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God heals in a wide variety of ways. Let's look at some of the ways that God heals. These include, natural healing, spontaneous healing during worship, words of knowledge and follow on prayer, and healing through the prayer of faith and the laying on of hands.
Sometimes we get so caught up in looking for the supernatural that we forget God has built healing in as a part of how our bodies work. God is not against medicine.. in fact Rev 22:2 tells us that He created healing herbs, etc as part of His creation because He wants us well.
John Wimber is sometimes called the "father of healing". He pioneered the way for the average believer to learn to pray successfully for the sick, founding a movement called Vineyard Christian Fellowship. It was a regular part of church life for the believers (pretty much anyone in the church) to pray for each other for healing and to see their prayers answered on a regular basis. There are many incredible stories about John and healing. John was a man who knew God could heal the sick, a man who walked regularly in healing. And yet John was not at all against medicine. One of John's favorite sayings was "If I have a headache, I pray and I take an aspirin, and which ever one works first is fine with me!"
Medicine and medical science are not enemies of faith. God works through both of these regularly because He desires for us to be healthy and well. God has also given knowledge to doctors and trained specialists to bring healing to people. There will be times when God purposefully sends us to the doctors or specialists rather than heal us supernaturally. Sometimes He does this because He wants us to be a witness to the medical people or to someone else going to see them. Let me share an example of this.
I seriously ripped a muscle in my leg in the spring of 1998. At the time, I was on a missions trip to South Africa. God did not heal me supernaturally. I finished the trip on crutches and when I got home, things did not get better. After a while, I was forced to see a specialist and then to have monthes of physical therapy. At first I could not understand why God would not heal me. I would stand there on my crutches and watch Him heal others as I prayed for them, but He would not heal me. After about 3 or 4 weeks of physical therapy, the therapist had pretty much gotten a handle on my injury. She could accurately predict my rate of recovery.. I was slowing getting better under her expert care. She was in her late 20s and had never once heard the gospel before I became her patient. Imagine that... an educated and capable person who had lived in the US her whole life and had never once heard the message of Christianity! No wonder God put me in her care.. He wanted her to hear the good news. After about three weeks of treatment, God told a prophet friend to pray for me one day for healing. The next day I walked into physical therapy office without crutches and with barely a limp. The therapist demanded to know my "secret" for such sudden recovery. I got to tell her that God is a healing God and do you know what she wrote in my medical record? She wrote "Miraculous Healing!!!"
I still had to see her for another few weeks for strengthening exercises for the healed muscle. It became clear to me why God had sent me to the physical therapist.. He sent me to her so that she could have exposure to the gospel and to the power of God. Sometimes God will do things like that. Other times He will simply use doctors and medical science to heal us because He really does work through them.
There are times when God heals people as they are worshiping Him. They are not seeking healing, they are seeking God's presense. No one is laying hands on them and praying for them. And yet God heals them. Why does He do this?
The short answer is because when we truly worship God, it ushers in His presense (the Bible says the Lord inhabits the praises of His people) and when God shows up, good things happen!
In worship, we invite His presense to dwell among us. Psalm 22:3 says, "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Your people." As we praise Him, His tangible presense begins to manifest among us in response to our praise -- in other words, God "shows up" when we worship Him!
It is part of God's nature to heal, show when He shows up in worship, His healing frequently shows up as well. The Old Testament is full of verses about God as a healer. Psalm 103:3 says, "[God] forgives all your iniquities; He heals all your diseases." Psalm 147:3 puts it this way, "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." Exodus 15:26 talks about God keeping us healthy, and so does Isaiah 30:26. In fact verses about God healing us and keeping us healthy are all over the Old Testament. Healing is not something new that started after Jesus was born.. Jesus merely walked out and demonstrated God's nature to heal when He walked on the earth. Jesus' life demonstrated that God is a healing God. Jesus went around constantly healing people. When asked about it, He said He only does what the Father is doing. So we see that both Jesus and God the Father want to heal us.
Let's look at a few verses about Jesus as the healer. We will start by looking at His motivation for healing, found in John 5:19. "Jesus gave them this answer: 'I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." Jesus' ministry was characterized by healing the sick: Matthew 4:23 says, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." Matthew 4:24 puts it this way, "And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them."
Jesus did not heal only because the Father wanted to heal, Jesus also had great compassion for us and that compassion motivated Him to heal the sick. Matthew 14:14 says, "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." Matthew 12:15 says, "But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all."
We also know that the Holy Spirit wants to heal us because He gives us gifts of healing (1 Corinthians 12:9). All three members of the Trinity share this same nature.. all three of them love to heal. So it is only natural that when God shows up and His character is manifest, that healings take place. It is part of God's nature to heal.
God shows up in worship. The bible says God "inhabits the praises of His people." God is a healing God and when He "shows up" in response to our heartfelt worship, healing tends to follow Him.
This is a marriage of prophetic and healing working together. Both gifts come from the same Holy Spirit. Sometimes God releases words of knowledge to build faith. Many people struggle, wondering if God wants to heal them of their condition. When God releases a supernatural revelation about their condition (particularly when they are the only person in the room who has that condition), then they realize that God really does want to heal them. Their faith is built up enough that are able to receive the healing God has for them. Faith is important in healing (Matt 9:2, Matt 8:10,13), so God will often build faith in the person He wants to heal and He often rewards faith with healing.
Words of knowledge can be very detailed and very specific. I used to attend a Vineyard church in San Francisco, and one time when John Wimber came to minister in our Sunday evening service. I was on the prayer minister team. John taught for a while and then he began to call out words of knowledge. Many of them were incredibly specific and detailed. I remember listing to one description, wondering if it could possibly fit anyone. It was for a woman in her 30s. She had a face/jaw problem where she was unable chew, found it difficult to swallow, had swelling in her throat and neck and was scheduled for potentially dangerous surgery for this in the next few days. John called out several words of knowledge, many of them this detailed. Then he asked the people who "fit those words" to come to the front for prayer. He turned the prayer team loose to pray. I began to move among people and pray for them. The third person I came to was a woman who said, "Remember that neck/jaw problem he talked about? That is me." She was supposed to report to the hospital the next morning for surgery. God had described her condition in great deal through word of knowledge. She was not a member of our church, she did not believe in healing, but she was so disparate regarding their health situation that she decided to come and check it out. When God described her situation so accurately, it activated her faith and she knew that if she came up for prayer, He would heal her. We prayed and her symptoms left immediately. I could visibly see the swelling go down as I prayed!
Lets look at two passages:
Luke 4:40
Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
James 5:14 - 15
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
We see a strong tie between laying on of hands, prayer and healing in Luke 4:40. In James 5, we see that it should be normal for believers to expect God to heal them supernaturally. It says, any time any of you are sick, call for prayer for healing... in other words, make it part of your lifestyle and daily Christian walk to come to God for healing. We will study this type of prayer a lot more in subsequent lessons. But is is so important that it has to be mentioned here.
Did you notice that James 5:15 mentions the "prayer of faith?" Faith is an interesting thing. The bible makes it real clear that we need faith to please God. It also makes it clear that faith plays an important role in healing. Much of the time that Jesus healed in the New Testament, He talked about faith. But who's faith was He was referring to? In some cases, it was the faith of the person being prayed for. In other cases, it was the faith of those who brought the person to Jesus for prayer (such as the Roman Centurion or those who let their paralyzed friend down through the roof).
We look at verses like James 5:14-15 and automatically assume that the faith has to be the "faith of the people praying". After all, it says to call the elders, and elders are mature in their faith. And the faith of the person praying can be very important. We need faith to see healing.. but it doesn't necessarily have to be the faith of one praying. Sometimes the faith of the person receiving prayer is enough, or the faith of their friend or relative.
I remember one time when I was part of Randy Clark's ministry team in Moscow. This young lady came to me for prayer.. she had no kneecaps. They had been burned off in a fire. She walked very stiffly, unable to bend her knees at all and her mother helped her walk. I was not really there to pray specificly for the sick, but to pray for God to meet and touch and fill people with His Spirit. I had absolutely no faith when I saw her problem.. I did not think God would heal that. But I was sort of obligated to pray her her. So I bent down and put my hands on her knees and I commanded the knee caps to grow back. The interpretor translated my prayer. Immediately I felt something moving around under my hands... I was trying to figure out what was going on. Was this some type of demonic manifestation? What was happening. Then the lady began to scream and jump up and down. The interpretor translated what she was saying.. the pain had gone away.. she could bend her knees. Apparently what I had felt was the kneecaps growing back through the power of God under my hands. It was incredible. She ended up running around the room because she had not been able to run since the accident. It was a miraculous healing. If that healing had required faith on the part of the person praying (e.g, me!) then that healing would have never taken place. I was convinced that nothing would happen when I prayed for her. But God healed her. I assume that the faith of the young lady had been enough.. my faith was not needed... God did His thing and she was healed. (Of course, that incident served to build my faith tremendously.)
This raises another question. How much faith does it take to be "enough faith?" Someone suggested an answer to me this way: if you have enough faith to go ahead and actually pray for the healing, you have "enough faith."
There have been times when I have prayed for the sick with out an absolute confidence that God would heal them. And you know what? God came and healed them anyhow. I had exercised my faith.. it was not perfect faith, but I had enough to step out and pray for healing. God took it from there. In a way, that reminds me of the sick boy's father who cried in Mark 9:24, "Lord I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!"
We don't need perfect and total confidence that God will heal a person to pray for healing for that person. (This type of confidence is wonderful when God gives it to you, but you must not discount yourself from praying if you don't have it.) I remember one time in the early days of the renewal. I was in Toronto and assisting as a member of the prayer ministry team there. It was maybe my 3rd evening on the prayer team. This lady's daughter (about 16) came up to get me and ask me to go pray for her mother, who was in disparate need of prayer. I assumed she wanted renewal prayer, so I agreed to come with her to the mother. When I got there the mother was nearly doubled over in pain. She had a painful growth in her intestines and it was acting up and she could barely stand up. She wanted healing.
But I did not want to pray for healing. The last 15 times I'd prayed for healing, nothing had happened. I had lost confidence to pray for the sick and I really did not want to do this. Any other type of ministry would have been OK, but please God don't make me pray for healing! I was a bit irritated with God for putting me into this situation. I remember silently telling Him that if He did not heal this lady I would never ever pray for another person for healing again. (This is not a smart thing to tell God, but He was patient with me that night.) God told me to just pray and He would do the rest. I did not precisely know what that meant. I was not sure whether or not He would actually do anything when I prayed. I felt scared, but I went ahead and prayed. As I prayed, I started to feel a lot of heat coming from her stomach (where I had my hand). The lump under my hand began to shrink. I don't know any other way to describe it, it just got smaller until I could not feel it any more. Then the woman reported that the pain was gone. Then she got really drunk in the spirit and ended up on the carpet. I checked back with her later that evening. The pain was totally gone and she could not find the lump any more either.
I did not have very much faith.. I was afraid to pray for her because I was not very sure that God would heal her. But all that God required that evening was enough faith to lay hands on her and pray... and He did the rest. Sometimes we think we must have great levels of faith, but all we really need is enough faith to go ahead and pray for the sick.
God heals through many other ways as well. We will discuss some of them in subsequent lessons, such as God healing through repentance and inner healing. Often times unforgiveness or fear can make us fall prey to infirmities and when God frees us from those things, the infirmities fall off as well. God also heals through deliverance, through the breaking off enemy oppression. In fact Jesus frequently cast out demons to heal people.
Much of Jesus' ministry on earth was about healing people, setting them free from diseases and breaking the oppression of the enemy off of them. Jesus' nature did not change when He ascended into heaven, He is still a healing God.