, test and Know when God Speaks. And my name, david Chakka, is there. So those are the two books I've done in the last two years and I really do believe that both of them are crucial for the advance of the gospel in 21st century. United States, canada, australia, england, all across the earth. I don't believe you're going to win people to the Lord by persuading them any longer. I believe that there has to be active power, because if I can persuade you about the claims of Christ, someone else can come along and persuade you to be unagnostic. And if you see an active power, you stop and you reconsider what you're doing, because active power are fundamentally different than an argument to persuade. My wife was healed of muscular dystrophy. She was dramatically healed of muscular dystrophy. I had unbelieving family members who would not be persuaded by anything I said to them. But when they saw the difference between my wife's before and my wife's after she was healed, it silenced the criticisms and it opened the doors for communication to start about the claims of Christ. So my wife's healing story is in the Healing Prayer Book.

Amen, amen. So, david, would you do me a favor? Sure, can you pray us out please?

I would love to do that. So, lord Jesus, right now, I am aware that on people listening to this podcast, there are many who are struggling to know what it is to hear the voice. There are others struggling with a medical diagnosis and they don't know how to process it. There are other people who are commanded to pray and they haven't got a clue about where to start. Jesus answer all of those prayers, enter into the hearts and souls and minds of all the people who are listening to this podcast and I would pray in Jesus' name that she would guide them to the Bible and show them from the scripture how those signals work, lead people to the resources and the people and the fellowships and the churches that will teach them how to walk in the power of the Spirit and speak to them. By the power of the Lord, we pray a blessing on this podcast. We pray a blessing on Catherine and her husband. We pray for the editing, we pray for the work that's going to be done and we pray that their kingdom influence will expand and grow. But we ask it in Jesus' mighty and precious name, amen.

Amen. Thank you so much for being us and sharing your story and sharing it's a beautiful gift if people receive it like that. Amen.

Well, thank you for having me on the podcast, catherine. It's been a delight to be here.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. You have diamonds. You heard it. There it is. Look, he wants to use you. He used David. He's using those who are usable. If you want to be used by him, you have to align with his word. Y'all know we've been talking about alignment, belief and confess Hallelujah. So you could definitely check that interview out with Shayna Ratler talking about alignment, belief and confession. So that was an awesome, awesome take in regard to how we can really tap into God. And here's another, another, just yet another confirmation that we hear over and over and over and over again if we're listening to the voice of God. So again, david, I say thank you. Audience, diamonds, y'all just remember you are diamond, you're diamond in the rough. God is doing some magnificent things in your life, if you allow him to. Blessings and love from us to you. Y'all have a great week, lord's will. We'll see you next time. Amen, amen and Amen, amen.