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There is a misconception going around that you need to have the "gift of healing" in order to pray for the sick and see them healed. Nothing could be farther from the truth! God has given authority to every single one of His disciples to heal the sick.
God expects all of His disciples to heal the sick. That is the first thing we have to understand. And because God expects this of His disciples, He has given each of His disciples authority to heal. It does not matter if you are Lutheran, Assembly of God, Baptist, Episcopalian, CMA, Church of Christ, Vineyard, Pentecostal Holiness, Congregational, Covenant, charismatic, evangelical, mainline pentecostal, inter-denominational or nondenominational. If you are Jesus' disciple, then God has given you authority to heal the sick. It does not matter whether or not your church regularly practices praying for the sick as a part of the service. It does not matter whether or not you have ever personally done this before or not. If you are Jesus' disciple, He has already already given you this authority. You don't have to do anything special to get it.. it is already yours!
This brings us to a very crucial question. Are you His disciple? I mean, are you REALLY His disciple? (If you are, you already have this authority. If you are not, you can easily become one, and then you will be given this authority.) This teaching series talks about healing, but first we need to understand what a disciple is. You have to be His disciple to get His authority to heal the sick. So let's look at what it takes to become His disciple.
A disciple is a "follower of Jesus." It is a person who has heard and believed the good news.. that Jesus died for your sins (so you don't have to) then He rose from the dead and conquered the power of sin and death. Sin used to separate us from God, but because of what Jesus did, we can enter into a personal and intimate relationship with God, we can hear His voice, we can know Him personally as our loving Father and friend, we can see His power in our lives. God Himself comes to live inside of us to change us to become more like Jesus. He becomes our friend and He will never leave us. When we cry out to Him for help, He hears us and He answers us. That is the good news we have to believe to be His disciple.
But a disciple is not just someone who has heard the good news, they have responded to it. They have invited Jesus to be their Lord.. notice I did not say "Savior", I said "Lord." When a person invites Jesus to be their Lord, that means that He becomes the "boss" of their life, He calls the shots. In other words, a disciple does not just believe in Jesus, they are committed to obey Jesus. Jesus talked about this in John 14:15 where He said, "If you love me, you will obey me." (KJ21) And Jesus was pretty serious about this obedience thing, He repeated it in John 15:14, "You are my friends if you do what I tell you to do." (KJ21) Another translation puts it this way, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." (NKJV) In short, if we are Jesus' disciple, we have to be committed to obeying Him and living for Him. We can't just invite Jesus to be our Savior (so we won't go to Hell) and then go on living our lives however we want to. We have to turn the control of our lives over to Him.
Attending church does not make you a disciple. Having prayed the "sinner's prayer" and then continuing to live like you did before you prayed it does not make you a disciple. If you are a disciple, then the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and He works to change you to be more like Jesus, and you choose to cooperate with Him. If you are a disciple, you are developing intimacy (close friendship) with God and you are learning to hear His voice, and you are committed to obey what He tells you to do. God will speak to you through His word, the bible, and He will also speak to you personally in a variety of ways. You will begin to recognize the ways He speaks to you. You will see what the bible calls "the fruit of the spirit" begin to develop in your life.. love for God and other people, joy despite circumstances, peace that comes from knowing Him, patience, etc. God will begin to work in your heart to change your very desires (as per Psalm 51) to line up more closely with His desires. The theological term for that is "transformation through the indwelling Holy Spirit to be conformed to the image of Christ."
In short, if you are a disciple, you are pursuing Jesus' Lordship in very area of your life, you are actively (on a daily basis) allowing Him to lead and guide you, to teach you of Himself and you are committed to obeying Him because you love Him. You are spending time with Him in prayer and devotions on a regular basis and you see His presense, His power and His authority in your day to day life.
If you read this and do not feel that this describes you, then you may not be a disciple. If you are not, would you like to be? I am talking about making a commitment to let Jesus be the Boss of your life, which means He will become involved in your day to day activities, your friendships and relationships, your job, your leisure activities, how you spend your money, etc. He will become Lord or boss in all these area and you will be committed to obeying Him. You will give up control to Him all these areas. But you will gain a closeness to God that you have never experienced before, you will begin to recognize His voice as He speaks to you, you will begin to be changed from the inside out and you will being to see His power and His authority and His victory in many areas of your life. God will become "close friends" with you, He will meet you and reveal Himself to you. And you will be given authority to heal the sick.
If you are not already His disciple, would you like to become one? All you have to do is make a serious decision that you will let Him be boss and then you must try to walk this out on an ongoing basis. Tell Him about this decision, and ask Him to teach you how to walk it out.
We don't just have authority to heal the sick, Jesus actually commanded us to do so. He started by giving this authority and command to His disciples. He did this in Luke 9:1-2. It says, "Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." Verse 6 says, "So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere." Do you see this... Jesus gave them the authority and guess what.. it worked when they tried it. They used Jesus' authority to pray for the sick, just like Jesus told them to, and the sick were healed. I imagine this was a pretty big thrill for the disciples the first few times they tried it ... and it worked!
Now Jesus expanded this in Luke chapter 10. This time He didn't just send out the 12 apostles, He sent out 70 of His followers. In fact, the Lord may have sent the 12 out again along with the 70.. we can't quite tell from the wording. Look at Luke 10 to see what happened, starting at verse 1 "After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go." Now drop down to verses 8 and 9, it says, "Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" So what was the result of this venture? Here is what the Bible says in verses 17 to 19, "Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!' And He said to them, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.'" In other words, Jesus' authority to heal the sick worked for the 70 as well.
Do you see the pattern here? First Jesus gives them authority and sends them out. And when they try doing what He tells them to do, the power of God comes and makes it possible. The sick are healed, demons are cast out. Jesus game them authority and when they used it, it worked!
First Jesus authority to heal to the 12 disciples, then He expanded it to another 70 of His followers. But He did not stop there. He has given it to each of His disciples. Look at Mark 16:15-18.. the "Great Commission." It says, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." And Matthew 28:19-20 records a bit more of what Jesus said regarding the great commission. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Also, look at John 14:12-14 .. Jesus tells us that are given authority to do whatever things He did and work the same works Jesus did. Jesus healed the sick, didn't He? So John 14:12-14 tells us that we can heal the sick too... but verse 15 gives the condition for moving in this healing authority. It says, as we have discussed earlier, "If you love me, you will obey me." So again we see the tie between moving in Jesus power and authority and in a lifestyle of obedience to Him.. e.g, being His disciple.
In other words, if you are Jesus' disciple, you are to be healing the sick. Authority to heal goes right along with authority to share the good news of what Jesus did for us. It is for all believers.. Mark 16:17-18 says "these signs will follow those who believe... they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover!" That is why the question we asked earlier is so crucial.. are you His disciple? If you are, then you have already been given authority to heal the sick. It is time to start learning now to move in that authority.
1 Cor 12:9, 28 and 30 talk about the "gift of healing". That appears to be a special anointing that rests on certain believers. We can all heal the sick, but these guys are better at it, they have a special anointing for it.. they can hold healing meetings and see thousands healed in their meetings. Some modern day examples include Aimee Simple McPherson, Katheryn Kuhlman, Benny Hinn to name a few. All of us can pray for the sick and see them healed. These people have a ministry of praying for the sick, they specialize in it.
The bible also talks about the gift of "evangelism" (from Eph 4:11). It says that God has especially gifted/anointed some people to proclaim the gospel, they are better at it than there rest of us.. they specialize in it. Does that mean that the evangelists were expected to share the Good News about Jesus and the rest of us are excused from it? Of course not! Matt 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15 and Luke 24:48 make it clear that each of Jesus' followers are to share the good news of the gospel. If that is so, why did God bother giving some people the gift of evangelism? It is because He wanted to have some specialists to help get His message out. But God still expects the rest of us to be His witnesses as well.
Likewise, God has given a special healing anointing to some individuals in His body. We see this from 1 Cor 12. But that does not excuse the rest of us from praying for the sick and seeing God Heal them in response to our prayers. If you are Jesus' disciple, then God has given you His authority to heal the sick!