Luke 5 vs. 12-13 “While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with Leprosy. When he saw Jesus he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing” he said “be clean” And immediately the leprosy left him.”
Jesus did more than heal from a distance… he touched him! Most probably no one had touched this man for many years!
Jesus who heals, the Jesus of the gospels, is the same today as He was in the gospels. He is the perfect image of God and never changes.
EXODUS 15 vs. 26: “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of these diseases I brought on the Egyptians, FOR I AM THE LORD WHO HEALS YOU”
I AM THE LORD WHO HEALS YOU…no if’s, but’s or excuses! (9 lepers?)
Jesus healed EVERYONE who ASKED Him to!! It is God’s will to heal!
What is your picture of God based on? Your own personal experience or the Jesus of the gospels?
It becomes almost a habit for mature Christians to find themselves in prayer, not always filled with expectancy that God will intervene in power, but with at least a measure of hope, whenever suffering comes to their attention. But understanding and experience often seem to conflict. As we pile our own philosophical theories on top of the scriptures, we lose sight of the amazing breadth of grace, and the astonishing truth that God is willing to act in specific ways as we pray. So, with our lack of ‘God-confidence’, we lose any connection with the miraculous and begin to think that healing may not be possible. Our understanding of healing miracles follows our experience. If we do not see much, we do not expect much, and then we see even less.
When we do not see healing, the reason is not in the heart of God, but so often lies in our understanding: we are looking the wrong way.
It is not hope or desperation that triggers heavens response, but expectancy, firmly based on faith in the covenant promises in the word of God, and real confidence in the revealed truth about God’s nature that we see in Jesus: that the heart of the Son shows us the heart of the father.
Expectancy, persistence and humility are three vital keys to moving into all the healing that God has in store for us.*
We can easily start growing our expectancy, by going to church today and expecting God to touch us with His presence during the worship, speak to us during the sermon, show us his love with the people around us, and change our heart and minds forever.
What are you going to expect God to do tomorrow?
How is it that, in the thinking of so many churchgoers, our supremely powerful God has become ‘boxed in, labeled and put away’ somewhere up near the alter in church, where he is not expected to do anything unplanned? If we allow our past, present and future to be held in the redemptive, healing hands of the living Lord Jesus Christ, he really does move with extraordinary effect. So why is the power of God the most underused ‘resource’ in the church today?
The early church believed that God acts in power, and the church held this truth dear for its first one thousand years; but, since then …We need to find a way to become truly expectant again and then we will see miracles in the home and the street; and on the margins of our congregations as much as on the mission field. We only need expectancy the size of a mustard seed and things start to happen, grace brings about amazing things. By his grace, when we begin to move in expectancy. Heaven explodes. Why? – Because the preached word was, and still is, to be accompanied by miracles.*
Try changing your perception of the power of God, and the fact that it could impact your life in any second! Give God the upper hand back; He is still doing amazing things today!
Dear Mike,
Here is an account of my healing from sciatica, which I had suffered down my left leg for a long time. My vicar had prayed for healing from it; it did improve, but returned after a short while. At a conference last year, you asked anyone to come forward who had received healing before but their condition had returned. As I stood there you prayed, and immediately the pain vanished. You emphasized that if the condition returned, we each must immediately tell it to go, as we had been healed. Over the next few weeks, whenever I felt it returning I bade it go in Jesus name as I had been healed. It did, and soon gave up trying! Alleluia! I am constantly wanting to praise and thank him, I want others to experience what I have; my prayers for others have new impetus and I want people to really believe in God’s healing grace. As for me, I constantly rejoice in freedom from pain. –Pauline.
How many of us, just don’t believe we’ll ever get healed, or worse still be healed only for it to come back, making us loose faith and be even more disappointed! I think it’s important while we are learning about a different view of God and his will to heal us that it would be more helpful to try forget all our previous experiences!
Hello Mike!
Just a quick note to praise God with you that I am free of migraines at last. I have had one of those terrible things every week for twelve years which, as you can imagine, was totally draining. Its now three months since one occurred and life is really flooding back into all my veins. Hallelujah! -Madeline
We Christians can fall into the trap of thinking that prayer (vital as it is) is a substitute for doing the work of the kingdom. Prayer is essential, of course, but when it is sometimes, mistakenly, spoken of as though it were an alternative to obedient action, then the nature of sonship, discipleship and delegated authority has been radically misunderstood. Claims to be praying about something when we know perfectly well we should be acting in obedience are nothing short of pharisaical. We are here both to pray and to do. We must either begin to do the work of the kingdom or share responsibility for the ineffectiveness of much of the church’s ministry.*
Think about problem situations in your life at the moment, re-evaluate the ones that you have no control over and just have to hand over to God in prayer, and the ones that you know what to do about, be obedient and do what God is calling you to do!
If exercising our God-given authority to heal the sick in this most fruitful way is to work properly for the kingdom, then what will feed it? What will sustain it? What will give it only substance? What will ensure that the power will follow?
There is an answer: ongoing devotion, and attendance to our sonship. We only have Christ’s authority because we are, and want to continue to be, in a father/child relationship with God. This relationship is not only legal in nature, though it carries the very important aspect of inheritance, but it is, vitally, a relationship of love, which requires continuing attention. It needs to be growing ever closer.
We need to be moving ever more deeply into the amazing riches of our inheritance, growing more deeply in love with the Lord, more and more confident and aware of the reality and depth of his love for us personally.
‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.’
1 John 5:1
We learn from the story of the prodigal son that. Through our adoption into his family, our Father has granted us the legal rights of sonship, calling for a robe, shoes and a ring before we have even re-entered the house. This reveals great truths. Shoes carry our bare feet, and barren hearts, from slaves into sonship.They are the sign that we are sons and agents of the estate owner, not like barefooted slaves. In the gift of a robe is a mark of great honour. The ring is a sign of father-given authority.
We are sons with authority.
Do you see yourself as a son of God with authority, what would it take for you to start living like one?
We need to see here that there are two ways in which healing grace flows into our world: by sovereign interjection, and through the authority of the disciples of Christ. We know that God can, and does, move sovereignly to meet people’s needs in answer to prayer, but this does not seem to be the preferred route. What looks from the human perspective like the great risk of God takes is that he has placed his ministry into the hands of the Christians, his authority and the power into the hands of the church, and, by this grace, accomplishes the majority of his works that way.
The authority that comes from God is o be applied, through us, to situations of sickness and sin. The church does, indeed, possess this authorisation: to inform all dark powers, including our sin and sicknesses, that the lordship of Jesus applies over everything, including our bodies, even when they are under attack. We are to declare the victory of Jesus over all, for he is the Lord who says,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Matthew 28:18b
‘He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.’
Matthew 10:1
So we should place far less emphasis, in our own lives, on telling God what enormous problems we have, and spend more of our time telling our problem what a powerful God we have!
Do you know about the authority God has given you as a believer?
Do you believe it?
What holds you back from using Your authority?
(Next month we will be looking at spiritual authority more closely!)
‘… They will place their hands on sick people,
and they will get well.’
Mark 16:18b
In this one simple, staggering, inspiring sentence, Jesus Christ tells the world something amazing about his disciples then and throughout the ages which were still to come. They could heal the sick! They did not have any particular medical ability of their own – the authority and the power came from God- but they took the initiative and saw results.
What happens if we express a desire to heal the sick and to take joy in the results, as they early disciples did? Can we delight our heavenly Father and bring him pleasure by imitating his Son in healing the sick? Praying for people is one thing, but actually seeing them healed, that is quite another!
If we long to see God at work, and to bring others into his healing light, we must live as Jesus lived; and we must press on into a state of holiness and discover inner purity. What is needed is effective biblical teaching and expectancy, and then we see healing of the sick.*
Are you a disciple?
Do you long to see God at work?
What are you doing in your life to live as Jesus lived?
What are you lacking, biblical teaching or expectancy?
