John Mellor Brisbane Australia

Ivan comments: John’s healing ministry impacted many lives both in Australia and overseas. I remember the delightful miracle healing of a fellow teacher I took to one of John’s meetings. Sadly, for us, John went to be with his Lord on March 17 2023 – but his brave wife Julie Mellor is continuing to minister. This account of how God first reached into John’s life is written by Julie.

John’s salvation in 1976 at the age of 20 came soon after he was in a serious motorcycle accident in Brisbane. John had been drinking and was high on drugs and was hit by a car on his motorbike in Indooroopilly, Brisbane.

Members of the Christian motorbike club, the God Squad, witnessed the accident. God told them to follow the ambulance to hospital and witness to the young man who’d been hit. ‘Bee’ (Ian) burst into the emergency ward while John’s badly smashed leg was being tended to and said, ‘Young man, I saw the accident. God told me to follow you here and tell you this: God loves you and has a plan for your life!’

John thought, ‘Another Jesus freak, like my brother.’ But he couldn’t get Bee’s words out of his head. 

John’s brother, Jeff, had been recently, radically saved through Teen Challenge and had been witnessing to John and praying for his salvation. He had told John that if he died without knowing Jesus he’d go to hell.

In the sobering aftermath of the motorcycle accident, John realised he could have died and gone to hell. Lying in his bed one night, tormented by depression, fear & hopelessness, with Bee’s message from God on his mind, John cried out to God and said, ‘God, if you’re real, come into my life and help me!’ John then fell asleep.

When he woke up, John said he noticed how blue the sky was and he was listening to the birds sing – things he’d never noticed before! He felt strange and didn’t quite understand the feeling. Then he remembered that he’d cried out to God. He wondered ‘Is this what peace feels like?’ John grew up in a dysfunctional home and said he’d never experienced peace until Jesus entered his heart. John said that’s when his real life started. And from then on, John pursued God and knew he would never turn away from Him because there was only wretchedness to return to.

John’s full story is in his book ‘Miracles from the Dust’ and also his testimony and teaching of how Jesus set him free from depression, fear, anxiety & addiction is in ‘Be Anxious for Nothing.’ 

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,’ Luke 4:18.

And friends, God also loves YOU and has an amazing plan for YOUR life!

Blessings,
Julie Mellor(For more keys and teaching on healing & deliverance browse our books, CDs & DVDs, available through our website store https://www.johnmellor.org/shop2/

To see details of upcoming healing meetings, see the itinerary

 https://www.johnmellor.org/johns-itinerary/. New dates are continually being added.)

John’s Testimony illustrates that:

1. God can reach into our lives when we are at our most desperate.
2. God can use any obedient Christian, such as ‘Bee’ and the other members of the Christian Motor Bike Club.
3. God also often uses words we feel have fallen on deaf ears.
4. God often reveals the beauties of nature to new converts in a refreshing way.
5. God often gives peace to the tortured souls of new converts.
6. God always has plans for our lives. Our obedience is essential for the fulfilling of these plans.
7. God often channels the lives of new converts into different and worthwhile activities —and even effective ministries.

Ivan at Marlborough High School in Rhodesia

It began with a word of prophecy in Pastor Bill Anstruther’s church one Sunday evening. Very seldom have I felt a prophecy given by a member of the congregation in church has been God communicating with me, but this was one of those very rare occasions. It was specific; God intended to move at my place of work but I was unprepared.

Because I knew God had spoken, I went home that Sunday night and wondered what I should do to prepare? I presumed He would reach out to teenagers at the school. I rifled through tracts and other Christian material to take to school with which to help the upcoming new converts, but I didn’t have a lot of suitable material. I was unprepared.

It is important to realise that our Scripture Union Group had done nothing special in preceding weeks to reach out to the student body. Should anything transpire, it would have to be a work of God alone and not based on our efforts.

It began the following day as I walked between my science laboratory and the staffroom at morning tea. A couple of shy lads asked me how they might become Christians and could I pray for them please? I took them off to an empty classroom, spoke to them and prayed with them, by which time morning tea was over. I returned to my lab joyfully.

Each morning when I walked across to have tea over the next few days the sequence of events was repeated, and at other times too.

On that Friday I made my huge mistake. A couple of pupils met me on the path as before and I took them to a classroom, but then I said something like: “I’m just going to fetch myself a cup of tea and I’ll be right back to talk with you,” and I left them there while I hurried over to the staffroom. It was the first time I had managed to reach the staffroom that whole week to get my tea, but as I walked I felt the displeasure of the Holy Spirit.

I returned rapidly back to the classroom carrying my tea, talked with the pupils and prayed for them. But I just knew the Holy Spirit had left me because I had not honoured Him. And no further pupils stopped me to talk about Christ again as I walked across to the staffroom over the years I was there, and never again in my life has there been any similar move of God. In fact, trying to interest pupils in God was always an uphill struggle afterwards.

When I counted the number of names of new converts that I wrote down inside the cover of my Bible, there were 48. How many more might there have been if I hadn’t been so insensitive? Conversion, after all, is the most important moment in anyone’s existence, and yet I had trivialised it to fetch myself some tea! How would those last two pupils have felt regarding the importance of their own reaching out to the Lord if I could simply walk off to grab myself a cup of tea?

You might expect I would have learnt my lesson, but not fully. Years later in Australia I was walking through some pine trees in the Toowoomba Grammar School grounds when the Lord said, “You will go North.” Just that. Just once.

“Well, Lord, what about Brenda? You know how hard it has been for her to settle in Australia and she’s starting to like being in Toowoomba. What should I do about that?”

Once more, I had an empty feeling that I knew was the displeasure of the Holy Spirit. Needless to say, no opportunity ever opened for me to go North. I had blown it once again.

I am reminded of how God sidelined even the great Moses, not an insignificant leader like I was, not for disobedience alone as is so often supposed, but because Moses failed to “sanctify the Lord” in the eyes of the people. If the leader can minimise the Lord and His instructions, it belittles God. Why, then, should anyone else take the Lord seriously?

  Ivan’s testimony shows that:

1. God cannot be put in a box – He can do anything He wishes in whatever way He chooses.
2. God can initiate reaching anyone with the gospel. However, be careful, because God has many different ways to reach people and on different levels, so no infallible recipe system exists.
3. God wants us to be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit whenever we are with another person.
4. God is not formulaic in how He deals with people, He made us different individuals and likes to deal with us individually.

Ian Feeney, Toowoomba, Australia 2023

Recently I’ve been experiencing severe discomfort with my digestion. I was beginning to get weary of the debilitation.

When praying, I earnestly sought God for some relief. Immediately I was directed to 1Peter 1, and read in verse five that I am protected by the power of God. It didn’t take long to realise that I was in a safe place.

I thought about the billions of stars known and placed by God. I meditated on the unimaginable infinite knowledge, love and power of my God who promises to protect me with his infinite power. My concerns about my health abated, furthermore the following day I realised that I was trying too hard to be normal in my eating habits. Having lost 80% of my stomach through cancer some five years ago I need to eat smaller servings, more often. I began to do this and my discomfort has all but disappeared.

I thank God for His encouragement and support in prompting me to change my eating habits.

I am convinced God is interested in the smaller practical aspects of our lives as much as the whole of life purposes.

I am so thankful that God has given me the security of His protection while enabling me to enjoy His promise of help in all aspects of life.

Ian’s testimony shows that:

1. God can direct us to helpful scriptures during difficult times.
2. God does not only deal on a supernatural level in our lives. He is also intensely practical and expects us to develop on that level too.
3. God’s purposes stretch from helping us with immediate problems into developing us for the distant future. (1Peter1 4 -7)
4. God can give us the security of His protection while enabling us to enjoy His promise of help in all aspects of life.

 

Ruth Lucht in Toowoomba, Australia

I recall a recent God intervention for me.  I had lost my small flashlight  that I often use to navigate to the bathroom late at night.  It was given to me as a birthday gift from my husband and had sentimental value too.  Usually I had one home for it, on my bedside table. It wasn’t there and it wasn’t in any other of the places I thought to look.  It had been missing for a few days.  

I was feeling frustrated, disappointed and had that unfinished feeling that comes when an item hasn’t been found and there is no closure.  

 Finally I was standing in the laundry and decided to pray about its location.  I said something like:  “Please Lord, you know where my flashlight is, please reveal it to me.”  I turned around and found it that instant, sitting on the laundry shelf behind me!  

I felt humbled at the Lord’s gracious revelation to me, excited, thankful and cared for. 

 Ruth’s testimony shows that:

1. God knows where everything is but we  must ask, because He wants relationship to develop with us which is more important than the lost item itself.
2. God understands sentimental importance as well as monetary importance.