Musician and author John Tesh has learned the power of renewing the mind during his long battle against cancer.
“I have found that many people don’t truly understand that there are dark forces, that the devil is after your mind,” he says. “They don’t understand that. It’s hard to believe because there are so many movies about it and all that. Many people think that when a thought comes into their mind, it comes from them, and it’s not. It’s put there by some other force.”
Romans 12:2 states “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Tesh, an outspoken Christian who was raised Baptist, knows firsthand the power of prayer. In 2015, the Emmy Award-winning host was diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer and given just 18 months to live. During this time, Tesh, with the encouragement of his wife, Connie, leaned into the power of prayer and explored what the Bible says about healing. His journey through cancer deepened his faith He credits a CD from Andrew Wommack, which emphasized Mark 11:23, for providing a breakthrough moment.
“He said that the Bible says, ‘Whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says,’ and ‘For whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you receive it and you will have,’” he told the Christian Post. “I thought, ‘Wow, my mountain right now is cancer.’ My wife and I started digging deeper to understand the true nature of God.”
READ: Leading oncologist says prayer central to beating cancer
Today, the Grammy-nominated composer and concert pianist is cancer-free, a miracle he attributes to his Christian faith, the support of his wife and the wisdom of doctors.
“There are some churches that teach healing and only healing through faith, but that’s not what worked for me,” Tesh said. “What worked for me was using what God did for medicine, and then also being able to renew my mind and have a focus of what God really wanted for me and be able to visualize my future.”
Tesh has leveraged his experiences to create an online course, “The Secret to Answered Prayers,” aimed at teaching how to pray with authority and combine faith with science for a more holistic approach to healing and well-being. The impetus for the online course came after a survey of his nearly two million social media followers who expressed a desire to learn how to create a deeper prayer life.
“Don’t talk to God about sickness,” he said. “Talk to sickness about God,”
–Dwight Widaman | MV