If you missed last week’s introductory article to this subject, be sure to catch up on what you missed!
When a person is told that the reason he or she is not healed is always his or her fault, and this also includes tragic accidents and death, we believe this is wrong teaching. The reason a person is not healed may be that they did not build a life of faith through the Word, but it also may not be so. At any point a person can repent, seek God and immerse himself or herself in the Word. Of course, if the person had faith according to Mark 11:24 they have what they ask. However, a person cannot fully determine that they will have that kind of faith. It has to be granted by God. So we would rather talk about what a person can do to maximize the potential of healing and to rest in God if the healing does not come.
1. First we counsel people to place themselves in the hands of God and submit to him as LORD. They should confess all known sin, curses, bitterness, un-forgiveness and generational curses that may not have been renounced in our early discipleship. (This is implied by James.)
2. Secondly, they should take the Lord’s Supper. It has healing power.
3. They should call the elders to anoint with oil and pray for healing. (James)
4. They should focus their mind on their destiny in eternal life and the Age to Come and be fully given to the Hope of their ultimate destiny. Thereby they defeat the fear of death.
5. They meditate on the goodness of God and Messiah and on the Biblical promises of healing to give opportunity for God to grant healing faith. So there is something that we can do, but it does not assure us of the absolute certainty of healing. However, we can maximize opportunity for building receptive faith.
6. They avail themselves of Spirit led opportunities for conferences, healing ministries etc. This should be prayed about and led by the Spirit without a frantic pursuit of healing ministers and conferences.
7. They do well to avoid pronouncements that they are healed. In addition, we seek to preclude well-meaning people form pronouncing healing or from leading the congregation into the intensity of standing in an absolute way for such healing and then the possible crash that comes as a result.
8. Yet we do avail ourselves of proven prophets that can speak a word into the situation, and grounds that need to be broken and other possible pronouncements. The situation of my youngest son is a case in point. The first time he was taken ill at 1 year old with a fatal heart disease, the doctors gave no hope and said he would die. Credible prophets spoke the word that he would be totally healed and recover. We saw the most amazing supernatural recovery. 11 years later, when he was on life support, we organized the most intensive prayer for his healing. This was confirmed by mature prophets, but not one mature prophet could get a word from God that he would be healed, raised from the dead, etc. So we knew that while we were battling, we could not rest on any clear prophetic word. Though we read Scripture promises, God did not grant us the faith to raise him up.
So let us all pray for healing. Let us build our faith for it. When sickness comes, let us first go to God and pray and seek to receive faith for healing. Let’s pray for healing as long as the person is living. However, let us recognize the sovereignty of God in these matters and embrace the whole Bible and its teaching in these matters.
If anyone has the patience for a very scholarly and good book, we do recommend Michael Brown’s book Israel’s Divine Healer.