And He Healed them all: What we’ve covered so far.mp3
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Key Text:
II Cor. 5:17-21
Eph. 2:1-:
Mark 6: 1-13
Mark 6:53-56
Mark 7:24-37
Overview:
Today I taught on our union with Christ in His kingdom and what that means in relation to Healing. Healing is a kingdom issue and is one of the fruits produced through our new union with and reliance upon Him.
Unfortunately, non-believers are often MUCH easier to get healed than believers which should not be true, but it is! Believers come with so much baggage, so many experiences that tell them healing is not for them, so much teaching lifted from tradition and not the God’s holy Word that they must unlearn volumes of information and hurtle so many obstacles to get to a place of believe that many never get there. on the other hand, unbelievers who are seeking God are open and vulnerable. God can do SO MUCH with a heart that is open and no longer protecting itself!
Back when I was in the “work force” with a typical nine to five (which by the way is MUCH easier than ministry) I had many times when my health was used as a tool to talk to people about the new birth. When you work at a place for a few years (or even for 1 year) and never take sick leave and are always healthy – it creates questions.
One of the basic differneces I had even compared to other Christians who believed in healing was my thoughts and attitude. you see, in the home I grew up in, we did not think sick nor did we talk sick. If I began sneezing or had a slight fever – it just did not occur to me that I might be getting sick. Medicine and pills were not the “norm” for us. I would take a few multi-vitamins and some extra Vitamin C and maybe some garlic and then begin to thank God for my health, my mom would pray for me and before long I would begin to feel better. Sometimes it took a day, maybe even two before I was 100%, but mostly it only took a few hours. This was my “normal”. It was all I knew.
So going into the work force I found some things I very odd. As soon as someone began to sneeze, the first thing that they would say is, I’m coming down with something.” If that statement was within ear shot of someone else they would either predict their own sickness coming quickly or tell the other to keep away from them least they catch whatever they had. The only thought in my mind was, “Man these people talk like they want to be sick. They have no resistance at all! Couldn’t that sneeze just have been dust?” It was very hard for me to identify with them.
When I got married I had never seen so many medical pills in all my life! There was a pill for everything. I told my wife that junk needed to stop and was not happening in our home.I later discovered my approach was not a good nor a godly one, but I needed to stand firm. Teri had to get to this place on her own and no amount of coercion on my part could force her into thinking differently. As it turned out, she began to notice how often her family was sick and how often we were not. She later began to realize just how much the thought and talked sick. Over a period of time it became as odd to her as it was to me.
now I am not saying that sickness and healing are all in ones head – that is NOT true. Neither can your simply talk your self well – you need external power which comes from God alone. What I AM saying is that I am 100% convinced that MOST common sicknesses are more the result of expecting it to happen even believing in it than it is from natural causes. In all my years of rarely being sick did I have to get into faith about it, most of the time I just refused to believe I was getting sick – and I didn’t. Again, I know this runs dangerously close to “name it and claim it” which is NOT what I am saying, but I do believe the statement in Proverbs and in Numbers…
“Don’t eat a stingy person’s bread, and don’t desire his choice food, for as he thinks within himself, so he is. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.” ~ Prov. 23:6-7
But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” ~ Num. 13:30-33
The verse in proverbs is taken out of context and I know that, but I believe the statement it makes is clearly true as is the one from Numbers. Caleb saw the land and its people as well within their power to take because his eyes were not on his ability but upon Gods. All the other Israelites only saw with their natural eyes – they only new and only believed what their eyes told them was true. If this had been the mind set of those who came to Christ for healing – they would not have been healed – in fact, they probably would not have come at all!
So what is my point, well let me give you one more example and then I will tell you.
Lately, there have been many, many people around me who have come down with a stomach virus. Nearly everyone in my wife’s family has had it (some of them twice already), my wife actually got it for a day, many in our church had it and a friend of mine with whom I spend an entire afternoon with him coughing over me and my computer keyboard had it as well. Well the Sunday following nearly a whole week with my wife’s family, and immediately after church (which was the day after my friend had spend 2.5 hours coughing on me) I began to feel sick to my stomach. I was exhausted and beginning to feel achy. About that time my wife brought me some lunch and my stomach said, “Not in here you dont!” Now at this moment I could have sided with my stomach and its voice was getting louder by the moment. I found myself saying however, “No – we don’t do that here. I don’t get sick and I’m not starting now.” I turned to my food and made myself take a bite. i no longer got it in my mouth but that the “feelings’ left me and I was fine. That was a 5 days ago and I am still fine today. Now, I know what it is to be in faith, and Sunday afternoon I was NOT there – I just reacted (mostly by my conditioning) and the unsettled stomach and achy feeling just left. It was not that I believed Christ for healing in this case – I just refused to believe in sickness.
So… what is my point? Simply that we can condition our hearts to respond and expect the positive without being presumptuous nor irreverent. I just don’t anticipate being sick. Yes, I admit it could happen to me as easily as the next person, but I believe a LARGE part of the battle is not being overly predisposed to thinking that way. This also makes you far more open to hear His voice saying, “I will. be made whole” that you would if your were constantly negative about your health
Other points we covered were:
- Being healed in the soul and being healed in the body is all considered “healing” in Jesus ministry.
- Deliverance from demons was considered a healing.
