Five weeks after experiencing an unspecified “life-threatening” health emergency, Bishop T.D. Jakes returned to the pulpit on New Year’s Eve to a standing ovation. During a Dec. 31 service at his Dallas-area megachurch, Jakes told congregants, “I don’t come as Bishop Jakes. I come as Bishop Lazarus to let you know that with God, all things are possible.”
In John 11, Jesus raised his friend Lazarus, who had been dead in the tomb for four days.
Jakes, 67, thanked church members for their ongoing prayers and medical personnel for their care. The bishop also emphasized the seriousness of his recent health scare, saying he thinks he died at one point.
On Nov. 24, while leading worship at The Potter’s House, Jakes stopped speaking and started shaking. The bishop said he doesn’t remember much from that day but knows that God “had me cradled in his presence.”
Video of the incident went viral, and Jakes said TV footage is the only way he knows what happened to him. As ChurchLeaders reported, Jakes previously indicated he didn’t have a stroke but said the incident “could’ve been fatal.”
TD Jakes: God ‘Made a Sign’ Out of Me
On New Year’s Eve, Jakes expressed joy at returning to God’s house but admitted feeling “a fair amount of anxiety” about returning to “the same spot that I almost died in.” He continued, “Frankly, I think I did [die], but God, in his infinite wisdom and great grace, brought me back to the same spot.”
The bishop described conversing with God after being rushed to the hospital. God told Jakes he had allowed the emergency to occur in public to make “a sign out of you,” Jakes said, “that no matter what hits you, if God [is] before you, no weapon formed against you shall be able to prosper.”
Pointing to his recovery, the celebrity pastor and author told worshipers:
I don’t know what you’re going through tonight, but let this be a signal to you that you’re on your way to a comeback. And if I’m talking directly to you and if all the odds have been against you and if they couldn’t hardly get a pulse on you and if you couldn’t hardly recognize anybody and everybody said you weren’t going to make it, I’m standing here as a testimony.
