God calls things as they should be, not as they are (Romans 4:17). He will equip you for kingdom work when He calls you. It is up to you to answer and obey, as was the case for Dr. Avery Jackson. He felt as comfortable in surgery as most people feel having a cup of coffee at breakfast. Medicine was the profession he had chosen. Or rather, it was the profession chosen for him. He was in first grade when his grandmother suffered a stroke. Asking what was wrong with her, he was told that there was a problem with her brain. Desperately wanting to help his grandmother, young Avery had prayed, “God, show me how to help people with brain problems.
A year later, when Avery was in second grade, God spoke to him. You’re going to be a neurosurgeon. As an 8-year-old, Avery had never heard the word neurosurgeon. When he looked it up in the dictionary, he quickly decided, OK, I’ll do that. One day at school, Avery proudly told his teachers: “I’m going to be a neurosurgeon when I grow up.”
“That’ll probably change next week,” they said. But it didn’t. In school, Jackson took advanced placement classes. His sophomore year, he attended a school for gifted students. Focused on his goal, he attended the University of Chicago and graduated with a degree in biology. He also attended Wayne State University School of Medicine. Now in a surgical residency, his goal was within sight.
The soft clinking of instruments, and muffled words behind masks, were as familiar as a ticking clock. A senior resident in surgery, Jackson was being even more meticulous than usual. This patient had a severe case of HIV. Pausing for a moment, Jackson took a deep breath. He wished the attending physician would stop rushing him. He didn’t rush surgery on anyone. Certainly not on a patient suffering from an often-fatal communicable disease.
Death Sentence
“Come on…” the attending physician urged, eager to get on to the next case. Jackson felt a sharp prick. Looking down, he saw blood on his gloved hand. He’d stuck himself with a needle—one contaminated with HIV. In an instant, he knew that his career might be over. Even worse, so might his life. “HIV was a death sentence,” said Jackson. “It would take two sets of labs and six months to know if I had contracted HIV and how serious it was.” Looking back, Jackson realised this was his third close encounter with death. The first time was the summer before second grade.
“Several of us kids were playing in the neighbourhood when a car full of college boys pulled up,” he remembers. “Come here!” they called. “Look at all the toys we have in the car. Why don’t you be part of our contest?” “The others remembered being taught about ‘stranger danger,’ a warning to beware of, or to not befriend strangers because they can be potentially dangerous, and to run away,” Jackson said.
But being curious, he went straight to the car. “A neighbour saw what was happening and yelled, ‘Jackie! Come here!’ I turned and ran to him, and that scared the boys away. “My second close encounter with death occurred when I was in medical school. I was home visiting my mother when I was awakened by plaster falling on my face. Someone trying to kill my brother had fired shots through the wall. One bullet struck a metal bar next to my head. If it had been a half inch on either side, it would have killed me.
“Now, I’d been contaminated with HIV. Fortunately, I knew the power of God to heal.”
Born and raised in Detroit, Jackson had been introduced to that power as a child. His grandparents, who had once been Unitarian, began taking him with them to a new church in town started by a young, 23-year-old preacher named Keith Butler. It was at Word of Faith International Christian Center that Avery and his sister accepted Jesus. Their mother was born again in her 30s, and soon learned about God’s healing power. When Jackson was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she refused to let doctors medicate him. “Instead, she enrolled me in martial arts and had me spend more time in the Word of God,” Jackson recalled.
Thoughts Matter
Philippians 4:8 tells us, ‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy— think about such things’ (New International Version). What we allow ourselves to think
affects our health. “The research I’ve done regarding laughter and how it affects the body really began when my pastor, Bishop Keith Butler, laid hands on me on March 22, 2015.”
“Your hands will be used to help people with problems that there are no answers for,” Bishop Butler prophesied over Jackson. After he went home, Jackson said he began receiving huge downloads from the Lord, which he wrote down. This went on for days and days. At one point, he said, God told him
what research to study and how the pieces fit together: I’m going to show you that there’s really no difference between My Word, science and medicine, he recalled God saying. My Word is greater than science and medicine, for they came out of My Word. I use science to explain the physical laws in the earth and in your body, which I created. I’m going to download to you the blueprint of how I do what I do from the physical properties on earth.
“I did not understand that God wanted me to put what I was learning in a book. However, He did, and I wrote, Heavenly Father’s Plan for Spiritual,Mental and Physical Health.” Avery and Andrea were both Partners with KCM long before they married in 2006. Today, Partners for more than 20 years, they
both still enjoy that partnership. “Psalm 126:1 says,‘When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion (Jerusalem), we were like those who dream [it seemed so unreal]’”(AmplifiedBible), what partnership with KCM means to us. It’s surreal—as though we were dreaming.” After Kenneth Copeland heard Jackson speak at a conference hosted by Bishop Butler, he prophesied to Jackson, telling him, “You are an apostle to physicians.”
“When he said that,I realised that I hadn’t thought of it that way but I was already educating physicians around the world by teleconferencing grand rounds. 1 Since then, Brother Copeland asked me to appear on 10 instalments of his television broadcast, Believer’s Voice of Victory. I think of all the times my sister and I, as children, took a bus to go hear him speak, and I feel as though I am dreaming.”
To date, Jackson has treated more than 100,000 patients and performed over 10,000 surgeries. If there is any confusion, he wants to clarify: “Doctors can’t heal,” he says. “A neurosurgeon can remove a bullet and sew up a laceration, but we cannot heal. Christ is our Healer. He won our healing through His stripes on Calvary. Only Jesus heals.
The Believers Voice of Victory Magazine is monthly magazine filled with teachings and testimony written for you to grow in faith. It is a free subscription available to you today. Click this link to start receiving your BVOV Magazine.