Why is Healing a Process?

When you read the gospels, it appears (on the surface) as though the people who encountered Jesus were healed of all their afflictions and infirmities in one powerful meeting. I’ve been wondering why instead of a one-time encounter, for many of us it seems like healing is a long, drawn out process that never ends.

Some time ago I asked the Holy Spirit to help me understand why it seems to be this way. I want to share the illustration He gave me about the process of healing so that you might have a better idea of what’s going on and why it seems like we’re in a never-ending battle over healing.

The illustration the Lord gave me came from the time when God led His people across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan. You remember that the Lord told His people His desire was to give them ALL the land that was occupied by the Canaanites. Though He wanted His people to occupy all the land, He told them He would not drive out all of the inhabitants at once, but only a little at a time. The reason He did not drive out all the inhabitants at once is the key element to this story, so you must get this point: The Lord didn't drive out their enemies all at once because He knew the Israelites would not be able to occupy the land after a grand, sweeping victory. He knew that the enemy would quickly muster a counter-attack and take back the land. The Lord didn't just want His people to win a few battles. He wanted them to permanently occupy the land He would give them and enjoy all that it could provide.

The book of Joshua chronicles the various battles where the Israelites did war with the Canaanites. In some places they were victorious and in other places, they failed to drive out all the Canaanites and allowed them to remain there, in spite of the fact that God wanted them completely gone from the land. I have no doubt that some of the battles were hard-fought. I’m sure that the Israelites at times doubted that God actually wanted them to have all the land. After all, if He’s an all-powerful God, why couldn’t He just kill off their enemies in one fell swoop and let them have the land? Why did they have to fight these seemingly never-ending battles?

Today, we hear the same kind of question being asked about healing. If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He just wipe out all of my illness at once?

Just as the Lord said He wanted the Israelites to have all the land, by healing all who came to Him Jesus demonstrated that it’s God’s desire that we would be healed of all our sickness and disease. So why are we not all healed immediately?

Healing is a form of warfare against the kingdom of darkness. The key to understanding why healing is a process instead of a one-time encounter lies in understanding the purpose for war. Lance Wallnau once said:

“The goal of war is victory, but the goal of victory is occupation.”

The spiritual war we’re engaged in over healing is illustrated in the battles the Israelites had with the Canaanites. God didn’t just want the Israelites to win a few wars over their enemy. He wanted them to thoroughly rout the Canaanites and completely remove them from the land so that they could not come back later and cause problems. It isn’t enough to simply win a war against an enemy, only to be defeated in a counter-attack a few days later. God wanted them to permanently occupy that which He gave them. When an enemy returns to take back what you’ve won, occupation means holding on to what you’ve been given.

I’ve met a lot of people who have received healing only to have the symptoms return a few hours or a few days later. God gave these people the victory they asked for but they did not have the ability to occupy their victory. Their lack of understanding of how the enemy works allowed the kingdom of darkness to take back what God had given them.

Some people have enough awareness of their identity in Christ and they’re wise to the enemy’s schemes so that they can withstand these counter-attacks. But most of the time, the person will lose the battle and go right back into their sickness because they’ve never learned how to hold onto that which the Lord wants to give them. Like the Canaanites, we often settle for less than God’s best for us. Our failure to be healed is not because God doesn’t want us to be healed. It’s because we lack knowledge about the ways of the kingdom and the enemy’s schemes.

Gaining understanding about who we are in Christ, and how the enemy works is not an easy process, but it’s something we must do if we ever hope to occupy the victories the Lord gives us. And that is why most of the time healing is a long, difficult process where we take one step forward and two steps back. I’d like to use my wife’s battles over healing as an illustration of this principle.

Soon after we met, my wife needed healing of a frozen shoulder due to a torn rotator cuff and torn bicep. She was healed with the help of a friend and has had full range of motion ever since. If we were keeping score, at that time the score would have been:

My wife – 1 The enemy – 0

Later she developed a problem with her thyroid which has not responded (yet) to prayer.
Score: My wife – 1 The enemy – 1

Later still she developed insomnia and was eventually healed of it.
Score: My Wife – 2 The enemy – 1

Six months later, the insomnia returned and she has not slept without the aid of medications since then. She gave back that victory to the enemy.
Score: My wife –1 The enemy – 2

Recently she developed a herniated disc in her back, which was a battle, though she was eventually healed of it.
Score: My wife – 2 The enemy – 2

Not surprisingly, the enemy returned several times after my wife’s back was healed. A spirit tried to give her back the pain, but because she had a renewed mind, and was wise to the tricks of the enemy, she was able to withstand these attacks and the spirit of pain left.
Currently the score is: My wife – 2 The Enemy – 2

My wife and I are probably a bit more familiar with the dynamics of healing and deliverance than the average Christian, and yet it's all we can do sometimes to keep even with the enemy. How much harder must it be for someone who hasn't watched thousands of hours of teaching on these subjects?

When we’re not prepared to fight off the attacks of the enemy, we can't occupy the territory God gives us. I believe this is one of the reasons why healing is often a long, difficult process. It’s because we must grow in wisdom about how to occupy our bodies and souls and fend off the attacks of the enemy. Many of us are poorly prepared, mentally to defend against these attacks. I suspect that most of our weakness lies in what we believe about ourselves and about God.

The more we renew our minds to the truth that God loves us and wants us to be healed, the more we empower His work of healing. The more we doubt His love, His goodness, and His desire for us to be healed, the more we empower the enemy to take what God wants us to have. We must learn to discern the presence of spirits that try to make us feel sick or injured and we must learn how to make them leave.

The process of healing and how slowly or how quickly it moves is determined mostly by our own thinking. God can do a lot more with a mind that has been renewed to the truth.

I Have Heard Your Cry

I want to share some of the adventures we had with Jesus on our trip to Washington to meet with friends at The Gathering. This story actually brings the trip to its conclusion. After spending nine days in the Pacific Northwest with friends, we got on the plane back to Phoenix and stowed our bags in the overhead bin. Most of the plane had already boarded. I sat down and soon heard the unmistakable cry of baby coming from the seat behind me. I looked at my wife. “Well, that’s cool. I get to sit in front of screaming baby.”

I had not slept well the night before. The room became too warm so at 1 o'clock in the morning I got up and opened the window then went to the lobby of the hotel for a drink of water. I fell back into a fitful sleep until the alarm went off. I did my best to rest on the plane but the coughing and crying of the child in the seat behind us made it hard and I became more annoyed as time went on.

An hour before the plane landed, I began feeling a vibration in my right leg near where I keep my cell phone. Every two minutes or so I felt as if my phone was alerting me. I checked my phone several times for new messages, but there were none. There couldn’t be. At 30,000 feet my phone can’t receive a signal from a cell tower.

I began to think maybe the vibration was coming from the Lord and He was trying to get my attention. I closed my eyes and saw some images and a few words in my mind, but I didn’t see any clear messages that I could understand. The vibration in my leg continued every few minutes.

After the flight attendants had put away the beverage carts the baby began a tirade of non-stop screaming that was unsettling his parents and getting on the nerves of people around us. I realize that when a baby flies in an airplane it doesn’t know how to equalize the pressure so its ears are going to feel the pain of atmospheric pressure changes. Who could blame him for crying?

I closed my eyes again and this time I saw a clear message from God in my mind. “Pray for my peace to overcome the child.” As I prayed, in my mind I saw Jesus approaching the child and cuddling him and the screaming slowly subsided. Then I heard one more thing. “Tell his parents that I have heard their cries and I will give them everything they have asked for.”

As the plane descended into Phoenix I began to feel an unusual compassion for the baby's parents that made me my eyes fill with tears. I knew it was the Lord showing me how He feels toward them.

As the plane taxied to the terminal I asked the child’s parents if I might give them an encouraging word about their future. They said they would be glad to hear one.

I explained, “About an hour ago when your son was crying God asked me to pray for the peace of Jesus to overcome him. I began to pray for that and as I did, the Lord asked me to tell you this: ‘Just as all the people on this plane have heard the cries of your child, I have heard your cries and I will give you all you have asked for.' The Lord's heart toward you is full of compassion. He has not forgotten you. He will never forsake you. He will bring to pass all that He promised you. So I hope you’ve dreamed big, because the Lord is going to make your dreams come true.”

They thanked me and as I exited the plane I gave the boy’s father a hug.

I wrote this to encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to bless strangers with a word from God. I was not in a mood to bless anyone when this encounter began and it took a lot of prompting from God to get my attention.

If you aren’t hearing the Lord clearly, consider that perhaps He’s speaking to you in a way you haven’t yet recognized. Ask Him to speak more clearly and whatever you sense Him saying or doing; follow the best you can and watch what happens.

I guarantee you’ll be amazed.

The Gate - Healing Testimony

Can Back Pain From a Car Accident be Relieved Through Emotional Healing?

As we checked in to the hotel we talked with the woman behind the desk about our plans for the week. I told Susan we were the featured speakers for the meetings that were being held at the hotel that weekend and gave her some background information about us. I explained that the main focus of the weekend was supernatural healing. She attends a Charismatic church and wanted to know more about healing so we talked for a while. I was tired from the trip and wanted to get to our room and unpack our bags so I pulled out a copy of my book Divine Healing Made Simple from my one of our bags, autographed it and handed it to Susan. "We'll be here for nine days," I said. "We'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have." She thanked us and we went to our room.

The following day I received a message from a woman named Emily who works behind the registration desk at night. She found Susan’s copy of the book and began reading it. When she was halfway through the book she contacted me through Facebook and asked for prayer. She’s been suffering from chronic back pain from four different car accidents and she asked about emotional healing. We set up a meeting at Anna Wingate’s house for prayer on Sunday afternoon. (Anna was the organizer of the meeting.)

When Emily arrived at Anna’s house we spent about 10 minutes getting to know her. When you make an appointment for healing or deliverance and evil spirits are involved, it is not unusual to feel fear, anxiety, and an increase of the symptoms you want to be healed of as the appointment time draws near. Evil spirits are aware of what’s going on as the time of healing and deliverance draws near. They know their time is short and they frequently manifest as increased fear, anxiety, and pain just before or during the healing encounter. Their goal is to frighten their host, hoping to get them to cancel the appointment. Emily had been feeling some anxiety that morning. When I asked how her back pain was doing she said, “My back feels like it’s on fire.”

We had Emily sit on a couch with Anna on her left and my wife on her right. I sat in a chair and observed as Anna ministered emotional healing to her. Most people who do emotional healing follow a script, which gives them a pre-planned set of instructions for the healing process. Anna has a script that she uses often and it works for her. I have a different script that I recently developed that I had been using during The Gathering.

Anna’s script includes questions about things like witchcraft and Freemasonry in a person’s family history, as well as discerning generational sins and/or curses. Other parts of her script include walking the person through forgiveness for anyone who has offended them and a meeting with the Father. When Anna was done with her prayer session I asked if I might try my own approach. Emily agreed to have me pray with her.

There are many different approaches to emotional healing. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses. The script that I use is very specific. My goal is to identify the negative emotions a person is feeling and have Jesus heal them. I began by asking Emily if she had been abused either sexually, physically, or verbally as a child. I started with this question because it seems to be the most common cause of emotional wounds. Emily said she had been verbally and physically abused by her father. Most approaches to inner healing would have her forgive her father. Forgiveness is an important part of the process, but she had already forgiven him. Forgiving others does not heal the wound in our soul caused by the emotions we feel toward them. So rather than focus on forgiveness, I focused on healing the specific emotions she was feeling.

The next step in the process is to have the person recall a specific event where this emotion is strongly felt. When they’re feeling the emotion, I have them tell me what the emotion is. I asked Emily if she could recall a specific event from her past that evoked a strong negative emotion. She recalled a birthday from her childhood where her father promised to take her out for dinner. That night he went to a bar and got drunk and forgot about her. When he came home she asked if he would take her out for her birthday. He grudgingly agreed to take her to McDonald’s, but as she walked to the car he kicked her all the way to the car. “So when you recall your father kicking you, what emotion comes to mind?”

“Worthlessness.” She replied.

Once we’ve identified an emotion, I have the person repeat after me as I lead them through a simple script that asks Jesus for healing.  “Okay Emily, I want you to repeat after me. Jesus, I ask you to take this feeling of worthlessness from me.” She repeated what I said. “ I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it.” Again she repeated what I said. “In place of worthlessness  I ask you to give me honor.” She repeated my words again. “ Jesus, I receive your healing.” She repeated this and when she was done I had her recall the event with her father again.

"So there you are, waiting for your father to come home. He gets there and you ask if he’ll take you out for dinner. You’re on your way to the car and he’s kicking you. What emotion do you feel?”

“I guess… It’s just disappointment.”

“Okay, were going to do the same thing for disappointment. Just repeat after me. Jesus, I ask you to take this feeling of disappointment from me. I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it. In place of disappointment I ask you to give me hope. Jesus, I receive your healing.” When she had said these words after me I asked her again to recall the event with her father and tell me what emotion she felt.

“Fear.”

“Okay, were going to do the same thing with fear, just repeat after me. Jesus, I ask you to take the feeling of fear from me. I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it. In place of fear I ask you to give me courage. Jesus, I receive your healing.” When she was finished saying these words I asked her again to recall the event with her father and tell me what emotion she felt.

She paused for a moment and finally said, “Nothing. I can remember it all, but there aren’t any emotions I can really feel.”

“Cool. That means you’re healed of the wounds in your soul from that event. Let’s move on to the next one. You said you had been married twice. Did either of your ex-husbands abuse you?”

“Yes. They both did.”

“What kind of abuse was it, did they hit you or was it verbal abuse?”

“Both my ex-husbands hit me and we got into a lot of arguments.”

“Okay. We’re going to do the same thing. Is there one event with your most recent ex-husband that causes you to feel a strong negative emotion?” She told me about how they would argue and her ex-husband would punch her in the face to end the argument. “Okay Emily, so there you are with your husband and you get into another argument. It escalates into a yelling match and he punches you in the face. Tell me what emotion you’re feeling.”

“Anger.” She replied as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Okay we are going to do the same thing with anger that we did with the other emotions. Just repeat after me. Jesus, I ask you to take the feeling of anger from me. I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it. In place of anger I ask you to give me peace. Jesus, I receive your healing.” When she was finished I had her take a short break because she was crying. After she regained her composure, I asked her again to recall the argument with her ex-husband and tell me what emotion she felt.

“Hurt. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

“Okay. We’ll go with that. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I‘m ready.”

“Jesus, I ask you to take the feeling of hurt from me. I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it. In place of hurt I ask you to give me healing. Jesus, I receive your healing.” She repeated each sentence after me. When she was done we went back to the same event. “Okay Emily, so there you are with your husband and you get into another argument and he punches you in the face. Tell me what emotion you’re feeling.”

“Fear.”

“Okay. We’re going to get rid of fear whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay, repeat after me. Jesus, I ask you to take the feeling of fear from me. I don’t want it anymore. I ask you to heal the wound in my soul caused by it. In place of fear I ask you to give me confidence. Jesus, I receive your healing.” When she was done I had her recall the argument one more time. “What emotion do you feel?”

“I’m not really feeling anything this time.”

“Awesome. So those emotional wounds are healed. Thank you Jesus! Let’s move on to your first husband. Is there any event from your first marriage that causes strong negative emotions?” She told me about an event that caused similar feelings to those she had when she got into a fight with her second husband. We followed the same steps as before. She identified each emotion, and asked Jesus to heal them then we went back into the memory of the event to see what emotions were left, until all the negative emotions were gone.

“I have a question for you Emily. How does your back feel right now?”

“It feels really good,” She said with a beaming smile. “It was really bad when I got here, but now there’s just a little pain right here,” She said pointing to a spot on her right side in the middle of her back.

“Now that we’ve removed the rights that the spirit of pain had to afflict you, it should be easy to heal the pain you still have.” I had her stand up and we prayed a quick prayer for her back to be healed and the pain immediately left.

I gave her a short lesson on why back pain from a car accident would require emotional healing, which I’ll summarize next:

Evil spirits are very opportunistic, like most predators. Predators take advantage of weakness because weakness gives an advantage to a predator. A shark becomes aggressive when it smells blood in the water. Vultures gather around dying animals. Demons flock to people who are suffering trauma; both physical and emotional, because trauma weakens us physically and emotionally.

Emotional trauma causes fragmentation of the soul which results in wounds in the soul itself.  It also causes the development of memory fragments and/or alternate personalities, or alters. When we engage in emotional healing, we’re dealing with the fragmented parts of the soul and the emotional wounds.

Strong negative emotions in our soul allow opportunities for demons to torment us. I refer to this as a demon’s “legal right” to harass us, though some people object to the use of this term, because they feel demons have no legal rights to us whatsoever. Call it whatever you want; when we hold onto negative emotions like shame, guilt, anger, fear, etc. these emotions provide a place of attachment for demons. Healing the emotional wounds removes the point of attachment for demons. Once demons have nothing to hold onto, healing is much easier and in some cases, the healing a person is seeking manifests as soon as the emotional wounds are healed.

The reason why I ask people to recall a traumatic event is that I’m trying to heal that particular part (fragment) of their soul that is holding onto that emotion. In order for a fragment to be healed, it must come to the forefront of the person’s consciousness. When I have them recall the event and feel the emotion, I’m working with that part of the soul responsible for that emotion.

When Emily had her car accident, she may have suffered physiological damage to her body, but she also suffered emotional damage to her soul. The most likely scenario is that an evil spirit or two attached themselves to her soul at the time of the accident, using whatever negative emotions she experienced as their point of attachment. As time passed and her physical injuries were healed, the pain in her back remained because the emotional wounds were still there, providing a home for spirits of pain. Unlike physical wounds that heal over time, emotional wounds remain in our soul until they are healed by Jesus. As long as an emotional wound remains intact, the symptoms caused by the spirits attached to the wounds will not leave. The only way to have the symptoms healed is to have the emotional wounds healed.

I used this same approach to heal the emotional wounds of several other women during The Gathering and in each case the person was not able to feel the negative emotions afterward.

One woman that my wife and I prayed with had been having a lot of problems with her marriage. She said her husband treats her more like a brother than a wife. There hasn’t been any romance between them in years. We used this approach to heal her of the emotional wounds related to the way her husband treats her. She came to the brunch on Sunday morning with a glowing smile and handed me a gift bag. “Something big happened last night. I thought I’d buy you two a gift to show you my appreciation. There are two gifts in the bag. The first is for you. The second is for your beautiful wife. When I was leaving this morning to come here, my husband said he loves me…TWICE!!” She walked in a new air of confidence that definitely wasn’t there the night before.

God is doing some amazing things in the area of emotional healing these days. I hope you join us and receive the healing you need. I’ll be writing more on emotional healing in future messages, so stay tuned.

Spirit-led Healing

I was asked by a friend whether we should always wait for the Holy Spirit to show us who He wants to heal before praying with a stranger. This is one of the most common questions people have about healing.

Being led by the Holy Spirit is always our goal, and we need to cooperate with Him in every healing or deliverance encounter. While it's true that He will sometimes highlight certain people for healing that we are not aware of, it is not necessary to always wait for Him to highlight people for healing. The question of whether we should wait for Him to show us certain individuals arises when we are uncertain about whether it is God's will to heal all people or only certain ones.

It is difficult to pray with faith when we are uncertain about God's will for healing. We can know with certainty His will toward healing by looking at the New Testament. The gospels give us a clear understanding of the Father's will through the ministry of Jesus who healed multitudes of people of every kind of disease and demonic oppression:

"When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick." (Matthew 8:16)

Jesus never refused to heal anyone who came to him, in fact, it is likely that He spent entire days doing nothing but healing people until He was exhausted. The will of God for healing was further revealed when Jesus commissioned His disciples to heal the sick and cast out demons making no exceptions about who was to be healed:

"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8)

We see the disciples doing this exact thing in the book of Acts after Jesus ascended into heaven:

“Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed." (Acts 5:16)

The scriptures give no indication that there were any exceptions to healing in the ministry of Jesus or the disciples. If it is the will of God to heal all who are sick and demonized, then being Spirit-led is not an issue of who can be healed, but how they should be healed.

Looking at the model Jesus gave us, we see that with one person, He told them to arise and walk. For another it was a touch that healed their blindness. For someone else it was a little mud in their eye and with another, He told their friend to go home because they were already healed. Jesus used different methods for healing each person based on what the will of the Father was for their unique situation. This is what He meant when He said, "The son only does what He sees the Father doing." (John 5:19)

Being led by the Spirit has to do with the particular method God wants us to use to heal each person. Sometimes it will be a touch, sometimes a command, sometimes we'll ask them to get up from their wheelchair and attempt to walk. Just as Jesus was led to do certain things to release a miracle, we must learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in how He wants us to bring healing to each person we encounter.

No More Wheelchair

How Far Will God Go to Stop Suffering?

I was reflecting last night on a story that was shared at The Gathering that illustrated the lengths to which God will go to stop suffering and evil. Before I share that story, let me highlight some of the beliefs people have about this issue

Many people believe that God is indifferent to the pain and suffering that we go through. After all, if God is all-powerful and if He opposes evil and suffering, then why does He allow them to happen?

It seems only logical that if He allows them to happen He must approve of them, and if God approves of suffering and evil then He cannot be good. This reasoning about the nature of God developed as a response to teaching from the church that God is in control of everything and that everything that happens is His will, including suffering and evil.

The idea that suffering and evil are the will of God is an ancient philosophy that was given new life during the Protestant reformation. Drawing on a few passages from scripture like Romans chapter nine, men like John Calvin developed a view of God that has Him in control of everything. Romans nine states that God has predestined some to be saved and others to be objects of wrath. This chapter essentially teaches that all the outcomes of life are predetermined by God and we cannot change any of them. This teaching completely ignores the fact than man has a responsibility to exercise his free will.

Is God in Control of Everything?
I've thought about this question for years and here's how I finally settled it:

The bible views life from two perspectives; ours and God's. Most of the passages of scripture view life from man's perspective and teach that we have choices to make. (If we can make choices then God cannot be controlling us, and He cannot be in control of everything.) When the Bible says, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life," it is obviously speaking from man's perspective. Romans nine, which sees God in control of our choices views life from His perspective.

The view that God is in control is a valid perspective to live from, but only under one condition: It is a valid if you happen to be God, and if you happen to know all these things. While I can accept the fact that God's perspective is valid for Him, I can only view life from that perspective if I happen to be God. Since I'm not God and I don't know who has been predestined to be saved or healed, I must operate from the perspective that I have free will and I must make choices.

The Reality of Free Will
God could have made us in such a way that we would always do His perfect will. In such a world everyone would always do what was just, right and fair. If that were the case, there would be no evil or suffering. But if we always did what was right, we would not have the ability to choose to do evil. And without the ability to choose between good and evil, we would be nothing more than robots, devoid of free will.

We would also not have the capacity to love, because love is a choice. In order for us to be able to choose to love, we must be able to choose not to love. We must be able to choose to hate and to hurt others. Suffering and evil are permitted, not because God wants them, but because their very existence gives us the freedom to love others.

God wants us to have the freedom to make choices; whether for good or for evil. Evil is a necessary consequence of allowing us to have free will, and allowing us to have free will is God's top priority. But the fact that He allows evil and suffering to exists does not mean He is not actively opposing them. It's just that He cannot force people to refrain from doing evil without removing their free will.

God will never over-ride a person's free will, so He won't force an abusive father to stop beating his son. If He did, he would remove their ability to choose and negate their free will. So He must oppose evil and suffering in another way. Rather than directly negating the free will of those who want to do violence, He opposes them by recruiting  people who are willing use their free will to accomplish His divine purpose.

How God Opposes Suffering Through Us
We've been given the ability to partner with God as He enforces His will in the earth. By bringing healing to those who suffer illness and injury, deliverance to those who are tormented by demons and by interceding for those who suffer violence, we are God's hands that do  the work that accomplishes His will. If we refuse to partner with God, we are to blame for the continuation of suffering and violence. God opposes tyranny, injustice, abuse and violence through us when we submit our will to accomplishing His work.

At The Gathering a man told me of an experience he had one night after drifting off to sleep. He was taken in the spirit to a place in the heavens where he met about six other people. Gauging by how they were dressed, he had to assume the others had come from different time periods spanning thousands of years, including one person who looked as if he had come from the future. They had all been brought there to interceded for a boy who was being beaten by his father. The group spent time praying for the boy and when their prayer time was done, they departed. The man who had this experience found himself back in his bed.

To answer the question I asked at the beginning of this message: "How far will God go to stop evil?" He is so interested in stopping evil that He'll find people scatted over different time periods in history and bring them together in one place in eternity to pray in agreement for one boy to be spared the beatings of  an abusive father. That's how much He loves each one of us.

5 Bulging Discs Healed

This woman testified of her healing at Voice of the Apostles in Atlanta.

Your Identity in Christ

Pink Glasswing Butterfly by KloverKane

When Jesus walked the streets of Galilee, His acts of healing created division among those who watched Him. Some rejoiced at the miracles they witnessed, while others criticized Him. The same attitudes exist today. Healing, deliverance and miracles are ways in which the kingdom of God is made manifest through us. When we bring the kingdom of God to earth, we invite criticism, because wherever the kingdom goes, it destroys belief systems that are opposed it.

The greatest criticism of healing during the first century came from religious leaders. They had followers who admired their shallow spirituality. The miracles of Jesus drew people away from them and turned their hearts back to God. The kingdoms these men had built were beginning to crumble. Their response was to criticize the new thing God was doing. Little has changed today. Most of the criticism of healing today comes from religious leaders who are building their own kingdoms.

To have success in healing, you must deal with the issue of what people think of you. If you have fear of what others think of you, it may prevent you from realizing your full potential. You must learn to put aside the criticism of co-workers, church leaders, family and friends. Jesus wasn’t popular with religious leaders or his family. He was despised by many people, but the sick loved Him like crazy because to them, He was the fragrance of life. And I believe that kind of life is worth pursuing.

When I became interested in healing, I noticed something in the gospels that I’d never spent much time thinking about. Jesus healed a lot of people. If you don’t think healing is for today or you don’t think it’s your calling, it’s easy to overlook just how many people He healed. As I studied His life, I realized that there wasn’t much else He did that could be called “ministry.” He taught in the synagogues and preached the kingdom as people followed Him. But He spent an enormous amount of time healing the sick. The more I studied His life, the more I knew there was something missing from mine.

The Bible reveals many things about us. When we read it we tend to identify with someone. I might see the heart of King David and identify with him. You might see yourself in Deborah or Ruth. Some identify with the apostle Paul. We all see someone whose life is similar to our own. But almost no one looks at Jesus and says, “I can see myself in Him.”

The people we strongly identify with become our role models. Ironically, we aren’t called to become like the apostles or prophets. God’s plan is for each of us to be conformed into the image of Christ. If we never identify with Jesus, we have a big problem. God wants us to become like Him and that means He must become our role model. But many of us have used a pastor or one of the disciples as a role model instead. If we are to be transformed into His image, we must begin to identify with Him. He must become our model in everything we do. We must allow Him to live His life through us.

The first message Jesus preached was, “Repent! For the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (see Matt. 4:17). The message of repentance has become well-known, even among those who are not religious. But its true meaning has become distorted over the years. The word repent, which is used in most English bible translations, comes from the Latin translation of scripture. It implies a change of action in an attempt to gain favor with someone. The Greek word used in this passage is the word metanoia, which comes from two words; one refers to a change; the other refers to the mind. The instruction of Jesus was not for people to change their behavior to gain favor with God. He wanted them to change their way of thinking, because the kingdom of God had arrived.

Jesus changed the emphasis and tone of the spiritual conversation. Rather than focus on keeping the law by our own strength of will, He emphasized the love that the Father has for us. He taught and demonstrated through His life and death that the Father loves us more than we can ever comprehend. The good news of the gospel is that God is in love with you. It is only when the heart is gripped by the affection of the Father that our outward behavior begins to change in a real way.

When I became a Christian, I listened to preachers who drilled into my head the idea that God saw me as a worthless sinner. I was taught that He really didn’t like me very much, but He decided to save me, despite my wretchedness. I accepted this view of myself and after a while the word “sinner” became my identity. After years of living a powerless, defeated life, God said He didn’t see me that way. He said that my true identity was a beloved and cherished son – not a worthless sinner.

The more you accept God’s love for you personally – the more your identity as His child will be established. And the more your identity as His child is established, (and your false identity is removed) the greater the power of His kingdom will become manifest through you. Manifesting the miraculous power of God is a matter of understanding and accepting your identity in Christ.

Through many different dreams, God began to show me things that I would do which seemed impossible. He showed me how I would affect people’s lives around the globe. His plans for me were so much greater than the ones I had for myself. Rather than a life of mediocrity, He showed me the inheritance we have as heirs of His kingdom. As sons of God, we have truly been given exceedingly great promises.

Many of us are afraid of becoming prideful. In an attempt to remain humble, we prefer to see ourselves as less than how God sees us. When we see ourselves this way, we destroy the work He wants to do in and through us. True humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself exactly the way God thinks of you; not more and not less.

The key to operating in the power of God is knowing your identity in Christ and knowing how He wants to work in you. You must shed the false identities you’ve accepted from man and receive the identity
given to you by God.

This is an excerpt from my book Divine Healing Made Simple. 

Can People Lose Their Healing?

This is part of an interview I did with S.J. Heald for Heaven Connect. The entire interview can be found here.

SJH:
Can people lose their healing? If so, why?

Praying Medic:
There are two situations that allow symptoms to return after we are healed. In many cases the return of symptoms after healing is evidence that a little more warfare needs to be done. I had a chance a couple of years ago to help my sister in law obtain healing for an occluded artery in her leg. She had poor circulation in her leg for years and her foot was always cold and numb. Her doctor considered placing a stent in the artery to keep it open. One day, I asked if she wanted to be healed and she said “yes’.” I commanded the artery to be open and the circulation to return. She didn’t feel anything different until the next morning, when she woke up with a warm foot that had normal sensation and circulation. Later that day, her foot became cold and numb and she thought she had lost her healing. With a worried heart she asked me what happened. This is a classic case of  how sometimes our symptoms will return after we are healed.

I sat her down and explained that healing and sickness are a battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. I told her that God wants us to be healed and the enemy wants us to be sick. She immediately understood. I explained that the enemy brought the symptoms back to convince her she wasn’t healed and that we needed to do some more warfare. I commanded her leg to be healed again and in a few minutes the circulation returned. I told her that all she needed to do was to resist the enemy’s tactics if it happened again. With a smile of understanding she confidently maintained her healing and she’s had normal circulation since that day.

Some diseases and painful conditions are spiritual in nature and the return of the symptoms indicates a return of the spirit and a need to find out why it returned. The bible gives examples of people who had physical symptoms with spiritual causes (see Luke 13:10-13 as an example.) In such cases the spirit must be removed before the symptoms will leave. But when a spirit of pain or sickness returns, it’s often because it has a home in the person (See Luke 11: 21-26.) The key to preventing the return of the spirit and a return of the symptoms it causes is to remove the demonic home.

Demonic homes are created by things we believe about God, about ourselves or about others that are not true, or by sinful behaviors and attitudes that we allow in our hearts. These things give spirits opportunities to exert their influence over us. If you believe for example, that God the Father cannot be trusted, because your father abused or neglected you, the mistrust you have in your heart toward God the Father will allow an orphan spirit to influence your thinking. It will continually remind you that God the Father is like the abusive Father of your childhood and that He can't be trusted. Many people live their entire lives under the influence of such spirits. Evil spirits only have influence over us to the degree that we permit them, and most of what we allow them to do to us is permitted because of what we believe. A slightly different way in which spirits can affect us is through sinful attitudes we have. Allow me to illustrate with one of my own experiences:

I had been seeking permanent healing for chronic neck pain for a long time. I received prayer a number of times and the pain would always leave temporarily, only to return a few days later. One day, a woman praying for me asked if I had anger toward anyone. God showed me in a vision, a person I had been angry with for a long time. I knew that I needed to let go of the anger I had toward them. When I released the anger to God, the pain in my neck immediately left and never returned.

I allowed a demonic home to be created by my anger. When people prayed for my healing, the spirit would leave but it always returned because its home was still there. Identifying wrong views, attitudes and behaviors and renewing our mind to the truth about them (repenting) removes demonic homes. Once this is done, and the spirit no longer has a home, it can be removed and the symptoms usually will not return.

A Simple Approach to Prophetic Ministry - Brian Fenimore

Brian Fenimore teaches a simple and powerful approach to prophetic ministry.

 

My Friend's Healing Testimony

I was blessed (and honored) to share an evening with a new friend named Tom who suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Five weeks after his wedding, he was having a normal day when he noticed his foot felt like pins and needles. A few days later the disease had spread to a point where it nearly incapacitated him. The onset was so rapid that his neurologist gave him little hope for survival. The disease progressed and He was confined to a wheelchair for many years.

All those years while he was in a wheelchair, God used him powerfully to release healing and miracles for others. He learned about healing and miracles from John Wimber and was one of the original members of the first Vineyard church in Phoenix. He went from one healing service to another and saw hundreds of people healed of every kind of disease. Yet each night he went home and wondered, "Lord, what about my healing?"

The Lord reminded him often, saying, "It's not about you."

During this man's time of sickness, God did an amazing work in his heart and healed him of the inner wounds he had received as a child. During this time, the Lord shaped and molded his identity. One day after a particularly awesome time of worship he confessed, "Lord, I love you so much that even if you never heal me... I will still love you more than anything."

That part of his story really struck me. I wonder how many of us who are waiting for our healing could honestly say the same thing. Is our passion for God greater than our desire to be healed? Is it about us, or is it really about Him?

One day he was sitting in a prayer meeting with a group of guys when they decided to pray for the body of Christ separately. They all went to different parts of the building. He was sitting in his chair praying for the church, when suddenly things got a little crazy. He began to feel something like electricity zapping him in the head and he felt something like warm, liquid honey being poured over him. The next thing you know, he was up running through the streets of town completely healed.

In a vision, God showed him a dam with a reservoir behind it. He saw water dripping ever so slowly into the reservoir. Every drop of water that fell brought the water level a little higher until finally, the dam broke. This is how the Lord portrayed his healing. "Every prayer ever prayed for you was like a drop of water in the reservoir. Each one made a difference. Not one prayer was wasted. Now I want you to thank everyone who ever prayed for you."

My new friend has a truly amazing testimony. I've never seen anyone who is so enamored with God. His enthusiasm is off the charts. But it wasn't always that way. He's been through hard times, just like you probably have.

I shared this story to encourage you not to give up on God. He has not given up on you and He never will. Let Him heal you of all the things you need healing from; both physical and emotional. Fall completely in love with Him and let Him show you the love that He has for you and if necessary, wait patiently for your healing to arrive.