Are You Living In God's Reality?

Our last lesson looked at how sin corrupted the physical world that God created for us. We looked at two examples of this from Genesis. First, we saw that God's original design did not have any weeds, thorns, thistles, etc. Those things came as a result of the fall. Second, we saw that in Gods original design, mist came up from the ground to water vegetation. Our wickedness caused God to turn that upside down. He created rain to destroy most of a wicked and rebellions creation. Suddenly we have water from above, falling down from the sky and getting everything wet.

There is another result of the curse of sin that effects all of us: sickness and death were introduced. They were not part of God's original plan, but the fall put us under the curse, causing sickness and disease to enter our world.

But we are not under the curse any more. The blood of Jesus broke the power of it over us. Jesus' death and resurrection did not just give us eternal life; it also annihilated the power of sickness and disease. That is why Isaiah 53:5 says, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." That is why 1 Peter 2:24 tell us that Jesus "bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed."

Yes, Jesus won eternal life for us when He died on the cross. But that was not the only thing he did--He also gained authority over all sickness and gave us His authority to heal the sick.

Let me ask you a question. The answer will seem pretty obvious, but here goes: If sickness and disease were God's will, then why would Jesus die on the cross to eliminate it?

Here is another (similar) question: If God is the one who makes people sick, then why would Jesus run around healing them? Jesus said that He could never work against what His Father is doing. He put it this way in John 5:19, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner." Acts 10:39 tells us that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, Who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him."

Acts 10:38 makes it pretty clear what God's stand is on sickness. (That verse also makes it clear what the devil's stand is on sickness.) In short, God is against it and the devil is for it. In fact the devil is the one who causes sickness, and Jesus' response to sickness was to go around healing those who the devil made sick.

We have been talking about two "realities" in this teaching series. There is the physical reality, the physical world as we can see and measure and experience it. There is also the spirit-real reality--God's will and God's activity. It is harder to see into the spirit-realm, so most of our thinking is based on our physical reality.

But whenever there is a tension between the two, the "real truth" lies in God's reality, not the physical one. That means we need to start seeing and thinking in God's reality in regard to physical healing. If we do that, then Heaven will invade earth. The spirit reality will start producing physical healings that we can see and observe and measure and experience. God's will (to heal the sick) will be accomplished in people's bodies.

The problem is that many of us don't see a whole lot of divine healing happen around us. We see mostly the physical reality that surrounds us; which is the devil's will and desire for humanity instead of God's will. We see sickness and we see disease; they seem real and normal to us.

But God's reality (the spirit realm) is the true reality. God's will is to heal the sick. In fact, there isn't a single instance in the bible where someone who was sick came to Jesus for healing and Jesus refused to heal that person. But there are many instances in the bible where Jesus healed the sick. He healed because He lived and operated in God's reality.

Think about it--Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, and Jesus healed a lot of sick people. That means that the Father was healing sick people in the spirit reality, or Jesus would not have done it in our world. God would not do heal the sick if it was His will and desire for us to be sick. The truth is that God doesn't want us to be sick--He wants us to be well.

Let's look at this a bit more. If sickness was God's will for us, why would Jesus send His disciples out in Luke 9:1-2? It says, "9 Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. 2 He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." If sickness was in the center of God's will, Jesus would not have done that, because He and His disciples would have been fighting God's will. Shortly after that, Jesus sent out another 72 of His followers to go heal the sick in places where He wanted to go preach (Luke 10).

Jesus sent His followers to heal the sick, plus He personally healed multitudes of sick people. That sounds to me like Jesus was on a crusade against sickness and disease. God's reality invaded our physical reality, and as a result, sick people were healed. Why? Because sickness is not a part of God's reality.

Jesus had no trouble seeing into God's reality, and pulling that reality into our physical world. That is what made it possible for Him to heal so many sick people. It is clear from the way that Jesus acted that He did not want people to be sick, He wanted them to be healthy.

Sin messed up our world. It introduced sickness and disease, turning our reality upside down from God's reality. God's reality is a reality where the sick are healed and where His people live in divine health.

So why is it that we find it so hard to move in His reality and heal the sick? Why do so many who we pray for go away without being healed? It is because we live too much in our physical (limited) reality and not enough in God's truth. It is because we have trained ourselves to believe that you have to "see it" for it to be real, but faith operates in the unseen realm.

So what is the solution to our "faith" dilemma? It is to find a way to expose ourselves more to the spirit-realm where healings happen, so that our faith can grow.

Randy Clark has an amazing healing ministry. He takes large teams of ordinary believers on trips with him--usually different people on each trip. The teams go to various parts of the world (mostly to "second' and "third world" countries) to pray for the sick. So far, not one of his team members has returned from a trip without seeing God super- naturally heal at least one person through them. Many of these same people had tried praying for the sick at home and had not results. But when they traveled with Randy, they saw God heal.

One time Randy explained how this happens. He said that it is not about him or his anointing. It is about stepping out of our limited physical reality into the spirit-reality. He said that for most of us, our faith is based on our experiences in the physical world. It starts out low because we see a lot of sickness around us, but we don't see a lot of healing. We base or faith on what we experience more than on what we read in God's word. Then we step out and try to pray for some healing that is above our faith level, and we have a bad experience--the person is not healed. That experience (praying and not seeing the healing) lowers our faith level even more. Randy calls it a "downward spiral of faith."

Randy takes people out of this faithless environment to place where a lot of healing miracles are happening. People start to experience God's miracles and their faith level shoots up. Maybe they pray for a person with stomach pain, and that person is healed. That increases their faith. When they have a higher faith level, then they can see even bigger miracles. In short, Randy pulls people out of our physical reality for a week or two, and lets them live in God's reality--and then the healings happen.

So what do you do if you are living mostly in our physical reality and not seeing healings? If you can afford it, I recommend you take a trip with Randy Clark or Todd Bentley or another healing ministry that brings teams overseas to pray for the sick. That will give a boost to your faith, because you will get to experience God's healing power flow through you.

But if you can't afford to do that, there are other ways to "transport" yourself into God's reality. If there are places around you were physical healings happen, then start hanging around those places. When healing evangelists come to town, go to their meetings. Also, begin to read a lot of testimonies of healings. You can find them in bookstores and on the internet.

The more you fill yourself with God's reality, the easier it will be for you to pray for the sick and see God heal them through your prayers.