The book of Acts in the Bible is rich with stories of the apostles and new believers preaching and healing the sick. Jesus had just spent three years teaching and showing them what it was like to be filled with the Holy Spirit and let His power flow through him.
Peter and the other disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended. Tongues of fire came on their heads, they spoke in tongues and were able to heal people. The apostles then taught the early church to do the same and many Christians experienced miracles.
But that doesn’t happen anymore, right?
One of Asbury’s art professors begs to differ. Chris Segre-Lewis, who teaches painting and drawing, says he has seen miracles and has healed many by the power of the Lord since 2015.
Segre-Lewis grew up in a cessationist church, which believes that miracles and healings do not continue to happen after the apostles’ time. But when he was 16 years old, Segre-Lewis had what he describes as a visceral and experiential born-again experience.
“Things that [the church] told me were not accessible were coming to me; things like the baptism of the Holy Spirit, things like tongues; these were not kosher in my church,” he said.
A few weeks after becoming a Christian, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues.
“[Believers] laid hands on me and I started to feel the room wobble spiritually, I don’t even know how to describe it; and they just said to me, ‘Open your mouth,’” he said. As he did, he said another language came out of his mouth and he fell backwards.
“As I’m on the ground I felt visceral waves, like radiating waves of the love of the Father coming through my entire body; it was like light,” he explained. “I couldn’t move, I was on the ground just weeping with love coming over me.”
After his conversion, Segre-Lewis said he could not keep quiet about what he experienced and said he evangelized his school and everywhere he went. He started to read about miracles in Scripture and noted that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians to “seek earnestly the spiritual gifts.” Segre-Lewis believed these gifts were available to anyone and therefore asked God to experience them.
“I recognized that there was a whole other kingdom, the kingdom of heaven that was more real and more dominant than the physical kingdom that I lived on,” he said. “It was like my eyes were opened and I wanted more of him.”
In the years and decades following, Segre-Lewis says he learned to discern the voice of God. He went on mission trips where he listened and obeyed God’s subtle voice in his mind, and he started seeing people saved.
Yet he always wondered why he wasn’t seeing miracles, since Scripture says that God gives Christians the power of the Holy Spirit. But in the fall of 2015, he says he began hearing God tell him that he was soon going to see revival happen and would see people with sickness, injuries and addictions immediately healed.
In September 2015, Segre-Lewis believes he felt the Lord tell him to check the messages on his Asbury landline. He hardly ever checks it, but that day there was a message from an artist in New Mexico.
Segre-Lewis called the artist back and learned he was also a gifted evangelist. The artist told him that in prayer, he saw letters move in front of his eyes and spell out the word “Asbury.” He looked up what it meant, looked at the art department and felt led to call Segre-Lewis.
Segre-Lewis explained to him that he had not seen much breakthrough in his ministry and was still struggling with sin. He asked for the man’s advice and the man told him, “You are going to see the breakthrough you’re looking for when you understand the pleasure that God takes over you.”
Later that day, Segre-Lewis said he heard the Lord’s voice and saw visions of an open Heaven.
“It was like those Renaissance paintings that are like a circular dome and you see angels circling around,” he explained. “I saw the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit dancing around above my head saying, ‘Chris, I’m so pleased with you, I’m so pleased with you.’”
A week or so later, he said the sin he had been struggling with for years was lifted off of him. Segre-Lewis started to hear God’s voice loudly in his mind telling him what he was doing and what he wanted Segre-Lewis to do.
“Suddenly when I prayed I would start to feel, it was like electricity or energy coming out of my arms and my hands, and this was when I saw my first supernatural healing,” he said.
He said sometimes he sees Jesus in his mind’s eye walk up to a person, tell Segre-Lewis what the person struggles with and what to do so God can heal the person. He started to see this happen everywhere he went, to the point that he was healing multiple people almost every day. He says he has even healed people at Asbury.
One day during a church service in Wilmore, he saw and heard Jesus tell him to heal someone. “Suddenly in my mind’s eye I saw [Jesus] walking up the center aisle of the congregation to the front, I was all the way in the back, turning left and pointing out a woman that I knew … and he said ‘Chris, do you see this woman? She has a herniated disc, she has injuries in her L3, L4 and L5 in her lower back.’”
After the service, Segre-Lewis went to the woman and asked if she had injuries in those exact areas. She told him she did, and he prayed for her. The next day Segre-Lewis’s mother, who was in a small group with the woman, told him that from the moment he prayed for her, the woman said she had no more pain.
He has also seen deaf people hear again, the blind see, addictions and sin immediately removed, cancer healed and much more.
Read more about Segre-Lewis’s supernatural healing experiences in Israel and how western churches approach spiritual gifts in the next issue of the Collegian, in print and online Dec. 6.