The Role Of Obedience In Healing

We have been talking about obedience--about obeying God because we love Him, as per John 14:15, which says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments."

You may be wondering why a teaching series about obedience is being taught on a healing school. But the truth is that obedience is crucial if you want to move with God in His power and anointing. In short, God usually won't give you His power until He knows that He can trust you to use it to do what He is doing.

In fact, Jesus tied those two things (obedience and moving in God's power) together. He talked about obedience in John 14:15, and that is closely tied to the things He said in the three preceding verses. Three verses earlier, in John 14:12, Jesus told us to expect to do the same works He did, and even greater ones. In verses 13 and 14, He promised that when we pray in His name, our prayers will be answered. John 14:13-14 is why we can pray for a sick person and fully expect God to heal them.

But those verses are not a "carte blanche." God is not saying that anytime we pray in Jesus' name, we get what we asked for no matter what God wants to do. He is not saying you can pray for a brand new sports car and you will get it because you believe in Jesus. (Don't get me wrong--I am not saying God would never answer that prayer. Our Heavenly Father is a loving Daddy who enjoys giving good gifts to His kids, so you just might get a sports car if you ask Him for one--but that is NOT what this passage is talking about.)

Verse 15 is the key to walking out verses 12 to 14. When we have a love relationship with the Father, where we obey Him because we love Him so much, and we love Him because we believe in Jesus--then we get to do the works Jesus did. Then we can pray with confidence that God will answer our prayers. Then we can move with Him in His power and anointing to heal the sick and to cast out demons and to do all the works that Jesus did. A heart of loving obedience is key to moving with God in His power and anointing.

That is why we spent the first lesson talking about how God expects us to obey Him. That is why we spent the second lesson talking about costly obedience.

I shared a story in the second lesson that your probably found humorous. It was about how I'd been saving up for a year for this really fancy desk that I wanted. Then when I had saved almost enough money, the Lord told me to give it away. More specifically, He told me to give it to a pastor who lived by faith, so that he could buy an engagement ring for his finance.

This was a very difficult thing for me to do--it was my money and I had plans for it. It was very hard for me to give God control over my finances in this instance. He wasn't asking me to do something trivial, like giving a twenty dollar bill to a beggar. He was asking me to die to my desires in a very tangible way. He was asking me to give up something I wanted so badly that I'd been saving towards it for a whole year.

There is another reason that this was difficult for me, one that I did not share in the last lesson. The ring that Ron and Lynn had chosen was nicer than my own ring. It irked me to pay for someone else to have a nicer engagement ring than I had.

It was a huge struggle for me to decide to obey God and give the money to Ron. When I did, Ron did not even take the chain off his door and invite me in. He just cracked open the door and reached his hand out and took the envelope and did not even look at it. He did say thank you, but it was the same type of "thank you" that I say to the waiter when he brings my food to the table. You might say that the actual event (giving the money to Ron) was a bit of a let down for me. I walked away shaking my head and hoping that I hadn't heard God wrong about giving it to him.

But the next day, God let me hear the story from Ron's point of view. He preached a sermon on trusting God, and he shared this experience in his sermon. This is his side of the story.

Ron had gone to get the ring, and he realized he could not afford to get it. That started a crisis of faith in Ron. He started thinking, 'It's okay for me to live on faith, but how can I ask Lynn to live on faith? How can I ask her, I might not be able to feed her, I might not be able to give her clothes, I might not be able to take care of her if she gets sick. If we have kids, I might not...oh, I cannot do this!'

It really bothered him that God had not provided the money for the ring. He realized that at times God was not going to come through to reward his faith. He decided he could not ask Lynn to be in a situation where God does not come through for them.

He decided he was going to call off the wedding because he was not in a position to financially support her. He had made a date with her to take her to dinner Saturday night, so he could explain this to her. Saturday morning was really tough for Ron. He was in the living room, on the floor and he had his bible in front of him and he is crying out, "Oh God, why aren't You taking care of me? I do not understand! I thought I could trust You! God, now I have to give up the woman I love, God it just is not fair!" At that moment, his prayers were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Ron got up to answer the door, but he was in a state of "emotional mess." He'd been crying and his face was red, so he tried to quickly clean up a bit before he answered the door. Of course, I did not know and of this when I was knocking.

He had one of those chains on the door that only lets you open it a little. So he cracked the door open. We did not know each other very well at that point, so from his perspective, he saw some lady, one of his fiancé's friends that he hardly knew. This lady was muttering something about God giving him something, then she handed him an envelope.

Ron had no clue what I was talking about, and he did not want to be impolite. So he reached out through the cracked-open door, took the envelop and muttered, "Thank you very much." His main concern at that moment was to finish the encounter without bursting into tears because of his crisis of faith. He hoped that I did not notice he had been crying. So he shut the door as quickly as possible and went back to the middle of the living room and sat back down on the floor in front of his open bible.

Ron threw the unopened envelope on the floor, picked up his bible and cried out to God. "God, why didn't You come through for me?" God replied, "Ron, open the envelope." So, he picked up the envelope, opened it, and saw all this money! Right then, God said, 'I have come through for you in this, and I will come through for you anytime you need Me. So don't be afraid to marry the girl, for I will take care of you both."

They went ahead and they were married. As far as I know they still live on faith. I have kind of lost touch with them over the years. But the last I heard, they had kids, they were doing great, everyone was healthy, and God was still meeting all their needs.

God used me to be a part of a miracle in Ron's life. It cost me a small fortune though. This was one form of costly obedience.

If you want God to use you for His glory, you have to be committed to costly obedience. I do not mean financially costly--though could might be money that God demands of you. But it could just as easily be something else. The point is, I can guarantee you 100% accuracy, there will come a time in your life when God will tell you to do something you do not want to do. But He will expect you to do it--to obey Him because you love Him. Or, it could go the other way, God could tell not to do something that you really want to do. And guess what? He will expect you to obey Him because you love Him.

If you want to move with God in His power, if you want to be a part of what God uses to transform the world to advance His kingdom, He expects obedience. And He won't settle for a grudging obedience accompanied by whining and complaining. God expects obedience us to obey Him with a good attitude, because we love Him.

I can assure you that He is going to tell you to do things that are not convenient. He is going to tell you to do things that are not comfortable for you. And when He does, He does not expect a debate. He does not expect an argument from you; He expects obedience.

If you love Him, will you obey Him? Do you understand the kind of cost that might go with this? I do not know what the thing in your life that is most precious to you, that does not belong to God, but God may ask you to give that up or to turn it over to Him.

Let me give you an example. One of my friend's two children both felt "called" to go to Iraq in ministry just after the war. They felt that the country was spiritually open and wanted to go right away. These are teenagers who were like just barely out of high school, and their parents did not like the idea at all. Neither parent wanted to let their children go to Iraq because it was so dangerous. They suggested their kids find someplace else to minister, someplace safer. But the kids felt God was calling them to Iraq, and they understood that there was a very good change they might not live very long serving Him there. They were prepared to go where God was sending them. but their mother wasn't.

She was fervently praying, "God do not take my kids from me. Let them go somewhere safe." Then God asked her, "Do you love Me enough to let Me send your children to Iraq?" That was what costly obedience looked like for her, letting her children follow God's call on their lives even though it was dangerous.

I do not know what "costly obedience" will look like for you, but I can guarantee you there will come a time when saying "Yes" to the Lord will be very, very difficult for you. When that happens, do you love Him enough to obey Him?