Determining Your Healing Style

At a meeting where I was ministering, an adolescent girl approached the front of the church for prayer. A friend of the family had brought her to the front. Her body was thin, and her frame fragile. I ask her condition, and was told she had Cystic Fibrosis. I spoke a healing word over her and told her to take a deep breath. As she breathed deeply, she began to sob just as deeply. She collapsed forward in my arms. My mind raced with possible reasons for her tears. I tried to think of anything I said in the prayer that could have caused the tears. I asked her what happened, and through the sobs, she said, "that is the first time I can ever remember taking a full breath." At that moment I felt the heart of God for a little girl. God not only healed the girl's lungs, but also her heart. What pain it had been to struggle for each breath. I felt a touch of pain for each breath she had breathed through her life that was a struggle. I also felt such deep love from the father toward her. How deeply the heart of God loves his children and wants them to be healed.

As we begin this series of lessons on healing styles. I choose to begin with what I call the "pastoral style" of healing. I feel it is important to focus not only the power that flows through the hands of the healers, but also the passion that should flow through the heart of healers. You do not have to be a shepherd, to have a shepherd's heart. The motivation behind what we do is just as important, if not more so, as the method by which we do it.

Jesus, The Great Shepherd-Healer

As we seek to understand the pastoral style of healing ministry, I can think of no better healer to begin than Jesus Christ. Jesus epitomizes the charisma and character that we should seek to attain. For these reasons the masses loved and flocked to him and the religious establishment ostracized and eventually ousted him. What endeared Jesus to the people was the demonstration of his heart as much as the demonstration of his hands.

In the movie Brave Heart, the lead character, William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson) addresses the Scottish Nobles seeking independence from England. "You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps for Long Shank's (the King of England) table, that you've missed your God-given right to something better. There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with a position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I'm going to make sure they have it."

It is exactly this kind of sentiment that set Jesus apart from the religious establishment of the day. This should also be core to the heart of those who would be healers of mankind. This should be the foundation of any ministry, especially the ministry of healing. Using the power for the good of people can be summed up in one word: Compassion.

Chasing The Heart Of God

Several years ago, I began to experience a feeling of desperation for miracles and healing. I took my desperation to God and asked Him to do whatever was necessary in me to make me a healer of mankind. What he showed me was that I had been seeking the "mind of Christ". He wanted me now to start chasing His heart. The starting point He gave me was one word, and it will be the word we start with. He said, "First, you must have COMPASSION."

I was not sure what He meant. I quickly thought of all the things I do that demonstrate my compassion. I support under-privileged children in foreign countries. However, that was my wife's idea. When driving, I show compassion by slowing down for animals crossing the street. That is, unless it's a cat. As for my family, I send my mother a card every Mother's Day. Okay, I suppose I need to learn a little more compassion.

Compassion: Ministry With Guts

To understand the truth about compassion and its role in healing, we must examine the healing ministry and methods of Jesus. His ministry exemplifies the pastoral style. "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick." Matthew 14:14 (NIV)

As I began to learn about the compassion in Christ's ministry I realized that compassion is not something of human origin but it of divine origin. It is not pity, which is a feeling that is human and lasts temporarily. If we are going to be healers of mankind, we must have a motivation that is God-given. Compassion is that motivation.

The word for compassion in the New Testament as used in Matthew 14:14 is the Greek word splagchnizomai (splangkh-nid'-zom-ahee) "to be moved as to one's inwards, to be moved with compassion, to yearn with compassion." It is from the root, splagchnon (splangkh'-non); the "spleen"; an intestine (plural). The picture is one of gut-wrenching pain when we are made aware of the spiritual and physical state of those around us.

This Is A "Gut-Wrenching" Experience

As Jesus was nearing the shore in his boat he looked out and saw the crippled, maimed, blind, demonized people. He began to be moved with compassion. His insides began to ache. He cared for the people; so much that He felt that burden internally. Can you imagine God in the flesh, holding His stomach, pained at the sight of a hopeless humanity? Let that sink in for moment. Jesus felt something when he saw people that were diseased and sick. Then his eyes flash. The motivation of compassion turns into the determination to bring freedom to the captive. His Vision, "to seek and save that which was lost." Gives way to His Mission, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. Out of his empathy comes action. Out of his pain, power explodes. Out of compassion, he heals the sick; he frees the captive, and delivers the bound. The heart of God and the hand of God are reaching out and touching the masses. This is the synergy that makes a healer of mankind. Healing ministry is ministry with "guts." It sees, feels and acts.

Seeing With Eyes Of Compassion

Matthew 9:35-10:1 says, "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.' He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness." (NIV)

Compassion sees the need. Jesus was moved to action because of what He saw. The first step to becoming a healer of mankind is to see the hopelessness and helplessness of mankind.

I asked God to give me His compassion. I wanted my insides to feel what His insides felt that day in the seashore. I wasn't prepared for what happened. I began to be moved with tears at sick people. I began to have my heart broken over diseased people. There were times when I would drive past a person walking along the road and begin weeping for the physical and spiritual state. I started seeing people differently. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I started seeing people through His eyes.

Moved To Action

That is when God started opening up opportunities for me to touch people with His healing and transforming power. Formerly, I viewed my neighbor as a spiritually lost, alcoholic woman, with inoperable back problems, living on welfare. As my eyes began to open, God opened the door for a spiritual encounter. The same week I asked God to give me compassion, I arrived home from the office one day and my wife said we needed to visit the neighbor. We found her in a desperate state, much like the people Jesus described, "harassed and helpless." We shared the gospel with her and she accepted Christ. We shared God's delivering power and she was delivered of her addiction. We shared God's healing power and God touched her. Within one month she was in a rehabilitation program, involved in a small group at church, off of pain medication for her back, and on her way to wholeness, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially. Many times sickness is the fruit of other spiritual and emotional issues. When the "root" is dealt with, the "fruit" withers.