Determining Your Healing Style

When I was younger I used to love to put together jigsaw puzzles. Every Christmas my family would buy one-thousand piece puzzle for my father. My dad and I would set up a special puzzle table and work on the puzzle for weeks. First we would put together the frame and then begin to fill in the picture. It was difficult to imagine what the whole picture would look like when only the frame was in place. Fortunately, on the top of the box the puzzle came in was the complete picture. We still had to do the work of putting the puzzle together, but we had the picture to guide us as we assembly the piece. After several weeks of work we would have a complete picture. It looked like the picture on the top of the box, but it was not exactly the same. The biggest difference between the puzzle and the box top was that we understood how all the piece fit together to form the entire picture.

As we begin this lesson on apostolic healing, I feel a little like I used to when doing those puzzles. Like the puzzle box top, the Bible gives us a good picture of what apostolic healing looks like, and we will take a look at that. Up to this point, however, I do not believe we have the whole puzzle together. I think we have some framework to work from and we are building on it. My hope in this lesson is to point you to what a see as the picture of apostolic healing in the Bible. Then I would like to gather some pieces from contemporary and examples. Finally, I would like to offer a prophetic look into the future of healing ministry. Hopefully this will fill the picture in for us a little better.

I believe the day is fast approaching when the whole Church will move in, what I refer to as apostolic healing. God is restoring the ministry gift and office of the apostle. There has always been a remnant of the apostolic, but as we enter the third millennium, we are seeing the coming of an apostolic age. Apostolic government is being set up and with that, apostolic gifts are being released to the body of Christ.

This is similar to what occurred with the restoration of the gift of pastor, evangelist and teacher. When those offices were restored, the gifts associated with those offices were released in a greater degree. We see this happening on a large scale with the prophetic today. As the office of Prophet is coming into maturity, greater degrees of prophetic gifts are being experienced and walked out in the church in general. Not everyone is becoming a prophet, but the Church is becoming prophetic. Fifteen or twenty years ago this was not the case.

Now we are seeing the office of apostle restored. As a result, the church will become more apostolic. We will see apostolic gifts released. This will effect everything about church life. Government, prayer, finances evangelism, and many other things, including healing ministry.

Apostolic Healing Brings Us Out Into Divine Health

Moses is a picture of apostolic leadership in the Old Testament. He served as both spiritual and governmental leader of God's people. He had the calling and preparation to bring God's people out from Egypt and into the land of promise. He had the authority and anointing to break God's people out of an enslaving system and bring them into a system that brought them freedom in every area. When they left the governing system and authority of Pharaoh and came under the rule of God and his apostle Moses, they were all healed. In one night, the entire nation was healed.

In a song written about the history of God's people, Psalm 135:37 tells us that when the people came out of Egypt, they came out with wealth and health: "He also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none feeble among His tribes." Listen to how one Bible commentator puts it:

"Their lives had been made bitter to them, and their bodies and spirits broken by their bondage; and yet, when God brought them forth, there was not one feeble person, none sick, none so much as sickly, among their tribes. They went out that very night that the plague swept away all the first-born of Egypt, and yet they went out all in good health, and brought not with them any of the diseases of Egypt. Surely never was the like, that among so many thousands there was not one sick." (From Matthew Henry's Commentary)

This is a picture of apostolic healing. Just one day before, these people were experiencing the effects of years of slavery. They had been working day in and day out in harsh, brutal conditions. Their joints were inflamed from lifting heavy rocks. There skin was burned from hours in the sun. They were undernourished and dehydrated. Some had been beaten and brutalized. Many had been abused and mistreated. Backs beaten with rods, hair yanked out, faces smashed. This would all be common treatment for slaves. We can only imagine the diseases that were brought upon them by their living condition. Perhaps there was a lack of sanitation, poor shelter, and inadequate facilities. Under these circumstances you might think these people had little chance of surviving in the desert.

What happened that caused everyone to be healed in one night? Something occurred that caused diseases to leave bones to mend, and bodies to be made whole. Was it something in the Passover meal? Was it the lamb? The unleavened bread? Was there something in the wine? I believe that the power of salvation, deliverance and healing through Christ is represented in these symbols. But something else happened. They came under a new government. The Kingdom of God!

Kathryn Kulmann prophesied that a day would come when there would be no more sickness in the body of Christ. I believe that day is coming quickly, I believe it will be a day of apostolic healing, when healing comes quickly and completely to God's people.

Apostolic Healing Just Happens

I'm noticing something happening with increasing frequency in my ministry. I am sure that it is happening in many ministries and in the lives of many individuals. People are getting healed "spontaneously". People are being healed before there is any prayer for healing. At one church the pastor got healed during worship. At another, the pastor was healed during the message. I've heard of instances of people being healed as they walk into the meeting, or on their way to the meeting. Healing happens! Very recently in a meeting a man told me he was healed of a twenty-one year injury to his back. I never prayed for him, I just walked by him.

We are going to experience these kinds of things more and more. I can see a lady summoned to her employer's office. He is in a wheelchair with paralysis. When she walks into the room, he stands up to greet her and can't believe he is standing! I see a group Christian young people just walking down the street, passing by a blind beggar. One drops a coin into his begging can and his eyes pop open! I see sick people driving by churches, and suddenly they are healed. Drive by healing!

Your Shadow Can Heal

Just days after the birth of the church, the apostles began healing ministry. Peter and John healed the man at the temple gate. Acts 2:43 tells us that the apostles did many miracles and signs. But in Acts chapter four, something shifts. Peter and John are arrested and confront the religious and governmental leaders. In their prayer in Acts 4:25-26, they quote King David: "You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: "'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.'"

In the remaining part of their prayer, they ask for boldness to stand against the threats of the religious and governmental systems of the day, and they ask God to heal and perform miracles. "Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." Acts 4:27-30

This prayer shifted miracles and healing into a new dimension, the apostolic dimension. In chapter five they employed a new method of healing ministry. It was not special scented Holy Land oil. It was shadow healing. People brought their sick and demonized into the streets and as the apostle Peter passed by, they were healed! (Act5: 15-16)

They were healed. They were all healed. Just by Peter's shadow. What made the difference? Was it the angle of the Sun? Was it clothes Peter was wearing? Perhaps it was the time of day. The difference, I believe, was that Peter had left the religious and governmental system that had imprisoned him just a few days earlier. He was under a different rule. It is not coincidental that Peter had been imprisoned and then released before this apostolic level of healing manifested. Those systems were keeping Peter imprisoned mentally as well as physically. Peter did not need to over throw the government or disrupt the religious system. He only needed to recognize and walk in the authority that is greater than those systems. That is the Kingdom of God. When he did that, he did not need to lay on a hand or speak a word. Healing happened!

Can I Borrow A Tissue?

Imagine this. You are riding the train to work. The person next to you is suffering from a severe case of the flu. Don't be afraid. No deadly thing will harm you. You offer him a tissue for his running nose. That is much better than having him sneeze on you. He takes the tissue and realizes as he puts it to his nose that he is no longer congested. In fact, all of his flu systems have disappeared. One of two things will happen. Either many more people will ask you for a tissue or everyone will move away from you. Either way, you have made an impression.

Another example might go something like this. Your mother comes to your house for a visit. Being the overly nurturing mother that she is; she insists on doing all the cooking, in spite of the fact that she suffers from severe arthritis. I know many people can relate to this already. She finds a cooking apron in a drawer in your kitchen and begins to fasten it around. Suddenly a menthol-like heat goes through every joint in her body and the arthritis leaves. My guess is that she cooks one terrific dinner that night.

If these examples are too hard for you to imagine, consider what was happening to the apostle Paul in the city of Ephesus, in Acts 19:11-12: "Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them."

Paul had been in many cities on his missionary journeys. These kinds of outstanding miracles did not always follow his ministry. He had even been in Ephesus before for a brief period of time. He did not have this kind of effect on the city then. Paul's two years in Ephesus were some of his most fruitful in his ministry. He definitely had a great impact on the whole city, religiously and even economically. Not all of the miracles Paul performed are recorded in the bible. However, it seems as if Paul's ministry hit a new level in Ephesus. Especially in the area of healing and miracles, Paul seems to have entered a new dimension. A dimension of apostolic healing.

It would seem that the two prevailing systems that Paul confronted in Ephesus were the religious system and the economic system. In Acts 19:8, it tells us that Paul first tried to reach the religious community by going to the temple. For three months he preached the kingdom of God. The religious people refused to believe.

It is not a coincidence that Paul confronted the religious system with the Kingdom of God just before a new dimension of apostolic healing opens up for him. The Kingdom of God came in to Ephesus so powerfully that in had an impact on the other prevailing system. That was the economy. The economy of Ephesus was driven by witchcraft, sorcery and goddess worship. As the Kingdom of God expanded, the Kingdom of darkness was pushed back. The entire city was impacted.

I believe as the church begins to move in apostolic healing that entire cities will be impacted. Entire regions will be covered. Zones of healing will appear. When apostolic leadership is in place, we will become an apostolic people. One of the gifts that we will move in is apostolic healing.