Health & Healing
Foundational Teachings
Does God still heal? What is God’s will concerning your healing? Does He heal cancer, AIDS, heart disease, flu and common cold? Find out the answers to these questions and more—spelled out clearly in the Bible—in this Real Help section on health and healing. You’ll also find Scripture-based prayers on healing for yourself or someone you love, biblical confessions to speak aloud, Scripture verses and testimonies. It’s an on line treasury of teaching, like millions have enjoyed.
Stir your faith for your healing today!
- God's Prescription for Divine Health
- Healing—It’s God’s Idea
- How to Receive Healing
- Live Long, Live Strong
- Take Your Healing—By Faith!
- What to Do When Healing Doesn’t Manifest
- Your Faith Connection for Healing
God’s provision for your healing is real! The Bible clearly states in (Proverbs 4:20-22) that the truth in Scripture is the supernatural prescription for divine health. Learn how to take this spiritual medicine and receive the complete health and well-being that, as a Christian, is rightfully yours.
1. God's Prescription for Divine Health
There is a medicine so powerful it can cure every sickness and disease known to man. It has no dangerous side effects. It is safe even in massive doses. And when taken daily according to directions, it can prevent illness altogether and keep you in vibrant health.
Does that sound too good to be true? It's not. I can testify to you by the Word of God and by my own experience that such a supernatural medicine exists. Even more importantly, it is available to you every moment of every day.
You don't have to call your doctor to get it. You don't even have to drive to the pharmacy. All you must do is reach for your Bible, open to (Proverbs 4:20-24) and follow the instructions you find there:
"My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health (Hebrew: medicine) to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee."
As simple as they might sound, those four verses contain the supernatural prescription to divine health. It's a powerful prescription that will work for anyone who will put it to work.
If you have received healing by the laying on of hands, following this prescription will help you maintain that healing. If you have believed for healing, but are experiencing lingering symptoms, it will help you stand strong until you are completely symptom-free. And if you are healthy now, it will help you stay that way--not just for a day or a week, but for the rest of your life!
Powerful Medicine
To understand how this prescription works, you must realize that the Word of God is more than just good information. It actually has life in it. As Jesus said in (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth [or makes alive]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
Every time you take the Word into your heart, believe it and act on it, that life of which Jesus spoke, the very LIFE of God Himself, is released in you. You may have read the healing scriptures over and over again. You may know them as well as you know your own name. Yet every time you read them or hear them preached, they bring you a fresh dose of God's healing power. Each time, they bring life to you and deliver God's medicine to your flesh.
That's because the Word is like a seed. (Hebrews 4:12) says it is "alive and full of power--making it active, operative, energizing and effective..." (The Amplified Bible). It actually carries within it the power to fulfill itself.
When you planted the Word about the new birth in your heart, then believed and acted on it, that Word released within you the power to be born again. By the same token, when you plant the Word about healing in your heart, believe and act on it, that Word will release God's healing power in you.
"But, you may say, "I've met people who know the Bible from cover to cover and still can't get healed!"
No doubt you do. But if you'll look back at God's prescription, you'll find it doesn't say anything about "knowing" the Bible. It says, attend to the Word.
When you attend to something, you give your attention to it. You make it top priority. You set aside other things so you can focus on it. When a nurse is attending to a patient, she constantly looks after him. She doesn't just leave him lying alone in his hospital room while she goes shopping. If someone asks her about her patient, she doesn't feel it's sufficient to say, "Oh, yes. I know him."
In the same way, if you're attending to the Word, you won't leave it lying unopened on the coffee table all day. You won't spend your day focusing your attention on other things.
On the contrary, you'll do what (Proverbs 4) says to do. You'll continually incline your ear to God's Word.
Inclining your ear includes more than just putting your physical ears in a position to hear the Word being preached (although that, in itself, is very important). It also requires you to actively engage with God's Word, to believe it and obey it.
In fact, The Amplified Bible translates (Proverbs 4:20), this way: "My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings." Submitting to the Word means making adjustments in your life. Say, for example, you hear the Word in (Philippians 4:4) that you are to "rejoice in the Lord always." If you've been doing a lot of griping and complaining, you'll have to change in order to submit to that Word. You'll have to repent and alter your behavior.
Take as Directed
In addition to inclining your ear to the Word of God, the (Proverbs 4) prescription also says you must keep it before your eyes and not let it depart from your sight. In (Matthew 6:22-23), Jesus reveals why that's so important. He says,"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"
Your eyes are the gateway to your body. If your eye (or your attention) is on the darkness, or the sickness that is in your body, there will be no light to expel it. If, however, the eyes of your heart are trained strictly on the Word, your whole body will eventually be filled with light, and healing will be the result.
Granted, it isn't easy to keep your attention centered on the Word like that. It takes real effort and commitment. It may require getting up a little earlier in the morning or turning off the television at night. But I urge you to do whatever it takes to take God's medicine exactly as directed.
It won't work any other way!
That really shouldn't be so surprising. After all, we wouldn't expect natural medication to work for us if we didn't take it as prescribed.
No rational person would set a bottle of pills on the night stand and expect those pills to heal them. No one would call the doctor and say, "Hey, doc! These pills don't work. I've carried them with me everywhere I go--I keep them in the car with me, I set them on my desk at work, I even have them next to me when I sleep at night--but I don't feel any better."
That would be ridiculous. Yet, spiritually speaking, some people do it all the time. They cry and pray and beg God to heal them, all the while ignoring the medicine He's provided. (They might take a quick dose when they go to church, but the rest of the week they don't take time for the Word at all!)
Why do people who love God and believe the Bible act that way? I think it's because they don't understand how putting the Word in their heart can affect their physical bodies. They don't see how something spiritual can change something natural.
If you'll read the Bible, however, you'll see that spiritual power has been affecting this physical world ever since time began. In fact, it was spiritual power released in the form of God's Word that brought this natural world into existence in the first place.
When you realize that God's Word is the force that originally brought into being everything you can see and touch--including your physical body--it's easy to believe that the Word is still capable of changing your body today. It makes perfect sense!
Faith in Two Places
"I'd have no problem at all believing God's Word would heal me if He'd speak to me out loud like He did in Genesis," you might say, "but He hasn't!"
No, and He probably won't either. God no longer has to thunder His Word down at us from heaven. These days He lives in the hearts of believers, so He speaks to us from the inside instead of the outside. What's more, when it comes to covenant issues like healing, we don't even have to wait on Him to speak.
He has already spoken!
He has already said, "...By [Jesus'] stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). He has already said,"...I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). He has already said,"The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up..." (James 5:15).
God has already done His part. So we must do ours. We must take the Word He has spoken, put it inside us and let it change us from the inside out.
You see, everything--including healing--starts inside you. Your future is literally stored up in your heart. As Jesus said, "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matthew 12:35).
That means if you want external conditions to be better tomorrow, you'd better start changing your internal condition today. You'd better start taking the Word of God and depositing it in your heart just like you deposit money in the bank. Then you can make withdrawals on it whenever you need it. When sickness attacks your body, you can tap into the healing Word you've put inside you and run that sickness off!
Exactly how do you do that?
You open your mouth and speak--not words of sickness and disease, discouragement and despair, but words of healing and life, faith and hope. You follow the last step of God's divine prescription and "Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee" (verse 24). In short, you speak the Words of God and call yourself healed in Jesus' Name.
Initially, that may not be easy for you to do. But you must do it anyway because for the faith to work it must be in two places--in your heart and in your mouth. "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10).
Some people say faith will move mountains. But, the scriptural truth is, faith won't even move a molehill for you unless you release it with the words of your mouth.
The Lord Jesus told us that "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith," (Mark 11:23). Notice the word say appears three times in that verse while the word believe appears only once. Obviously, Jesus wanted us to know that our words are crucial.
It's also important to note that He did not instruct us to talk about the mountain, He instructed us to talk to it! If we're going to obey Him, we must talk to the mountain of sickness and cast it out of our lives. The Lord told Charles Capps, I have told My people they can have what they say, but they are saying what they have! Instead of saying, "I'm healed," most Christians say, "I'm sick," and reinforce the sickness or disease.
"But, we say, I'm healed when my body still feels sick!"
It shouldn't. It didn't bother Abraham. He went around calling himself the Father of Nations for years even though he was as childless as could be. Why did he do it? Because "he believed...God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were" (Romans 4:17). He was "fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able also to perform" (verse 21).
You see, Abraham wasn't "trying" to believe God. He wasn't just mentally assenting to it. He had immersed himself in God's Word until that Word was more real to him than the things he could see. It didn't matter to him that he was 100 years old. It didn't matter to him that Sarah was far past the age of childbearing and that she had been barren all her life. All that mattered to him was what God said, because he knew His Word was true.
If you don't have that kind of faith for healing right now, then stay in the Word until you get it! After all,"faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Read, study, meditate, listen to tapes, watch videos of good, faith-filled teaching, and watch our weekly and daily television broadcast EVERY DAY until God's Word about healing is more real to you than the symptoms in your body. Keep on keeping on until, like Abraham, you stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief, but grow strong in faith as you give praise and glory to God (Romans 4:20), in (The Amplified Bible).
Having Done All...Stand!
As you put God's prescription for health to work in your life, don't be discouraged if you don't see immediate results. Although many times healing comes instantly, there also are times when it takes place more gradually.
So don't let lingering symptoms cause you to doubt. After all, when you go to the doctor, you don't always feel better right away. The medication he gives you often takes some time before it begins to work. But you don't allow the delay to discourage you. You just follow the doctor's orders and expect to feel better soon. Really you are "treating" your spirit that is the source of supernatural life and health for your physical body.
Release that same kind of confidence in God's medicine. Realize that the moment you begin to take it, the healing process begins. Keep your expectancy high and make up your mind to continue standing on the Word until you can see and feel the total physical effects of God's healing power.
When the devil whispers words of doubt and unbelief to you, when he suggests that the Word is not working, deal with those thoughts immediately. Cast them down (see 2 Corinthians 10:5). Speak out loud if necessary and say, "Devil, I rebuke you. I bind you from my mind. I will not believe your lies. God has sent His Word to heal me, and His Word never fails. That Word went to work in my body the instant I believed it, so as far as I am concerned, my days of sickness are over. I declare that Jesus bore my sickness, weakness and pain, and I am forever free."
Then, "having done all to stand" until your healing is fully manifested (see Ephesians 6:12-14). Steadfastly hold your ground. Don't waver. For as (James 1:6-8) says,"...He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.... Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."
Above all, keep your attention trained on the Word--not on lingering symptoms. Be like Abraham who "considered not his own body" (Romans 4:19). Instead of focusing on your circumstances, focus on what God has said to you.
Develop an inner image of yourself with your healing fully manifested. See yourself well. See yourself whole. See yourself healed in every way.
Since what you keep before your eyes and in your ears determines what you will believe in your heart and what you will act on, make the Word your number one priority. Keep taking God's medicine as directed and trust the Great Physician to do His wonderful healing work in you!
2. Healing—It’s God’s Idea
Health & Healing : Foundational Teachings Do you need a miracle? Are you facing a disease or illness only God can heal? You’re not alone. Throughout Scripture people have turned to the Lord for help, and He met them at the point of their greatest need… and now you can too. Let us teach you what the Bible says about healing so you can apply these biblical principles to your life today!
Doubled-over and weak from a loss of blood, the woman probably prayed no one would notice her as she inched forward through the crowd. She was focused on one objective: reaching the man making His way ahead of her.
He was “the One” people were talking so much about. She knew it without being told. As she trudged along, she recalled all the good things she’d heard a of His touch, blind people could now see; deaf people could hear; lame people could walk. As she turned these things over and over again in her mind, she actually bout Him, and for the first time in a long time, hope sprang up in her heart. Because began to expect something good would happen for her. She’d heard this man healed people free of charge, and He was healing everyone who came to Him. That was a good thing, because after 12 years of seeking cures for the terminal illness that racked her frail body, she was penniless.
Really, a miracle was her only hope—He was her only hope.
“If I can just get close enough to touch Him,” she muttered under her breath, “I will be healed.” Each time she said it, her determination became stronger. She fought her way through the swarm of people until finally, she reached Him.
The instant she touched Jesus’ clothes, healing power flowed into her body. She felt it. She didn’t even talk to Him—just touching Him in faith was enough to receive the miracle she so desperately needed.
It also was enough to cause Jesus to stop in His tracks and ask, “Who touched My clothes?” The men with Him were perplexed. “Look at this crowd pressing hard around You from all sides,” they said. “How can You ask such a question?”
But a demand had been placed on the power of God and Jesus knew it. He had something to say to that person and kept searching for her. Overcome with emotion, frightened and trembling, the woman fell down at His feet and told Him the whole truth. What Jesus had to say was great. “Daughter, your faith has restored you to health. Go in peace and be continually healed and freed from your disease.”
Yes. The reports she had heard about Him certainly were true!
Say What You Believe
One reason I like to read this familiar story about the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:25-34), in (The Amplified Bible)is because it is a good illustration of how our faith works, and how the Lord desires for us to be continually healed and free from disease.
The fact is, we can place a demand on the healing power of God at any time. His healing power is always present everywhere. God just needs us to use our faith and our words to decree a thing to come to pass in our lives.
This destitute woman reached out in faith to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, and her faith brought the power of God into her body. Notice how she said what she believed. “For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole” (verse 28).
We are no different than she. We will have what we say. We can’t get on our knees, pray and tell God we believe Him for something and then get up and say, “I don’t have it,” and expect results. By faith, we decree how and what we receive from God. Had this woman said, “Well, I wish I could receive healing, but I probably won’t,” she would not have gotten one thing. However, she kept saying, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” When she touched Him, she released her faith and received her healing—just like she said.
When I teach Healing School, often people are healed while coming into the service. I know that because after the meeting many of them testify and say, “I knew if I just came to this meeting, I would be healed.” Like the woman with the issue of blood, they had declared their faith and how they would receive their healing…and they did!
The woman with the issue of blood called it. She named it. She brought healing power into her body by saying words. And, the moment she touched Jesus, the power of God went into her and delivered her. She believed what she had been saying to be true. The instant she acted on it—it was done.
Who called the shots in this situation?
Jesus didn’t call the shots. That woman did. Her faith did.
It’s still the same way today. That’s the way faith works. The healing power of God is always present everywhere. You call it into your life. You call it into the bodies of your children. You’re the one who decides. Your words and your faith decree a thing in your life.
In other words, if you’re not happy with your life today, then guess who has to change in order for things in your life to change? You change your words. Start saying what you want to come to pass instead of what you have. The scripture tells us if we believe we receive when we pray, we will have whatsoever we say (Mark 11:24).
This woman with the issue of blood believed the reports she’d heard about Jesus. Apparently she believed in His goodness. She believed He could and would heal her. For us to obtain healing, we must know and believe what God’s Word says about healing because “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Just Open the Door
The truth is, healing is not man’s idea. Healing originated in the heart of God.
From the beginning, God has desired the very best for His people, including divine health. In (Exodus 15:26) God told the children of Israel, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.”With those words, He declared Himself to be our healer too. If He was the Lord who heals, He still is the Lord who heals, because God never changes (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6).
He desires for all His people to be well. Why? Because God loves us, and He is gracious (Psalm 145:8) which means He is “disposed to show favors.” That’s His natural disposition—to do us good. That’s why He has always been the healer. This psalm also tells us the Lord is “full of compassion…abounding in mercy and loving-kindness” (verse 8), in (The Amplified Bible). Now, if He is full of and abounding in those things, that means there isn’t room for anything else. He is “good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.”
Our God desires for us to be healed and whole even more than we desire it! We don’t have to twist His arm to get Him to heal us. We just have to give Him an opening into our lives.
We do that by trusting Him and believing His Word.
If you need healing, believe you are healed because of what you read in His Word. Believe in His goodness and willingness to heal you. That’s how your faith opens the door for God to move in this natural realm and produce healing for your body.
Faith is that force that comes out of your heart and causes the power of God to come into your circumstances.
(Psalm 107:20) this of God, “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” God wants us to live healed and free! He has given us His Word to teach us His ways. If we walk in His ways, we can be whole and complete. That’s why the Bible tells us to be doers of His Word (James 1:22).
The following words reveal the very heart of God toward us…
“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29).
That’s God’s will for your life. That it might be always well with you and your children.
You Must Choose
Receiving His will is not automatic, however.
God told the children of Israel what would bring the blessing and what would bring the curse in their lives. Then He told them to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). They had to choose to obey His Word in order to walk in the blessings He desired to give them. So do we.
We see from Scripture that the covenant of healing God gave Israel was immunity from disease. He said, “And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee” (Exodus 23:25). Moses said if you obey,“The Lord will keep you free from every disease…” (Deuteronomy 7:15), in New International Version.
God gave man statutes that would do them good and preserve them. Moses said,"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive…” (Deuteronomy 6:24).
God is sending you His Word today. He desires for all your needs to be met and everything in your life to be intact, including your health. The words of God “are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh” (Proverbs 4:22). One translation says His words are“medicine” to your flesh.
So read His Word with childlike faith. Simply believe and receive it.
Look What the Lord Has Done!
As you read through the Gospels, you’ll find that Jesus took our sin, sickness and disease, and on the third day, He came up out of that grave victorious! He overcame hell and death, totally destroying Satan’s power. Colossians 2:15 says,"having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."
All power was given unto Jesus in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18-19).
Satan has no authority over us after we are born again unless we give it to him. When we resist the devil, he will flee (James 4:7). We must resist sickness and disease with the same tenacity we resist sin. It’s our right to stay healthy. In fact, it’s my job and yours to take authority over the enemy in every area of our lives. We must not give him an inch!
Jesus didn’t. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
Jesus also plainly tells us,“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus showed us that anything that steals, kills or destroys is from the devil. But good things, things that give life—such as healing—come from God. In His ministry, Jesus healed everyone who would receive Him.
The Bible says Jesus came doing the will of the Father (John 6:38). We can know healing is the will of God simply by looking at the ministry of Jesus. And, Jesus healed them all when He walked the earth, and that’s still His ministry today. Jesus has always been against sickness and disease. In the Bible, you never see Him telling anyone, “You have to keep that sickness because God wants to teach you something.”
No. Jesus never hesitated to pray for anyone who wanted to receive healing. But if they didn’t receive Him, they didn’t receive the healing anointing. Today, Jesus hasn’t changed His mind or His ministry. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So we have every scriptural right to believe for healing for everyday who receives Jesus.
Matthew 9:35 says,“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” When Jesus was on earth He went about teaching, preaching and healing. That’s what we are to do—in His Name.
When Jesus walked the earth, He was God’s vehicle on the earth. He was God’s way to man and man’s way to God. Today, the Church is that vehicle.
Jesus came doing the will of God. He healed all the people who would receive Him. Then He sent out the disciples and gave them authority to do the same. Matthew 10:1 says, “He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.”
Jesus commissioned the Church to do the will of God. He told His disciples to go in His Name and do the things He had been doing: Cast out the devil. Lay hands on the sick, and they will recover (Mark 16:15-18). The Spirit of God is still at work today, just as He was in Jesus’ ministry. The power has not waned. But we must do our part.
The fact is, God’s best is not for us to get sick and then get healed. What really belongs to us is divine health—we can and should stay continually well.
“By whose stripes, ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). That’s the position we should take. We can stay healed and whole as we continually take in God’s medicine—His Word. That’s the way God planned it. We don’t have to talk Him into healing us…
Healing is God’s idea! It’s just up to us to believe it and receive it.
3. How to Receive Healing
God wants to heal you. Through His Son Jesus Christ, He provided for your complete healing—spirit, mind and body. Learn how to apply important spiritual principles so you can stand ready and willing to receive your healing today.
Since the days of the Old Testament, God has always wanted His people free from sickness and disease—cancer, arthritis, AIDS, heart trouble, even the common cold. And nothing more clearly reflects God’s will for our well-being than the earthly ministry of Jesus, who spent much of His time healing the sick.
That’s nice, you may be thinking, but that was 2,000 years ago. How do I get the “will of God” to manifest in my body today?
Well, first consider this: Believing that God can heal your body should be no different for you than believing He can forgive your sin. And yet, that truth becomes even more powerful when you realize that, not only can He forgive you and heal you—He already has!
God’s provision for the healing of your body and the forgiving of your sin are just two of the many benefits you received when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Your forgiveness and your healing were secured for you.
But while it is important to realize that healing indeed belongs to you as a believer, it is just as important to know how to apply God’s Word to your life so you can activate that healing…when you need it.
The following is a list of ways you can activate or implement the healing that already is yours. Study the scriptures listed and meditate on them. Then allow the Holy Spirit to reveal how you can apply them in your circumstances.
Believe the Word for Yourself.
(Proverbs 4:20-23); (Isaiah 53:4-5); (Matthew 13:15, 21:22)
This is the highest form of faith. It may be difficult to believe God’s promises to you at first because the physical circumstances are probably screaming just the opposite of God’s Word at you. So train yourself to look at God’s Word, not at the evidence of your five physical senses. Hear the Word, receive it by faith, stand on it—you need no further evidence.
Call for the elders of the Church.
(James 5:14)
The elders or leaders in your church should be people of great faith, people who know how to pray the prayer of faith. There certainly is no certificate that can be handed out which automatically qualifies someone as an elder in the Body of Christ. So be sure that the church leaders who come to pray for you are well established in faith.
Pray the Prayer of Agreement or the Prayer of Binding and Loosing.
(Matthew 16:17-19, 18:18-20)
When two or three believers get together in Jesus’ Name, He is there too. And if they ask anything and agree in prayer, it is done.
Pray the Prayer of Faith.
(John 16:23); (Mark 11:24); (James 5:15)
A very simple form of prayer involves more than just praying, “Heal me, Father.” The proper way to pray in faith is, “Father, in Jesus’ Name, I ask You for a manifestation of my healing. I believe I receive it now and I thank You for it.”
Watch how you pray, that your attitude is straight. Make a point of praying in faith and remember to believe that you receive.
Receive the laying on of hands.
There are two ways to receive the laying on of hands—where people of faith actually lay their hands on your body and believe you are healed as a result:
1. by any believer (Mark 16:15-20), and 2. by special ministries (1 Corinthians 12); (Hebrews 6:1-2).
Speak words of faith.
(Proverbs 12:6, 13-14, 18:20-21); (Mark 11:23, 5:22-28)
This overlaps with number one. When you believe the Word for yourself, you will automatically speak words of faith. This involves more than just saying “I am healed” a couple of times. You have to dedicate yourself, your time and your efforts to receiving the very best God has to offer. Both Jesus and the woman with the issue of blood spoke the desired end result. They spoke faith-filled words—so can you.
Have faith in the Name of Jesus.
(Acts 3:6, 16); (John 14:12-14); (1 John 3:23)
Jesus’ Name carries all the authority of Jesus Himself. When Peter spoke in Jesus’ Name, it was as if Jesus were speaking. He didn’t pray for the man at the gate called Beautiful. He spoke words of faith—in Jesus’ Name. In the same way and with the same authority, you can speak to your affliction.
Partake of the Lord’s Supper.
(Exodus 12:3-11); (1 Corinthians 11:23-30)
This is a fundamental way to receive healing that has been overlooked by the Church in recent history. When you receive the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus, you should be keenly aware that you are standing on the Blood Covenant of the New Testament, and acting according to the Word of God.
As we remember the body and the blood, we should not only judge ourselves concerning sin, but we should judge ourselves concerning sickness as well. After all, Jesus paid a high price for both of them. By receiving Communion, we are partaking of everything Jesus’ sacrifice provided—salvation, peace, prosperity and healing.
Stand, knowing the New Testament is true.
(1 Peter 5:5-7); (Romans 4:20-21)
Accept the New Testament as absolute truth. Don’t be moved by how you feel. True humility as seen in the Bible means standing before God in obedience to His Word and casting ALL your care on Him. True Bible humility says, “I don’t look healed. I don’t feel healed,” but God’s Word says, ‘with His stripes we were healed,’ so I must be healed. I accept the Word rather than the circumstances.”
4. Live Long, Live Strong
Do you desire to live a long, healthy life? Absolutely! And God wants you to enjoy a healthy life too. In fact, the Bible says God desires for you to live to be 120 years old. In this biblical based teaching, we will educates you on God’s will concerning a long and healthy life.
The Bible has a lot to say about God's will concerning our life here on the earth - how we are to live and for how long. God has a good, long life planned for us. But without that revelation, when we reach 60 or 70, we may start winding down and getting ready to go.
God never meant for us to die young. It's His will for us to live out the full number of our days. Traditionally, (Psalm 90:10) has been quoted in regard to man's life expectancy. It says: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten (seventy years) - or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years)..." (The Amplified Bible). But what most people don't realize is that reading this verse alone is taking it out of context. A footnote to Psalm 90 in The Amplified Bible explains:
This psalm is credited to Moses, who is interceding with God to remove the curse which made it necessary for every Israelite over twenty years of age (when they rebelled against God at Kadesh-barnea) to die before reaching the promised land (Num. 14:26-35). Moses says most of them are dying at seventy years of age. This number has often been mistaken as a set span of life for all mankind. It was not intended to refer to anyone except those Israelite s under the curse during that particular forty years. Seventy years never has been the average span of life for humanity. When Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes, had reached 130 years (Gen. 47:9), he complained that he had not attained to the years of his immediate ancestors. In fact, Moses himself lived to be 120 years old, Aaron 123, Miriam several years older, and Joshua 110 years of age. Note as well that in the Millennium a person dying at 100 will still be thought a child (Isa. 65:20).
Here we learn that the Israelite s who died at 70 were living under the curse caused by disobedience. According to (Galatians 3:13), Jesus has redeemed us from the curse being made a curse for us. If we have made Jesus our Lord, freedom from all the conditions the curse causes belongs to us—that includes sickness, destruction and early death.
So don't have the mindset that you should only live to be 70. What God actually said about man's lifespan is found in (Genesis 6:3): "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."
Think about it. That means at 60 you are just middle-aged. That's not the time to start slowing down. Instead stand on this scripture and others like (Psalm 103:2-5): "Bless the Lord...who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction...who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." Be determined to enjoy to the fullest the many productive years the Lord has promised you.
Live Long...by the Book
Like every other blessing, there are conditions to living a long life.(Psalm 91) is a picture of the person who receives this blessing.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.
The person this is talking about loves God and stays connected to Him. He doesn't fear, but trusts the Lord to be his refuge and says so. The truth of God's Word is his shield and buckler. He dwells or abides under the shadow of the Almighty in obedience, and God shows him His salvation. The word salvation means "material and temporal deliverance from danger and apprehension, preservation, pardon, restoration, healing, wholeness and soundness."
God will satisfy you with good things, including healing, protection and long life when you are living and abiding in Him.
Keep Doing God's Will
A commentary on (Psalm 90) in the Tehillim says until Moses reached 80, like other men he was growing weaker. But look what happened to him then. "When he reached the age of eighty, Moses received an extraordinary infusion of youthful energy and vitality, because at that time he was chosen to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, to receive the Torah, and to lead the Jews to the Promised Land. This Divine mission so invigorated him that his health and strength remained undiminished until the moment of his death."
Deuteronomy 34:7 says, "And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated."
Just as He did with Moses, God can give you a new assignment at any time. So if you have noticed that you've been slowing down because you're getting a little older, double up on the Word. Let the Word be made spirit and life to you (John 6:63). And get involved with what God is doing. That's the best way to live a long, productive life.
Acts 1:1-2 in the New Living Translation says, "Jesus began to do and teach until the day he ascended..." That's my plan too—to do and teach until I ascend! I encourage you to do the same. Live long and live strong-stay well and stay here as long as God has something worthwhile for you to do.
God's best is for you to live in divine health every day, but He is also eager to heal. John G. Lake said, "Divine healing is the removal by the power of God of the disease that has come upon the body. But divine health is to live day by day, hour by hour in touch with God so that the life of God flows into the body just as the life of God flows into the mind or flows into the spirit."
You live in divine health by staying in continual contact with the Word of God and the Spirit of God. In fact, the way to be free in every area of life is to attach yourself to God.
It's your responsibility to stay well and whole. You do that with the Word of God and by resisting the devil. Go to the Bible and find out the truth. Realize that healing belongs to you and stand in faith for it. Rebuke symptoms when they try to come. Say, "No, you're not coming here, in the Name of Jesus. I'm healed by the stripes of Jesus."
When the devil tries to crowd your mind with dark thoughts about your life being cut short, rebuke them. Replace those thoughts with the promises of God. Speak the Word out loud in faith. Remember (Psalm 91) says the person who makes the Lord his refuge, the one who receives protection and deliverance, has to say so.
Obey Natural and Spiritual Laws
God didn't make your physical body to fail. He made your physical body to sustain itself when given the right food and the right conditions. He created your body to stay well and live to be of old age.
And if that's your goal, you'll need to determine that. Regardless of what ailments your relatives have had, they don't need to affect you. Don't look at your family history. You are born of God. Now you're part of His family. You can take the Word of God and stop any unwanted, hereditary tendencies in your life.
Now, that doesn't mean you can eat unhealthy foods all the time and expect to live healed and live long. Most sickness is self-induced by living wrong and eating wrong. There are natural and spiritual laws by which we are to live. It's our responsibility to eat the right kind of food, exercise, rest—to make choices that will help us stay healthy.
God expects us to obey Him. Scripture tells us over and over to hearken to God's voice and His Word. Proverbs 4:20-22 says,"My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh." The margin of my Bible indicates the word health can be translated as "medicine. God's Word is medicine to your flesh. Not only that, this medicine affects everything in your life. It will cause your faith to rise up and receive.
Get into the Word—it's essential to your life and health. Spend time there and find out what God is telling you to do. If He instructs you to make changes, know that they will always be for your benefit. In NASB Bible Psalm 25:12-13 says "Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose.(v13) His soul will abide in prosperity, And his descendants will inherit the land."
When you are obedient to walk in His ways, God surrounds you with blessings— healing, protection, favor, whatever you need.
Guard Your Heart
If symptoms linger, if our healing doesn't readily manifest, Ken and I start checking to see if we are walking in love and obeying God. We ask ourselves if we are spending enough time in the Word of God for it to be made life and health to our flesh.
Proverbs 4:23 in The Amplified Bible warns you,"Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life." You "keep" your heart by keeping it full of the Word of God. That's the most important thing you have to do in this life. You can't live in divine health and keep your faith up without a steady diet of the life force of God, which is the Word of God.
The wisdom of God is written down for us in His Word. Revelation of the Word is precious because it takes care of everything in our life. It causes health and healing to come. It brings happiness, joy and peace—nothing missing, nothing broken. Walking in God's wisdom is a key to living long and living well.
Proverbs 3:13-18 says: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her."'
By spending time in the Word of God we can have so much life flowing out of us that sickness and disease can't even get close to us.
Jesus teaches us that our commandment is to walk in love. We are to love God with all our heart and to love each other. You can't live long and strong and be in strife, unforgiveness or other disobedience. When that happens the life flow is hindered. Disobedience also comes in the form of wrong words, traditions of men, anger, bitterness, grief, fear, envy and jealousy. All disobedience opens the door to the enemy and stops the life flow. These things can adversely affect our health and our ability to receive from God.
Disobedience opens the door to the effects of the curse in our lives, but obedience releases the blessings of God.
I'm convinced it would be possible to live to be 120 years old by obeying the Word of God. If you ate the way God said to eat and abstained from what He said to abstain from, you'd be well on your way to a strong, healthy body. Add to that a steady diet of the Word of God, allowing the life force of the Word to continually quicken (make alive) your mortal flesh. Then if you were faithful to obey the Word of God in every area of life, I believe you could live an active, productive life of 120 years or more.
When you walk with God, you can walk healed and live long."And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee...the number of thy days I will fulfill" (Exodus 23:25-26).
5. Take Your Healing—By Faith!
Take it!
That’s exactly what you have to do if you want to obtain healing.
In fact, in every area of life obtaining the victory boils down to one thing: Just take God at His Word. What He says—what is written in His Word—is the absolute truth and it really will work if we will only take hold of it.
The fact of the matter is, healing is no problem for the Lord. The only hard part is getting people to believe what He has said about it so they can receive their healing.
God has given each of us the choice. He said it this way: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). We must choose to take what God has offered. And we must do that—“by force”.
If you need a healing, you can’t sit back and wait for God to drop it down on you. You have to do what it takes so you can rise up in faith and take what rightfully belongs to you!
Taking requires active faith. Having faith in God and His Word is the bottom-line answer to every problem regardless of what others may say. People are not short of well-meaning advice. I’m sure you’ve figured that out, especially if you are believing God for healing. More than likely, you’ve also figured out that most of what people say is not productive advice. I can tell you from experience, the answers that actually work are found in one place—the Word.
God’s Word has the power within it to bring itself to pass. Not only that, God’s Word teaches us to think His way which is the higher, better and smarter way (Isaiah 55:8-11). That becomes possible when His Word, His way of thinking, crowds out other thoughts and ideas. Then you can pray in faith and receive what you need.
Faith Believes It Takes!
“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,” Jesus said, “believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24 KJV Bible). That word receive is an action word. It means “to take.” We could say, “What things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you take them.” That is a brief lesson on faith right there! Faith believes it takes what is needed when it prays. That’s exactly what we must do when we pray for healing. We must take healing like a dog takes a bone. He clamps down hard on that bone and refuses to turn loose of it!
The fact is, you really haven’t prayed in faith if you pray about something, but don’t take it. If you get up from prayer saying, “I don’t have it. I’m still sick, I still feel bad,” then you didn’t take it…and you certainly don’t have it.
You simply cannot look at the circumstances to determine whether or not you are healed. 2 Corinthians 4:18 explains that you must “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
See yourself taking your healing when you pray. See yourself in perfect health. Take it—by faith—and hold on to it. When you take it, you have it. And if you have it, you say you have it. You call “things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17).
To get to that point, read healing scriptures aloud and receive (take) each promise. Look at the scriptures with your eyes, and hear them with your ears as you speak them out your mouth. Rest assured they will get down into your heart and you’ll be able to release your faith. You’ll say, “Thank You, Lord, I believe I’m healed and I take it!”
Be Relentless!
Years ago, one woman had to take healing in just that way. She was given a report that the cancer in her liver was fatal. The doctors offered no hope. So, she went home from the hospital and her husband took forceful action! They stood in agreement on the healing promises in the Word of God. They confessed God’s Word over her body. They were relentless.
She faithfully took those healing scriptures every day, just like medicine. She fought the good fight of faith by using the sword of the Word to resist fear and all the lies of the devil (Ephesians 6:17; James 4:7). It was a battle that took a while, but she was completely healed of cancer and remains free today. In fact, she has been cancer free for more than 22 years. She says she stays well by consistently taking God’s medicine.
Proverbs 4:20-22 explains this process for healing. It says: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh." The Hebrew word translated health there means “medicine.” Healing scriptures are God’s medicine for your body. So, take that medicine daily, be relentless about it and take your healing.
The fact is, as a child of the living God you are more than a conqueror in Christ (Romans 8:37)! So, if you’re believing for healing, you can kick the devil out of your life with the Word of God! If it takes time to obtain a complete healing, don’t give up; be determined to persevere until you win! And, don’t fall prey to self-pity or seek sympathy from others. That is not what you need. Faith is what you need.
Do the Heavy Lifting
Let’s look at the important lesson Jesus taught His disciples about faith and receiving from God. In (Mark 11), we find He charged them simply to “Have faith in God” (verse 22). By way of explanation about this scripture, the margin of my Bible says, “Have the faith of God.” Faith is imparted to us when we’re born again, and we are given “the measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). At that time, God gives us the same kind of faith He has. But, we have a responsibility to feed and grow our faith.
Faith for healing comes as we meditate on what God’s Word says about healing. When we read healing scriptures, we are building up our faith to obtain healing. A bodybuilder lifts weights consistently to build up his muscles. He becomes stronger day by day as he works out. We build up our faith in the same way—we exercise the healing scriptures over and over again until we become strong enough in faith to take our healing out of the realm of the spirit into the natural realm.Hebrews 11:1 says it this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Jesus told several people who received healing that it was their faith that made them whole.(See Matthew 9:22; Mark 10:52 and Luke 17:19). And, faith will work for you the same way it worked for those mentioned in the Bible.
God is present where faith is present. Faith causes the supernatural healing power of God to come on the scene and override natural diseases and circumstances.
The Word of Faith
I’m sure you realize faith for healing won’t come by reading secular magazines or comic books. To build your faith, you must read the Bible and believe it is God speaking to you. Romans 10:17 explains, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Find scriptures that apply to your situation and take hold of those promises and apply them to your life. That’s the truth that changed my life—knowing that the Bible is God’s Word to me, and I can take it and do something with it (John 17:17).
The Bible tells us what God says about things. Men of old, anointed of the Holy Spirit, wrote down what came out of the heart of God. In regard to healing, they wrote things like “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
The born-again spirit is a receptacle for the Word of God. His words get into us when we consistently take them in through our eyes and ears. From there His life-giving words go down into our hearts, or our spirits, and affect our entire body.
So, if you need healing, feed on healing scriptures daily. Your faith increases according to how much time you spend in God’s Word. When the Word gets down into your heart and overflows out your mouth in faith—healing will manifest!
Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “For out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks”(The Amplified Bible). What you continually say with your mouth is what you are enjoying or struggling with in your life today. Your words either open or shut the door to the power of God working in your situation. They also open or shut the door on the devil. So if you catch yourself saying things you don’t desire in your life, repent and change your words. Speak only what you want to come to pass.
God’s Word and Your Words Are Powerful!
Every word you say is important. To have faith for healing operating in your life, you must have confidence not only in God’s Word, but in your words.(Mark 11:23) says,“For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”
Faith comes by hearing and goes by saying. Faith is released by your words.
Faith is believing what God says in His Word regardless of what any person, circumstance or the devil may say. And faith speaks what the Word says. When you take the Word into your heart and it comes out through your voice, it becomes God’s Word applied to the problem. If you will keep your words in agreement with God’s Word, they will change your natural circumstances. Or, as Jesus said, “The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
But if you read the Word with traditional eyes, not believing the promises are for you, you disqualify yourself from receiving those promises. It takes faith—believing in God and His Word—for the Word to transform your situation.
Receive the Word as truth. Then say, “That’s God speaking to me. I can have it. I take it!”
That’s faith.
Possess the Land
After you have received God’s Word for healing by faith, begin to do what you couldn’t do before..James 1:22 says we must be doers of the Word, not hearers only.
The children of Israel in the wilderness are a good example of what happens to hearers who are not doers. Through Moses, God told this nation of people He had given them the land. At one point, Moses basically told them the Lord said they had been going around the same mountain long enough (Deuteronomy 1:6). Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps even now you are going around that mountain of unbelief and getting nowhere fast!
If so, you can take drastic faith action!
What God said to the children of Israel applies to you as well. He said: “Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers…to give unto them and to their seed after them” (verse 8).
God had promised them the land. But possessing it wasn’t automatic. He was telling them to go armed and take it. That was the only way they were going to get it.
If you need healing, that’s how you must possess it too! You must take it!
Take It by Force!
Healing belongs to you and to me. God has given us great promises in His Word, including promises of health and wholeness. He sent Jesus to die on the cross to redeem us from sin and sickness. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us….” The curse includes every sickness and every disease (Deuteronomy 28:15-68). Jesus’ sacrifice paid for us to be redeemed from them all.
As far as God is concerned, that settles the issue of healing. It’s all done. There’s nothing left for Him to do. Healing belongs to us in Christ Jesus, and yet it’s not automatic. It’s up to us to receive it.
If you need healing, take it! Take it with your faith, and with your words.Believe you receive it and don’t waver.
6. What to Do When Healing Doesn’t Manifest?
Have you done all you know to do and still your healing hasn’t come? In this encouraging and enlightening message, you’ll learn how to stand for your healing, confess scripture over your situation and stay strong until your healing manifests.
You know God wants you healed, and you have taken all the steps you know from God’s Word to receive your healing. But for some reason, your circumstances just do not seem to be changing...healing is not manifesting in your body.
What do you do now?
First, it is important to understand that God has not failed you. He cannot, because there is no failure in Him. It is never God who is short on healing power. Healing always comes. However, it is not always received.
When demands are made on the power of God, the healing virtue of Jesus Christ will flow into a person’s body and make it whole.
In (John 5), the story is told about a man who had an infirmity for 38 years. This story, perhaps, gives us the best picture of the frustration that even today’s believers face when it comes to wanting to be healed, and yet, not being able to make it happen when we want it—and need it—the most.
We read that day after day the invalid man lay by the pool of Bethesda hoping somehow to be the first person in the water after the angel stirred it, because if he was the first to make it in, he could be healed.
But then along came Jesus. He asked the man, “Do you want to become well?” The invalid answered saying, “Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool....” (See verses 6-7) in The Amplified Bible.
The significant detail in their conversation at this point is that the man was so focused on the problem of not being able to get into the water before someone else, that he never even considered placing a demand on Jesus to help him—to get him healed.
Like this man, many believers today desire to be healed, yet they have not willed to be healed. What’s the difference?
The difference is that determination is what makes a demand on the power of God. After all, God has sent His Word, and according to that Word, healing has already been purchased by the blood of Jesus. So, the rest is up to us. We must act on this new blood covenant to get the results we desire.
Still, for those times when it seems God’s healing power has somehow been short-circuited and it just is not flowing through our lives, the Bible points out some problem areas that may be the reason for this lack of healing or health. Some of those problem areas include:
- Failure to forgive others (Mark 11:25-26)
- Lack of knowledge and lack of vision (Hosea 4:6); (Proverbs 29:18)
- Lack of discernment of the Lord’s body when taking communion
(1 Corinthians 11:23-32)
- Lack of integrity in your heart (Psalm 25:21)
Since we know there is no failure with God, it is obvious that when believers do not receive their healing, the problem must lie elsewhere. Keeping this in mind, we need to realize that healing largely depends on a firm stand in the fact that your prayer has been heard, and, that it has been answered.
The challenge, then, comes in not swaying from God’s Word. And in part, that means we need to keep our tongue in line with what God says about our healing.
To help you stay in line with the final Word on healing, we suggest you take the following scriptures, look them up in your Bible, then read them over and over, and meditate on them. It may even help you to write or type them out on separate paper so you can have easier access to them throughout your day.
- Proverbs 10:11, 12:18, 13:3, 15:4, 16:24, 18:21
- Psalm 34:13-14
- 1Peter 3:10-11
By the way, you may find it interesting to know that nine of the 11 plagues that came against Israel, as recorded in the book of Numbers, were caused by misuse of the tongue. So you see, your mouth—and your words—will either work for you, and bring health and healing to your life, or they will work against you, bringing nothing but harm.
Make them work for your good. Make them get on track with what God has said and is saying. Speak the Word—and keep speaking it and keep speaking it. As you do, God will confirm it. And He says, "you are healed!"
7. Your Faith Connection for Healing
Many people want to know that they can be healed, but in this insightful message, learn how you can receive your healing. Don’t give up on your healing. Let us teach you what the Bible says about your healing and how you can reach out with the hand of faith, grab hold of it and refuse to let go!
If you have wanted to receive healing but you haven't yet been able to make the faith connection, this article is especially for you. Maybe you've gotten discouraged and begun to wonder if you even have the capacity for the kind of faith it takes to be healed. Maybe you've been tempted to give up and say, "I guess it's just not going to work for me."
If so, I want to assure you today that you can have that kind of faith—and it will work for you just like it worked for the people in the Bible. It will work for you just like it worked for Abraham. It will work for you just like it worked for blind Bartimaeus. It will work for you just like it's worked over and over in in our life's.
Now I can't say for sure about Abraham and Bartimaeus, but I can tell you that we are just ordinary people. We're not some kind of spiritual super heroes. We don't have some special quality that makes us automatically believe God. On the contrary, the first five years after we were born again we had as much doubt and unbelief (and therefore as much failure and defeat) in our lives as anybody I know.
What changed us? The Word of God.
We're living proof that (Romans 10:17) is true."Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Notice that verse doesn't just say, "Faith comes by hearing." It says,"Faith comes by hearing and hearing!" That's the truth. Most of the time, real and lasting faith doesn't spring up the first or second time you hear what the Bible says about a certain subject. It grows as you continue to hear it.
Jesus said it this way,"If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).
I can assure you that the scriptural truth is that as a believer, you can be free of all sickness and disease because God has promised to be your Healer (Exodus 15:26). The truth is that when Jesus went to the cross, He bore our sicknesses, carried our diseases, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5). The truth is that the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up (James 5:15).
And if you continue in that truth, Jesus said it will make you free!
17 Times Was Not Enough
Some time ago, I was listening to a tape by one of my favorite faith preachers and he told a story that wonderfully demonstrated that truth. It was about a man who attended a series of his meetings many years ago and came forward to have hands laid on him for healing again and again—17 times in fact—and he still hadn't gotten healed.
This preacher had done everything he knew to do to help him. He'd talked personally to him in the prayer line. He'd prayed with him. But nothing changed. The preacher explained that laying hands on him was about like laying hands on a doorknob. There was no power connection because in his heart this man didn't release faith to receive.
But this dear fellow just kept coming to the services and listening to the Word. The eighteenth time he came up to have hands laid on him for healing, the preacher himself didn't even expect the man to receive anything.
But that time was different. When the preacher lifted his hand to pray for the man the fire of God leaped from his hand, lifted the fellow up, turned him over and rolled him under the front pew. Obviously, he received his healing in a powerful way!
Some people might look at that incident and say, "Well, that just goes to show you that you never know what God's going to do. Sometimes He gives healing and sometimes He doesn't." But they'd be mistaken. The change was not in the giving every time. The change was in the receiving it.
"But God hasn't given me that kind of faith," you might say.
He didn't give it to them either. He sent them the Word and because they continued in it, faith came.
Your Attention Please!
Remember this: it's not up to God whether you get faith or not, it is up to you. He has provided the means whereby faith can be received. Whether or not you continue to avail yourself of those means is entirely your choice!
Proverbs 4:20-23 tells exactly how to do it:
Pro 4:20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Pro 4:21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
Pro 4:22 For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
"My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh. Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. (The Amplified Bible)
Notice the first thing you must do is to give attention to the Word of God. If you want to live a free life, if you want to live a life of blessing, health and increase, you will have to give attention to the Word. How do you do that? The King James translation says, "incline thine ears" unto it and "let it not depart from thine eyes." In other words, you make it a priority in your life to hear the Word of God taught, as well as to read it and study it for yourself.
You keep meditating on it until it comes alive in your heart. Jesus called the Word that's alive in you the abiding Word. He said, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." When God's Word is abiding in your heart about something, you can ask for it and get it because you have the faith to receive.
How do you know if the Word is abiding in your heart?
It comes up when you need it. It talks to you. When you encounter a situation where you need help, the Word abiding in you comes to your mind and tells you what to do. If you're standing for your healing, the minute symptoms hit your body, the Word of God starts speaking to you from the inside. It springs up out of your heart and causes you to open your mouth and say things like, "I command these symptoms to go from me. I declare I'm healed by the stripes of Jesus!"
Say What?
That's the way the Word of God works to produce faith. It goes in your eyes and ears and gets down in your heart. Then it comes out of your mouth in faith and goes to work to change your circumstances. A lot of people seem to have trouble with that last part. They don't want to speak words of faith. But real Bible faith is saying faith. It causes us to "believe, and therefore speak" (2 Corinthians 4:13).
Mark 11:23 confirms that. Jesus said, "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith." According to that verse, faith has to be in two places—in your heart and in your mouth.
When you're under pressure and your body is hurting, it's easy to start talking about how you feel instead of talking about what the Word says. You're tempted to give voice to the problem instead of the answer. But if you do, you'll undermine your own faith. So resist that temptation. Go get your Bible and just start reading the healing scriptures out loud.
Use your mouth to build your faith instead of using it to tear it down!
If you'll do that, God's Word will work in you like medicine. It will be life to you and bring healing and health to your flesh. One friend of mine says it this way, "The Word is God's medicine. Take it two or three times a day. If symptoms persist, double the dose!"
Although it's always good to do an overall study of God's Word, when you're tackling a specific problem, it's best to focus on the scriptures that speak particularly about that area. When Ken and I first learned to walk by faith, that's what I had to do in the area of prosperity. Money was the biggest problem we had back then. We didn't have cancer or any other critical problem to deal with physically but we had a serious lack attack.
So I looked up all the scriptures in the Bible I could find that promised prosperity. I wrote them down and put them beside my bed. Every night, before I went to sleep I would go over those scriptures. Just like you would take medicine if you were sick, I'd take those scriptures for the healing of my finances. And it worked, glory to God!
Don't Forget the Benefits
There are many wonderful scriptures in the Bible you can use to build your faith for healing. You can find them in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament because God has always been a Healer. Even under the Old Covenant, before Jesus came, God made a way for Israel to be healed and protected from the curse of sickness that was on the world because of sin. He gave them commandments, laws and statutes that, if obeyed, would keep them physically well. If they did get sick, He told them exactly what to do when they came before the priests so that they could receive their healing.
From the very beginning, God has said to His people,"I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). That fact alone should help build your faith. It lets us know that God is a good God Who wants us well and whole. The God Who changes not (Malachi 3:6) is still the "Lord that healeth" us today!
Psalm 103 reaffirms that truth. It says:
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's (verses 1-5).
Healing, just like forgiveness of sins, is one of the benefits God provides for us as His covenant people. According to that Psalm, we need to make sure we don't forget that! We need to make sure we don't just hear the Word about healing in a service on Sunday, then walk out the door and never think of it again. We need to rehearse that benefit over and over in our minds so that we remember it.
Why? Because the benefits we remember are the benefits we will enjoy day-to-day. It's the benefits we're continually thanking the Lord for that manifest regularly in our lives.
Some people are not sure that the benefits listed in the Old Testament are meant for us today. But the life of Jesus lets us know they are! He is our Savior. And Acts 10:38 clearly tells us, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and withpower: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."
Doesn't that bless you? Jesus proved that the God Who healed diseases in the Old Testament is still healing them all in the New!
For me, that word all is a faith-building word.Matthew 12:15 says that "great multitudes followed [Jesus], and he healed them all." Luke 6:19 says that "the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all."
Since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), you can be assured that if He healed all that came to Him 2,000 years ago, He will still heal all who come to Him today. And all certainly includes you!
Stay in the Game
Even in Jesus' ministry, faith played a vital role in the people's ability to receive. In the 19 individuals who are mentioned in the Gospel accounts of healing, faith is specifically mentioned in 12 and implied in others. In one instance, when Jesus ministered in Nazareth, we're told clearly that He could do there no mighty works because of the people's unbelief (Matthew 13:58).
There is only one thing that limits God's giving and that is our capacity to receive. So it all comes down to this: to experience the fullness of God's healing power in your life, you need to develop your faith and become a good receiver.
That's true for all of us. God has given us His Word. He has given us His Spirit. Now it's our job to put that Word in our eyes and in our ears until it gets in our heart and starts coming out of our mouth in faith. It's our job to become expert receivers.
Biblical receiving is an active thing. It means to take God's truth to yourself; to pursue, to seek and go after it. It means to put time and effort into your relationship with the Lord, to pay close attention to Him and His Word.
We become expert receivers of God's blessings when we focus on His Word with every fiber of our being and we expect it to come to pass. We reach out with the hand of faith, grab hold of it and refuse to let go.
Make up your mind right now that's what you're going to do. Determine you're going to stay in the game until you win. With the Word in your heart and faith in your mouth, you can be sure that in the end, you will be standing in your victory!
If you you need healing, click on the following links:
The following pages provide some
help and encouragement for the new and long time Christian alike:
In Joshua 3:13–17,
the priests, as commanded by God, stepped into the Jordan, the river
stopped flowing, and Israel crossed the Jordan. How many of us today are
standing on the bank of the Jordan afraid or unwilling to get our feet
wet? And what does the analogy of “getting our feet wet” mean?
To get one’s feet wet means to step out in faith. It is an act of faith and an act of surrender.
Are
you going to just stand on the bank of the Jordan waiting for something
to happen or are you going to take action and get your feet wet?
Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Enough is Enough! You have the right to live a victorious life.
Effective Prayers!
To
obtain genuine prosperity resides only in the gospel of Christ. God
desires all-around prosperity, success and health for His children.
Learn how to be victorious. Go to our School of Excellence page and we will teach you how to use Effective Prayers which will help you to be spiritually strong and no principalities will be able to harm you.
Prayer
is the most important tool you can use to defeat the enemy. You must be
wary of the fact that the enemy is all out to frustrate our lives.
You will be victorious at the moment you resist him through prayer.
Remember Jesus has overcome the world, and the Holy Spirit is our helper. We are overwhelming conquerors through Jesus Christ!
So, roll up your spiritual sleeves and go to work. Get ready to have the time of your life and see fast results.
Anyone
who wishes to live a victorious life in Jesus Christ should release
that we all are dealing with a myriad of attacks from the devil.
Many
of you are under attack without even realizing it, or you know that you
are under attack but don't know how to deal with it. The subject is a necessary teaching that has unfortunately fallen
by the wayside in most churches today.
There
are numerous passages in the Bible that address this issue. Perhaps the
most important is that we are overwhelming victors through Jesus
Christ. Jesus made it clear that we have authority over these things and
we are not to be in fear.
A
ministry can easily be inundated by prayer requests from people all
over the world. Prayer teams can be formed for this purpose but the end
result is that no one learns how to win on their own and problems may
come back.
Power To Excel Ministries - their primary teaching is how to pray and have a fast results when thinks are not going well in our lives.
Learn how to become an overwhelming victor through Jesus Christ who loves us (Rom. 8:37).
- Learn to gain victory in every area of your life!
- Learn how to pray so you can achieve and maintain this victory.
If
you wish to have additional Search the Scripture teaching from the desk of our Revivalist and teacher Dale A Rogers go to our School Of Excellence page. For more information go to About Us page.
