The Role Of Obedience In Healing

God is looking for volunteers to be available to Him to do the stuff Jesus did. We see this in John 14:12-14, which is an incredible passage. Jesus promises that each of His followers (e.g., you and me) can move in the same power and anointing that He did and do the same works that He did. Here is the text of that passage:

12 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."

Are you hearing what Jesus said? Verse 12 says that whoever believes on Jesus will do the same things that Jesus did, and then the following verse is about if you ask anything in His name He will do it, so long as it brings glory to His Father. That is pretty encouraging stuff for us, isn't it.

Now, in that context, look at verse 15, 'If you love Me, keep My commandments'. Jesus is not changing subjects. He did not finish one topic, and then shift to another topic. The keeping God's commandment is the 'believing in Him' in order to do the things He does. I will paraphrase it this way: "If you love Me, obey Me." This is how you prove you love God--you obey what He tells you to do.

Some of what Jesus told you to do is to heal the sick, and He will give you the anointing, and He will supply the supernatural power, but you have got to get out there and do the praying. Some of what Jesus tells you to do might not be so good. Maybe He will say, "I do not like the way you are treating that person--change it." Maybe He will say, "You know you are spending your leisure time that sows for the devil, instead of sowing for Me." The problem is you cannot control what God decides to tell you. You just have to obey.

Does God expect us to obey Him? Yes, I believe so. Jesus knew He as going to die and He spent most of that last time with His disciples. John, chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, 17ish, describe the time He spent with His disciples just before He was about to leave them. Since Jesus knew He was about to leave them, don't you think He is going to tell the disciples the things that are most important to Him at that point? He knew He was going and He knew He was not coming back to them because He was going to ascend to heaven go back to the Father. And He knew the Holy Spirit was about to be sent to release the church into their destiny and commission. So He was telling them the stuff he thought was really important.

Let us just look at a couple of verses in this context. We already looked at verse 15 (chapter 14). Let us drop down to verse 21, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." Now look at verses 23-24 'Jesus said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me."

Flip over to chapter 15 verse 10, 'If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." Okay, now drop down to verses 14 and 15, 'You are My friends if you do what I command you to do. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for the things I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.'

See, those verses were all Jesus saying that He expects us to obey Him because we love Him. So obedience is pretty important.

Would you also agree that Jesus has commanded us to demonstrate the power of God to heal the sick, to cast out demons, to preach the kingdom? He asked us to be His witnesses and to do these things. So, we know what God's will is for us now. We might not have known it before we started to study this. We might have been a little fuzzy on some of the issues because we kind of knew them but they were not put together in a way we thought. But now we know that it is God's will to heal the sick. So, when you know you know God's will, there is an increased accountability to obey God's will.

Look at Luke 12:47-48. Jesus said, "And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But the servant who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with a few. For everyone to whom much is given, from that one much is required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

Do you see how that applies to us? You now understand more about what God wants, (healing the sick) so God is going to hold you more accountable to do it. If you did not know that God wanted you to heal the sick and you did not heal the sick, well, you are going to get rebuked. But it is not as a big of a rebuke as you are going to get if you know and chose not to do it now that you know what He wants.

Obedience

I would like to talk to you a little about obedience--this is an important key to moving in God's power and anointing. If you want to do the things Jesus did--if you want to move in His power and authority, then you have to do what He is doing. You have to be committed to obey Him. The anointing is not for you to look good in front of your friends. The anointing is not to bring in the money. No, that is not why God anoints us. The anointing is to do what the Father is doing to advance the kingdom of God, and in order to be trustworthy with God's anointing, you have to be committed to obey God.

Jesus promised us that anointing in John 14:12-15. But His promise of anointing to us came with the caveat that we believe in Him, that we love Him and that we will prove our love to Him by obeying Him. That means God gets to call the shots. Sometimes obedience will be in areas like: if God says to go pray for the sick, I will go pray for the sick. (Yes, that can be scary, but it is not the toughest thing that God might ask us to do. At times, God will step on our toes in other areas, and He expects us to obey Him.

For example, suppose God comes along and said, "I want you to treat your husband with more respect." You may say, 'Well, wait a minute God, You are getting on private territory God. This is my area, this is my home." But God says "No, if you love Me, you will obey Me." It is important to understand that God is not just asking you to obey Him in the area of healing (e.g., praying for the sick); He is saying that He wants to be Lord and Master in every area of your life.

Maybe God comes along and says, "I do not like the movies you are watching. I do not want you to watch those types of movies anymore." You respond, "But, God, this is my leisure, this is not kingdom stuff, and this is my time. This is my leisure, I am not hurting anyone; I am just watching TV in the privacy of my living room." Please understand, I am not saying that television is a sin, but I am saying God may move in it and want lordship over what you watch on it. If He does, then guess what? He gets to call the shots.

Let me give you an example from my own life. I was a "Trekie" from way back when. I loved Star Trek--the original Star Trek was awesome. God had never complained to me about the original Star Trek. (That may have been because I was a lot less mature as a believer and not at the point where He was ready to call me into accountability over how I spend my leisure time. Or it may have been because He had no objections to the first Star Trek series. I don't know which one it is.)

However, some of the following Star Trek series caused problems. One was called Deep Space Nine. It had a female crew member (I think her name was Dax), and she was the "host" to some other life form. Sometimes she was herself and sometimes this other life form took control of her. I used to like that show, but God told me that He did not like it because the devil was using this program to teach people to be demonized. It encouraged them to give themselves over to another force to control them.

Now, many of my Christian friends also liked that program. They would watch it and talk about it. Please understand this--it is important. I am not saying that they are in sin because they watch this show. If God did not tell them not to watch it, they have no sin in watching it. But God told me not to watch it, so I had to stop watching that program.

This was not an easy thing for me to do. One of the ways that my husband and I spent our leisure time together was to watch Star Trek--it was one of our "together activities." God said, "Not anymore. I will give you new things to do together. Your husband can still watch Star Trek, you are not allowed to watch it anymore."

God stepped on my leisure time--something that I thought was my own to spend however I chose. But God claimed His lordship in that area of my life, and He might do the same thing to you. Does God have the right to call shots in those areas of your life that you thought were your own? Are you sure? You better watch out how you answer that question, because He is listening.