Ministering At The Altar

We will start first by gaining some perspective about healing and things of that nature. Then we will move into ministering in the church. Since many of you attend other churches, your pastor will direct you in the way ministry is done in your church. I will be explaining what we do in our church, and some things that will help you in the process of ministering at the altar. Then we will talk about how God anoints us for ministry. We will focus on the anointing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and then conclude our time with a bit about receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Let's gain a little perspective by looking at a passage that is found in John chapter five. We will look at the lesson of a lame man being healed by Jesus. John 5:1-8 records: "Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?' 'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked" (NIV). This miracle happened on the Sabbath day, and you know how the Pharisees thought about that.

The first lesson we learn from this is that the man had adapted to his infirmity. It appeared that this man did not want to stay lame. He had this infirmity for 38 years and did not know any other way of life. Of course, any time you have had something for a long period of time, you adapt. People develop mechanisms simply to adapt to whatever infirmity they have. Physical infirmities have some adaptations, but there are also emotional infirmities that require adaptations as well. Sick people usually put up mental and emotional walls over time. The Lord is about dismantling our defense mechanisms. He is about removing those things that keep us from receiving His healing.

The second lesson is that he appeared to want to be well. Why else was he there? I imagine he probably dreamed about the day he would be well - what it would be like to walk or run. In fact, I don't think I have ever encountered someone who was sick who did not want to get well. If you ask a person who has emotional hurts if they like being like that, they will say, "No." When you ask if they'd like to be free of it, they say, "Sure." I have never met anyone who said he would like to keep all of his garbage. That is how it was with this guy also. It appeared that he wanted to be well.

The third thing we learn is that he put himself in a position to be healed. Every day he would have someone take him there. What if one day he decided he would stay home, and then he came back the next day and they said, "Man, you wouldn't believe it. The waters got stirred three times yesterday!" He would think, "I can't believe it. The day I stayed home; that's just like my luck!" So he put himself in the position to be healed. I notice that people are drawn to places where there's healing. At our church, I get a lot of calls from other pastors who say, "Rodney, can you help me with this person?" A lot of times I can, and sometimes I can't. Sometimes I encourage them to come to our prayer counseling training so they are equipped to minister to those in their flock.

Here is a main statement - "If I'm to be healed, I must pursue it." A lot of times, if a person is going to be healed, he can't just sit back and wait for it to come to him. Sometimes God is gracious and does that, but many times you will find that He puts within you a desire to be healed. If you are going to be healed, you have to pursue it, because if you do not pursue it, it may not come. Now, God is sovereign and He can violate that, but the truth is that God is going to honor a lot of people who are pursuing healing. I would say that the odds are a lot greater of receiving a touch from the Lord if you pursue it.

The fourth thing that we see is that he was persistent. He was tenacious. Every day he was there. There was a persistency and it paid off for him. Sometimes we get impatient and we quit. We say, "God, why are you taking so long? What more can I do?" There is a timing; there is no doubt about that. Even so, if a person continues to come to the altar, I don't think God is offended by that. If a person is continuing to come up, God is a God of grace and mercy. Even though we may get fed up at times, God is never that way. The truth is that a lot of wholeness never comes immediately. It's like chopping down a tree - you just hack and hack and chop and chop, and eventually it comes down. Sometimes if you are going for the tree in the middle, you've got to knock down a few trees to get to the one that is the object. The Scripture we need to hang onto is Galatians 6:9: "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we don't grow weary." We can look at other passages of Scripture such as Philippians 2:12 that say to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 3:13 that says to press on, to strive for the prize, the high calling of God. You need to put out some work here. Go for it!

The fifth thing we see is that he had to depend upon other people. Think about how he got to that place every day. This person was lame. He didn't crawl. He didn't have little carts with rollers on them. That is an important principle for us to understand - God will use other people. When God made you, He created you inadequate and dependent upon others. He created you deficient. We are that way for a purpose. We actually need the other members of the Body of Christ. You are not the whole body in complete form; you need the other members. God created us that way so we would be interdependent with other people. If a person says, "I don't need anyone else," that is always a warning sign to me. That is a red flag that shoots up. "I need only God." James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sin to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." Confess your sins to one another! You can't do that unless you have a "one another" available.

The sixth lesson we learn is that you must really want to be healed. Jesus asked him the question, "Do you wish to get well?" I thought that was a strange question to ask, but it's really a legitimate question. Everything up to this point showed that he wanted to be healed - indicated by those first five things. Then Jesus said, "Is this what you really want?" Even though externally it looked like this man wanted it, what was the internal story here?

I was at a conference many years ago with Frances McNutt. He was teaching on healing, and it was a large session. They had ministered to a woman for about 30 minutes for physical healing and, finally, when he began to probe, it turned out that she had believed a lie. That lie was that she didn't deserve to be healed. No wonder she wasn't being healed; she had believed a lie! But she was on stage, she had volunteered, she wanted to be healed, she had gone through the process, she was receiving prayer. But down deep inside was this lie, "I don't deserve to be healed." When the lie was taken care of, she was healed. So this is a legitimate question. At times people will have all the external signs; they may come up over and over again, but when you get right down to it, they may not want to be healed.

Why would someone not want to be healed? There are several reasons. First, so long as you aren't healed, you have an excuse. You can blame others, you can blame God, but it is off of you. Another reason is that so long as you aren't healed you have the attention of others. Some people like attention. Third, so long as you aren't healed, less is expected of you. You don't have to carry your weight if you aren't healed. The truth is that in every church there are enough co-dependent people around who will carry your weight if you don't want to. What happens is that you eventually burn yourself with that person and you burn other people out who are carrying your weight. But there is always another who will carry that torch and carry your weight.

A fourth reason a person may not want to be healed is that if you get healed you might not need your therapy group - the people you surround yourself with. Now think about this. We have entire systems of relationships that are wrapped around being wounded. If we get healed, what will we have in common? What will we have to talk about? Isn't it true that a lot of people get addicted to therapy? They get addicted to their psychologist, therapist and so on. They are meeting a parenting need, and if you get healed then you won't need that relationship. A fifth reason is because sickness is just comfortable. It's inconvenient, but it's comfortable because it's familiar. Being healed is a whole new experience. One doesn't know what's there or what's expected, and a person may not really want to do that. Lastly, sometimes one is paid to be sick with disability payments. That's true; they will lose their livelihood if they are healed.

Now you have to be very discerning because someone may have all the external signs that they want to be healed. You can't put up with it if they are not. You are going to waste their time. And if they are not, then you have to say that you really can't help them. What will happen is that they will label you as "uncaring." Well, join the club. I get labeled that all the time. You will have to go by the Spirit here; you can't go by external indications. You can't make a person be healed, you can't violate their will, and some people aren't quite at the end of their rope yet. When they are, then you can minister to them.

The last thing is that you just have to receive your healing. Jesus said, "Get up!" In other words, there is a crisis at that moment when Jesus says to get up. Am I going to get up? This person had to choose to take a step of faith - whether to get up or not. Of course, this person did. With some people you have to say, "It's time. Get up." There comes a time when faith is released to get up and move on.