Healing
God is above the natural world and never gets tired because He is a supernatural God. Supernatural is so above the natural that we cannot even explain it but God is not limited to our natural faculties, time continuum and human frailties. We are born into a body that dies, we get tired, we get sick, our bodies wear out through time no matter what. When God heals, He is breaking into time and space and intervening in the natural course of events and performs the miraculous. Everything that God does is natural to Him but from our perspective it would be presumptuous to think that what He does is natural for us. He is above, beyond and outside of our natural ways. I think of the natural world as much more comprehensible than the supernatural, no matter how many mysteries He reveals to me about Himself and eternity but if we want to be like Jesus, then we allow our own nature to be taken into the heavenlies and not be conformed to this world. A Christian Scientist may disagree, for to them everything is spiritual and cannot understand mind or matter, but I worship a supernatural God that transcends my own human nature. Are we to think that sickness and viruses and old age is just in the mind? There are those that would have you believe it but our condition in Adam's fallen nature is real, not imagined. It may have not been the way that God intended but this reality must be accepted as revealed truth or the truth is not in you.
The mind does have a lot to do with healing and sickness and how we think can determine our health but our minds also must be constantly renewed whereas our bodies will continue to deteriorate until it dies. Bodily death is unfortunately a fact of life. We die, we all sin, and if we are not born of the spirit, the soul that sins shall also die. His ways are so far above mine in the natural that I cannot possibly completely fathom what He really has in store for me down here or in the life to come even if I have been created in His image. Even though with all that said, if we could only come to the point in history that we as a group can be natural as to doing supernatural deeds, we have really arrived.
Paul tells us a lot about spiritual gifts, he teaches us about the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues, the gift of wisdom and knowledge and all the rest. But Paul does not write about the gift of healing, he writes of the gifts of healing - plural. I was updating my links the other day and read somewhere that brought this up and I have to agree that it is significant. I had to think about it, who has the greater gift, the one that prays for healing or the one that gets healed?
It made me realize that you might not really need to have the gift of healing to pray for someone to be healed. Saint James writes "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." There is no requirement here that one should have the gift of healing to pray for the sick, only the faith to be able to ask.
Now everybody in Israel didn't get healed, but it says that those that came to Him got healed. That's a key. Jesus never let anybody go away without being healed, but the people that didn't come to him, didn't always get healed. Of course faith and coming to Him is part of that but Jesus can heal any one He wants if He has the mind to. Is it completely dependent upon our faith? We do know that Jesus healed those that came to Him, maybe this is pre-requisite, I don't know. Lazarus did not ask to be risen from the dead, neither did His family. Jesus loved Lazarus enough to raise him and He loves us too.
Because not everyone gets healed, should we stop praying for it, even if you have not been healed yourself? The answer here is obvious yet there are others who would think that God does not heal at all or it was for a specific time in the past and not for today. God heals through His supernatural power and God heals through the natural power of our body's ability to heal. He heals through prayer, He heals through doctors, He heals through medicine and wholesome living. And don't forget that inner healing is much more valuable than physical healing. We need faith to be able to ask of God but God does not need our faith to heal, He heals because He loves us and bestows His compassion on us.
I have problems with my health and have asked for healing. I haven't been healed yet but that will not and should not deter me from asking the Lord to heal me. It may be His will or not but the scriptures say that we should pray and ask others to pray. Jesus healed the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant but he did not ask for it and would not have expected it either. Jesus healed Malchus because He had compassion on Him. Can you think of someone that Jesus does not have compassion for? No, that is the job of those with conservative compassion, not the ones that are willing to lay down their lives for us.
We have been concerned with what is bogus in evangelistic ministries in this discussion but we must never lose sight of what is real. There are healing crusades where people get healed, we have heard testimonies to the fact so we must not let the bogus spoil what is right and pure and from a Godly source. We may however be thinking in the wrong terms when we try to predict what Jesus will do through us when we will be doing the greater works. We may in fact not know what those greater works are. After all, if they are greater, they might not just be more of the same but something even different than before. So many think it is in giving us as individuals a healing ministry but at this point we don't know and we have to be open to the fact that it may be greater works through us as a united group.
Every healing ministry that I have seen has a prophetic element to it, real or feigned. This is good because we are to try the spirits to see if they are in fact from God but not everybody has the prophetic ability to recognize truth from error. Discernment is listed as one of the spiritual gifts and is a very important one because it will recognize what is false. These are the watchmen on the wall that look out for us and guard us from those that would prey on us. I need them and so do you.
We do know that we can lose our healing: "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee" (John 5: 14). Wow! Sin no more, quite a task, are we capable of that? I guess that we can be so perfect that we do not sin but I sure have a way to go.
I remember once that I was part of a group that visited a terminally ill man. A member of the group scolded him for not having the faith to receive his healing since he had been prayed for in the past. I thought that was a stupid thing to say. We know that spiritual power is part of healing. It is not ourselves that are the healers but Jesus. Do we have the power? Well, I guess we do if we have Jesus and all we have to do to exercise that power is to claim it and be obedient to it. But then faith goes both ways doesn't it? I know of no one that has enough faith to believe that I can lay my hands on them and through the power of Jesus be healed. But is that what it takes? I wish I knew.
About twenty years ago, I attended a Kenneth Hagin meeting at the Cathedral of Faith. I was just newly exercising my own spiritual gifts in those days and as the meeting got started I prayed for healing in the assembly. All at once a man in a wheel chair sat up and started praising the Lord. Mr. Hagin said, "this man just got healed and I didn't do a thing." I lifted up my eyes and prayed again and Mr. Hagin turned to me and said "that is real faith, just in lifting up your eyes." It was something like that anyway, but the point is that it is not our power, I prayed and the spirit moved. We need to ask but we need to ask in unwavering faith. I looked at the rapture on the man's face face and the fact that he was giving the glory to God. His was an inner healing, it was real and I give thanks to God for it but I don't remember the man getting up out of his chair and running around, yet he did get healed and I recollect perfectly that God's power had come out of my asking Him for healing in the service. Remember Saint James spoke about praying for the sick and then added about salvation and raising him up and of the forgiveness of sins. Many people may not get healed today but we know that if they are saved, that is all important and someday all their sickness and pain will be gone.
I have a long way to go, how about you? From glory to glory, we will be perfected.
Jesus went about in His ministry and healed people of their sicknesses, diseases, mental illness and to heal the broken hearted. He cast out demons and did marvelous works. Jesus gave his disciples the power against unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal sickness and disease. He also told us that in His name we also will be able to do these things. "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely you have received, freely give." "Heal the sick that are therein and say unto them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." God is the healer but we are the instrument that He uses to bring the healing.
In the Old Testament, God healed and showed us that if we pray for the healing that He would answer the prayer. Mighty prophets like Elijah was given the gift to heal but today it may come from anyone who believes. The Lord appeared to Solomon and told him that if His people humbled themselves and prayed, that He would hear them and heal the land; this is especially for us today. David prayed to be healed. Solomon said that there was a time to heal. Not only physical healing for Jeremiah wrote of the backsliding children to return from forgetting the Lord and He will heal their backsliding. "Heal me, O Lord and I shall be healed. Save me and I shall be saved, for you are my praise." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely."
The healing ministry in the Roman Catholic church was preserved through shrines, devotions and martyrs. When praying for healing was no longer done by priests or official representatives of the church, people turned to Mary and to the Saints. Faith was still the operative point of contact. Augustine had faith in the healing power of martyrs. "For when they were discovered and dug up... and not only they who were vexed with unclean spirits were cured, but a certain man, who had for many years been blind, put to his eyes they were forthwith opened." Many saints through history had the gift of healing and the power in laying on of hands in the name of Jesus. It was not until the Methodist revivals and the emergence of the holiness churches that the gift started to gain respect outside of the Roman Catholic Church. The Pentecostal churches and especially the healing ministries through the thirties and the evangelist movements of the late forties and since have had the faith to show the healing ministries alive and well. Of course there are counterfeit ministries that cast dispersions on the real thing but they are easy to recognize unless you are taken in by them. Do not give money to a supposed healer who asks for it. If they pray for your healing and then prophesy that the Lord has told them that someone out there has a gift for them, they are a false prophet trying to make merchandise out of you.
Kathryn Kuhlman: "the expectancy getting hold of the audience."
As to why people get healed and others don't, I don't know. I know that I have the power in my hands and feel that God will be using this power within me in the future. I have arthritis in my hands, and a painful neck degeneration. It does not get better, it gets worse as I grow older. One thing that I do know is that all pain will be wiped away in the next life. I have seen this happen before where healing power goes into someone but they are still not healed. Winning souls is much better in the long run than healing. I am sure that you would agree.
The early Christian community knew the power of the gift of healing. The disciples were doing miracles and were persecuted for boldly proclaiming the name of Jesus, but they prayed. "And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word, by stretching forth Your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of your holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spoke the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul." This same oneness and power is available to us as we humble ourselves, rid ourselves of spiritual pride and come of one accord and become the church without spot or wrinkle that Jesus is coming for. "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings and you shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts."
Healing is the supernatural organic intervention in individual health. God does the healing whether it is naturally through time or supernaturally. There are many healers in the church, but as Jesus showed us, the lack of faith can stop the power. The source of all healing in the New Covenant is Jesus. Jesus sent His disciples out to heal the sick and spread the good news of the kingdom of God. If Jesus is truly in you, you also have the power to heal: sicknesses, pain, casting out of devils, raising the dead - whatever the affliction, we have the same power that Jesus has to heal them. We also have the power to heal ourselves but understanding is needed to do it right, in must be in spirit and truth. It must be the spirit of the risen Jesus operating through us.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.
Edgar Cayce: "You cured yourself, and I can take no credit. God has given the power of Christ to heal through human channels."
Oral Roberts: "God is the source - you are the instrument."
[34, 66, 104, 285, 299, 377, Matthew 10, Luke 10, Jeremiah 3, 17, Hosea 14, Acts 4, The Healing Ministry was a topic of the Latter Rain Discussion List]
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