"The Plans of the Lord Stand"
Prophet Emmanuel Decostra opens his message with Proverbs 19:21: "There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand." Even his invitation to speak at Elevating CHRIST, he says, was God's plan rather than anyone's. And his own life is proof of that verse, because nothing about his early years pointed toward ministry.
Far From God, and Proud of It
Born into a Punjabi family, Emmanuel grew up, as he puts it, in darkness. By 2007 he was working in Singapore, earning well, with every comfort the world could offer. What he did not have was God, and he did not want Him. He refused to make Christian friends. If he learned that someone was a believer, he stopped speaking to them. Like Sadhu Sundar Singh before his conversion, he says, he lived as an opponent of Christ.
"When God chooses you," he says, "He is not interested in the old life. He breaks the old vessel and makes a new one." For Emmanuel, the breaking came fast. First his job went. Then his landlord gave him notice to leave his comfortable home, and with money running out, he had nowhere to go.
A Missionary Who Asked for Nothing
A friend mentioned a missionary nearby who helped people in need. Emmanuel went reluctantly. All his life he had avoided one thing above all: Christian prayer, because he feared that if he let someone pray for him, he might start to believe. He told the missionary he could pay no advance, no deposit and no rent, and that he would not take part in the household's morning and evening prayers. The missionary took him in anyway.
When His Health Collapsed
About six months later, his body began to fail. He felt weak and dizzy, and could barely manage even part-time work. Then came a single sore in his mouth, which soon became many. The missionary arranged for a doctor friend, who was also a pastor, to examine him. The doctor explained that tests in Singapore would cost far more than Emmanuel could afford, but from experience, he believed it was mouth cancer.
The multivitamins he prescribed stopped working. Soon Emmanuel could not eat anything without burning pain, and he was surviving on rice with more tomato ketchup than rice. Then even that became too painful. He was confined to his room, speaking through a handkerchief as his mouth bled, soaking two or three handkerchiefs at a time. Of the roughly twenty people living in the house, the missionary asked the others sharing Emmanuel's room to move out or sleep in the drawing room, rather than send a sick young man away. Emmanuel moved to a liquid diet, and then he could no longer leave his bed.
"Son, This Is the Last Night"
The doctor came again, but stood outside the bedroom door. When Emmanuel asked him to speak plainly, he came close and said in a low, frightened voice: "Son, tonight is the last night." He stayed a while to encourage him, then left. Friends took turns at his bedside, dipping cotton into water and juice and squeezing drops into his mouth. Emmanuel asked one of them to promise that, if he died, his body would be sent home to India.
Alone, the 21-year-old cried out: "Is there a living God? Is there a true God? If there is, save me. I don't want to die." He had followed every religious practice his parents had taught him, faithfully and sincerely. He could not understand what was missing.
The Prayer He Had Always Run From
A little later, the missionary came to his room and asked gently, "If you don't mind, may I pray for you?" The one thing Emmanuel had run from all his life was about to begin. He nodded.
The missionary washed his hands, put on no gloves, and brought anointing oil from his room. He asked Emmanuel to open his mouth, and with his bare fingers applied oil to each sore, one by one, weeping as he prayed. That was the moment, Emmanuel says, that his heart began to soften. Who is this man? He is not my relative. I could not pay him. I have been nothing but a problem to him since I arrived. He moved nine tenants out for me, and now he is crying as he prays for me. The missionary explained what "Amen" meant. Emmanuel said it, and somehow fell asleep.
Waking Up Alive
The next morning, convinced he had died in the night, Emmanuel struggled out of bed and into the drawing room, looking for his own body. He tells this part with a smile now: when the missionary called his name, he wondered whether Christians could hear spirits too. Only when the missionary put Emmanuel's arm over his shoulder to help him back to bed did he realise he was alive. "Doctors sometimes fail," he says, "but He never fails."
The prayers continued morning and evening, with oil on every sore and a bowl of rice and ketchup each time. At first he could manage only a spoonful or two. By the eighth day, despite the pain and the bleeding, he finished the whole bowl. On the ninth day, he did it again, morning and evening.
Under the Old Tree
On the tenth day, he walked downstairs and outside for the first time in weeks. Below the missionary's home was a church, and outside it an old tree with roots so large you could sit on them. It had been his favourite spot, the place where he used to sit, provoke churchgoers, and sometimes blow smoke in their faces.
Sitting there now, he could not deny what was happening. I was dying. Whatever is changing in me, there is the power of prayer behind it, and that prayer is being made only in the name of Jesus Christ. Everything he had been taught against Christians, he realised, had been wrong. Who does this for a stranger?
Over the following days he followed the missionary everywhere, asking question after question. Every time, the missionary answered by putting the Bible in his hands. On the thirteenth night, laughing, the missionary handed him a DVD of The Passion of the Christ. Emmanuel watched it five, six, perhaps seven times before morning.
The Fourteenth Day
That Sunday he sat under the tree again as people arrived for church, and for the first time he saw what he had never noticed before: a brightness in their faces, a peace he had never felt. These were the people he had harassed, and not one had ever answered him back. He understood the love of John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
When the missionary returned for lunch, Emmanuel told him, "I have made up my mind. I want to receive Jesus Christ." The missionary smiled and told him it was simple: fold your hands, close your eyes, bow your head and pray after me. For thirteen days, prayer had been prayed over him without his faith. This time he prayed with all his heart, soul and mind.
As they prayed, he felt what seemed like ants crawling on his arm, then many more, but he would not open his eyes or let anything distract him. When they said "Amen," he says he saw a white light standing before him, drawing a black, smoke-like darkness out of him. The darkness resisted, but within seconds the light grew and drove it out. "Believe it," the missionary told him. "Today you have received healing."
A Single Drop
People with severe mouth and throat conditions often lose the ability to produce saliva, Emmanuel explains, which is why speaking and swallowing become so hard. That same evening, he felt a single drop of saliva form in his mouth. He compares it to a dry tap in a house with an empty water tank: when the first drop comes, you know the water is back.
He points to Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24: "By whose stripes ye were healed." "I stand before you as proof," he says. "No therapy. No surgery. By His stripes, I am healed."
2007 to 2026
Nearly two decades later, Emmanuel still thanks God every day. The young man who once asked a friend to send his body home to India is healthy, married, and the father of two children, and now serves in ministry in Delhi. His story is one reason he loves testimonies so much: "A testimony is a way we can glorify God."
In Part 2 of this message, he opens the Bible to teach why prayer carries such power. You can read it here: The Power of Persistent Prayer.
If You Are Facing Illness Today
Emmanuel's story is a testimony of what God did in his life. If you or someone you love is sick, keep praying, and keep seeing your doctor. God can work through prayer and through medicine, and many believers have seen His hand in both. If you would like someone to pray with you, reach out to us through our Contact page.