For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” Matt 9:21-22 NKJV
The key in healing, indeed the key to all answered prayer, is to make a connection with God. if we were in Heaven, the connection with the Father would be instantaneous and continuous. But, while on earth, and in our death prone ‘earth suits,’ that connection can be difficult at times to achieve. When you’re ministering healing, all you are trying to do is help that person connect with God. If they make that connection…the healing happens. It is God’s will to heal anyone, saved or unsaved, in any situation, regardless of any circumstance, night or day, totally and completely, spirit, soul and body. The key is for that person, perhaps with help, to make that connection.
It’s wonderful to have a great reputation! I’m told – I’ve never tried it – that if you google ‘healing/speaking in tongues,’ our name will come up. Earlier this year, a woman called me that I didn’t know, seeking healing. I spoke with her for a few minutes and then began to minister healing. The Spirit came down and we were done in short order. Finally, she said she would send a testimony soon. I never tried to get her contact info or even her name. I just wanted her to be blest. I thanked her for the privilege of ministering to her and went back to work. A few weeks later we received the largest single gift we had received all year, again from an anonymous source.
And these signs will follow those who believe…Mark 16:17 NKJV
The gifts of healing and miracles should be in the toolbox of every born again one. Nothing demonstrates the reality of Jesus’ victory over sin, sickness, and death like the ministry of healing.
I saw my first miraculous healing about three months after I got filled with the Spirit, when I was sixteen years old. My friend and I were on his motorcycle, and we went to see this young lady whom I had met in class. She came to her door in crutches, with a big ace bandage around her ankle. I said, “Cream, what happened?” (Her friend and her were Peaches and Cream). “I was in a car accident, and my ankle hurts really bad,” she said, through the tears. I said, “Cream, do you believe God will heal you if I pray for you?” My friend said, “You know, it doesn’t work all the time.” I said, “Shut up!” and I asked her again. She nodded, yes. I knelt, put my hand on her ankle, and commanded it to be healed in Jesus’ name. The pain and swelling left instantly! She was so astonished…she put down her crutches and started to dance!
And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Matt 10:1 NKJV
One time I was ministering in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in a church where a woman brought her eight-year-old son up for prayer. He was deaf and mute. I laid my hands on his ears. The Spirit of God said, “Its a deaf and dumb spirit.” I said, “You deaf and dumb spirit, you come out right now in Jesus’ name!” My translator clapped his hands once. The boy jumped! Within minutes he was saying his own name…
Up in Portland Maine, in the USA, I was teaching on the gifts of the Spirit. One night we did a deliverance service with about two hundred dear born again ones present. I heard this testimony six months later while I was traveling with a group from Maine in Rwanda. “When you did the deliverance service, I did what you said, but nothing seemed to happen to me like it was for everyone else. But the next day, I realized it was gone…” I said, “What was gone?” She said, “The spirit of death. It had been like a cloud over me for twenty years…I’d been prayed for, anointed with oil, everything, but nothing helped until you ministered to us!” Glory to God! She was an older woman, but she looked like a teenager, she was so radiant, like a veil had been taken off her…
Do you see it? In each of these healings a connection was made – sometimes, but not always, even a physical connection – a transaction between Heaven and earth occurred. The HOW of making a connection comes through the gift of the word of wisdom. This is the reason that formulas don’t work. Recently I was leading a few young believers through holy communion. One said, “I’ll bet you have this memorized, having done it five hundred times.” Quietly, I said, “No, every time has to be unique.”
Sometimes, you will get revelation for someone other than the person you are ministering to. I believe the reason this happens is because the spirit of the one needing healing is so crying out for help that the Spirit of God will search for someone who can handle the situation, even if they are busy with someone else.
One time during altar ministry, I was laying hands on a pastor. The Spirit of God said, “Charmer spirit!” I knew this guy didn’t have a charmer spirit. So, I opened my eyes to look and see who God was talking about. I saw the woman, being prayed for by others. I walked over, took her hand, looked in her eyes, and said, “Charmer…you are a snake! I command you to come out in Jesus’ name!” She doubled over with a loud cry, and it was gone. She later confessed she had had that thing since she was a little girl…
There was the time I hurt my back, lifting something I shouldn’t have. I could hardly move. I said, “RM, pray for me…” She laid hands on me and said, “In the name of Jes…” Wham! The Spirit of God hit me, my body convulsed a few times, and I was healed!
Last July, I was riding a bicycle with my dog Rex (it’s the only way I can get him some running time!). Big dog, leash and bicycle are not a good combination! Rex took off after another dog, and I should have let go of the leash! I didn’t, and me and the bicycle landed on my wrist. I suffered through the night with it…this big, swollen thing at the end of my arm. The next day was preparation day for a trip to Africa. At breakfast, I said, “God, I don’t want to wear a cast to Africa. Heal it now in Jesus Name!” And I watched Him heal it right there! I flew to Africa pain free with a whole wrist!
Another time I was teaching on the gifts of the Spirit to pastors in Kiambu, Kenya. I looked out at the group while I was teaching, and God told me to go lay hands on a woman. I put my Bible down, walked over, laid hands on the woman from behind as she was seated. I commanded the power of God to come upon her and went back up and continued teaching.
The next day she sends a note up and says she has a testimony. I say, come on up! She says, she had been in Nairobi hospital for a breast cancer operation. She said the Spirit of God told her if she went through with the operation, she would die…but if she went home and came to the seminar, she would live. She said that when I laid hands on her, something like lightening went through her, and all the pain was gone.
Three months later, when I visited her and her husband in their church, she said there wasn’t even a scar where that thing had been, bless God forever…
…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness–by whose stripes you were healed. 1 Peter 2:24 NKJV
Are you suffering from sickness? Do you realize that when Jesus died, He took our sins and our sicknesses to the Cross with Him? He paid for our spiritual healing as well as our physical healing. He suffered, so that we don’t have to! We can be released right now because your healing and mine was finished at Calvary. I explain it like this: if you went to the grocery store, and bought your groceries, would it make any sense to get back in line and pay for the same groceries twice? Jesus suffered so that we could be pain free! Jesus paid for our groceries…we don’t have to pay again! We can be freed from sickness right now…I said, NOW!!!
Pray this prayer…”Lord Jesus, You died for my sins and my sicknesses. You became sin that I might become righteous. By your stripes, I am healed. Right now, I receive your righteousness, freeing me from condemnation, and Your healing! In Jesus Name, I am healed, glory to God! Amen.”
Can anybody shout “JESUS!”?
Remember dear one, we must be about our Father’s business…