Determining Your Healing Style

Those who operate primarily in a teaching style are called to do healing ministry and teach healing ministry. Also, those who operate primarily in other styles need to be able to teach others as well. This is how the Church will come into maturity. Let's take a closer look at the didactic or teaching style.

A Healing Teacher Or A Teaching Healer

One summer, I attended an interesting service at a Christian Retreat Center in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The speaker spoke about the gifts of the Spirit, and began personal ministry time. He led off with a word of knowledge for a woman with a pain in her left leg. Five women responded. He prayed for the first woman and she immediately manifested her healing. However, instead of praying down the line, he asked for anyone in the room with a pain or sickness to raise their hand. Then he released the entire audience to begin to pray over these individuals for healing. Some received healing that night, but many did not.

I immediately began to think how many more would have been healed had the minister prayed individually for each person. The faith in the room would have built, and perhaps everyone in that place would have been healed. That is the way I would have done it. Instead just a few people left healed that night.

It was not until later that I understood something about that service. The goal of that minister was not only for people to receive healing; it was for people to learn to be healers. Almost all, if not all, of the people present that night were believers. However, few of those believers had ever prayed for someone to be healed before that night. A teacher not only demonstrates, he empowers others to do the same. This experience opened my eyes to another style of healing ministry; the teaching style.

Learning From The Best

In Exodus chapter four, we can see how God uses miracles and healing to demonstrate important truths. This is teaching and healing ministry working hand-in-hand. Moses had just been called and commissioned to be the deliverer of His people. No doubt, speaking face-to-face with God in the form of a burning bush was enough to make Moses a believer. However, Moses was concerned that his story alone would not convince the people that God had appeared to him. We this this in Exodus 4:1 "Moses answered, 'What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?'"

God gave him three signs that would prove that Moses had seen God. Each of the signs had a significant lesson attached to it. The first sign was an expression of God's authority.

THE SIGN OF THE ROD TEACHES AUTHORITY

Exodus 4:2-5 says, "Then the Lord said to him, 'What is that in your hand?' 'A staff,' he replied. The Lord said, 'Throw it on the ground.' Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, 'Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.' So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 'This,' said the Lord, 'is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers-- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob-- has appeared to you.'"

God chose to use Moses' rod, not only because it was convenient, but also because it conveyed authority. A ruler or a king carries a rod or a scepter. The Israelites knew what it was to be ruled by a rod. The rod turning into a snake is representation of the evil authority that was being used against God's people. God was using this miraculous sign to show His people that He could handle any authority that might come against them. This is a prophetic look ahead to Jesus saying to his disciples "all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me." The miraculous is used to teach Moses and God's people about God's authority. It was with that same rod and that authority that God was going to deliver them from slavery.

Moses had a similar reaction to ours when we confront the power of the enemy. He ran! Fortunately God is a patient teacher. He tells Moses to pick up the snake by its tail. When he did, it turned back into an ordinary rod. This shows that all authority is delegated from God. The power of the snake was underneath the power of the rod. Once Moses took hold of the snake, it submitted. In the same way, he would talk hold of the nation of Egypt and it would submit to the authority of God. Miracles teach truth.

THE SIGN OF LEPROSY TEACHES SALVATION

Exodus 4:6-7, "Then the Lord said, 'Put your hand inside your cloak.' So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. 'Now put it back into your cloak,' he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh. (NIV)

In my translation of Exodus chapter four, verses six and seven seem to flow pretty smoothly. But it is all a little too sterile for my imagination. I cannot help thinking that, in reality, Moses let out a few shrieks, screams and cries just after verse six and just before verse seven. First, his staff turns into a snake and chases him. Now, can you imagine the terror he must have felt when he saw his hand? I wonder if Moses was a little reluctant to do the hand-in-the-cloak thing the second time. Think about it. If you put in your hand once and it comes out with leprosy, what horrible thing is going to happen the second time around? You must admit, this is a creative way for God to recruit someone for his cause. Infect him with an incurable disease and then heal him.

God was not just doing tricks; He was revealing truth. This time by using healing to illustrate his point. Leprosy symbolizes the sinful nature of man. God was showing Moses and His people that He had the power to heal diseases and remove the sin from them. His authority would remove them from slavery. His salvation would change their "slave nature". To use a common analogy, authority would take them out of Egypt. Spiritual and physical healing would take Egypt out of them: body, soul and spirit.

God used Moses' own physical infirmity to demonstrate His power to heal and forgive sin. This is one of the first examples of healing in scripture. It occurs before God reveals himself as Jehovah Rapha in Exodus fifteen. The style that we see demonstrated here is a teaching style. This creates a very power argument that Teachers should be healers and Healers should be teachers. God used healing to illustrate truth, so should we.

THE SIGN OF BLOOD TEACHES COVENANT

In Exodus 4:8 God said, "But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground." Blood is symbolic of covenant. God is progressively revealing His character and plan to Moses by using miracles and healing. It is the authority that will bring them out of Egypt. It is salvation that will take Egypt out of them. It is covenant that will bring them into the land of promise. All of this is illustrated through miracles and healing.

The three signs should convince the Jews that Moses' encounter was with the God of Abraham. God had done these three things for Abraham. Abraham understood the concepts of authority, salvation and covenant. God was restoring those truths to the Jews and he used miracles and healing to do it.

Earn Your Healing Ministry Degree At Home

One of the greatest ways to learn about healing ministry, and also teach it, is at home. Someone once gave me a powerful prophetic word that I would be in healing ministry. They also said that my ministry would start with my family. It did.

Before you have faith to take hold of God's promises for someone else, you have to take hold of them for yourself. I have faith for healing of vision, because my vision was healed as a child. I have faith for barren wombs to open because I God I saw it happen in my family. I also have faith for many more sickness and conditions. That does not mean I have to experience every sickness and disease to have faith for the healing of that disease. However, faith grows when it is exercised. So we use every opportunity to exercise our faith.

We make it a practice to pray for healing with our children every time they are injured, no matter how minor. One day, my youngest daughter Abby, who was two years old at the time, pinched her thumb in the seat belt buckle of the car. A blood blister rose up immediately. My first instinct, as a do-it-myself person, was to pray with her and tell the blister to go. However, I saw an opportunity to use this experience to demonstrate healing, and also teach it. I took a quick peak at it. It was a good size blister. Since we were driving at the time I thought it would not be best to reach behind me, take Abby's hand, and close my eyes for a prayer. I have very high vehicular safety standards. So, I asked my older daughter April, who was in the back seat, to touch Abby's thumb lightly and tell the blister to "go away, in the name of Jesus." She did it without batting an eye, or even closing one. Less than two minutes later Abby let out a scream and I thought, "Oh, now what?" "It's gone!" She said. Then April screamed, "it's gone, the blister is gone." Being the great man of faith and power that I am, I told them to check the other thumb. I figured they had gotten the thumbs mixed up. I was wrong; the blister was completely gone. You might be thinking, "what's the big deal? It's a only a blister." The healing of that little blister built great faith in my kids for healing. As a result, they had a very powerful healing service that night with their stuffed animals. I think two Barbies got saved. They continue to pray for their animals and each other to be healed. Even your children can become healing ministers, if you take the time to teach them.

Let The Teachers Teach And Demonstrate

God is raising up teachers who teach about truth and demonstrate truth. In these days He is restoring everything to the church. One of the ministry styles He is using is that of the teacher. May you learn to be a teacher and demonstrator of truth to whomever it is that God sends you, to your family, to your church, to the nations.