Miracles and Gift of Healing

“And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The Lord Jesus never once exaggerated; He always spoke absolute reality. What He said above is something you should consciously demonstrate, knowing that He who said it never lied to anyone. You’re to lay hands on the sick to receive healing; you’ve got that ability in the Name of Jesus. The Lord Jesus will be remiss to ask you to do something you couldn’t do, or for which He hasn’t enabled you. He said in Matthew 10:8, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead….” This is for every believer in Christ; step out in faith and take healing and health to the people in your world and in the regions beyond.

Someone might, however, lament, “When I pray for people, they get healed, but when I get sick I’m not able to help myself.” Many have found themselves in this dilemma. It’s similar to what happened to Elisha who was so anointed of God but died sick. In 2 Kings 13:20-21, some men were about to bury a man when they spotted some raiders. Hastily, they tossed the corpse into the sepulcher that contained the remains of Elisha. As soon as the dead body came in contact with Elisha’s bones, the dead man came back to life (2 Kings 13:21). This happened long after Elisha was dead; his bones retained the anointing! Though Elisha died sick, God’s power in him didn’t fail.

We can conclude that it was Elisha who didn’t apply that power to his health. You’re supposed to apply the same authority Jesus gave you to heal the sick in your personal life. Christ the Healer lives in you; acknowledge this reality, and function with this consciousness every day. When you do, everything that’s not of God: sickness, poverty, death, lack, failure, depression, etc., will have no hold over you.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:7-10).* “The working of miracles” is one of the manifestations and gifts of the Spirit. When that gift is in operation in your life, the Spirit of God causes you or guides you to perform a miracle.

There’s a wonderful example of such in the Old Testament, where the sons of the Prophets came to Elisha to help them retrieve a borrowed axe that had fallen into the river. The Bible says Elisha cut a piece of wood, dropped it in the water, and the axe head came afloat (2 Kings 6:6). How did he know what to do for the axe head to come to the surface of the water? That was the Spirit’s leading. Elisha worked a miracle when the other folks didn’t know what to do about the situation.

On another occasion, a widow lost her only son and pleaded with Elisha for help. The Bible says, Elisha “…walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes” (2 Kings 4:35). Again, how did Elisha know what to do to bring the child back to life? That was the gift of the working of miracles in operation! If you want to work with God for your financial success, for instance, you must have the thinking of the miraculous. As long as you think it is impossible, you can’t work miracles. You must have a different mindset. The miraculous isn’t based on the wisdom of this world. When there’s a seemingly “impossible” situation, and no human mind can comprehend a way out, trust the Holy Spirit for the working of miracles. Always, your desire should be to be synchronized with the Holy Spirit; filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That way, your life will be the expression and manifestation of the supernatural. So I believe that "gifts of healings" and "workings of miracles" are for the church today—for Bethlehem today and the mission of Christ in the world today.

Let me say just three brief things about these gifts and then we can pick it up on Wednesday evening and say more and deal with questions.
1. Not for Self-Exaltation but for the Sake of Love Gifts of healing and workings of miracles are not for self-exaltation but for the benefit of others. They could easily become the basis of pride just like teaching or preaching or mercy or hospitality or prophecy or any of the gifts. But they are meant to be expressions of love. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:2, "Though I have all faith to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Gifts are not the main thing. Love is the main thing. Using gifts is one way to love. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." It is a great danger to want signs and wonders because they sound neat or merely because you think they would make your faith stronger. That is almost a sure way to spiritual self-centeredness. What we should want is for Christ be honored through our self-sacrificing love for others. The greatest need we have is not for gifts of healing. The greatest need is to care that people are sick—sick with soul-destroying sin, sick with emotional disorders, sick with physical disease, and often a tangled mixture of all three. The greatest miracle is that our hearts begin to care more about the lostness and pain of others than about our own personal comforts and leisure plans. When that miracle happens, we might be in a position to experience the lesser gifts of healing. That's the first thing to say: the gifts are all for the sake of love. So let's let the love of Jesus for us break us down and build us up to love others.

Do you realize that there’s power in your hands? You do have something to give because there’s power inside you. You can transmit God’s healing power to the sick through your hands. God has given you the authority to confront the devils of disease and cure sicknesses. As you preach the gospel, there are times you come across people who are too sick to have faith in themselves. Some have peculiar diseases that wouldn’t allow them to hear, see, or even talk to you. Others are too distracted by the ensuing pain and discomfort. In such cases, you must understand that God, by His Spirit and through faith in His Name, has given you the power to transmit divine power to the sick and cause them to be healed. Always, we find Jesus healing the sick before He preached. There were times He spent His entire day healing sick folks and curing their diseases by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 15:30-31). When Jesus sent seventy of His disciples into cities and towns, He told them, “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, “The kingdom of God is near you” (Luke 10:9). The Lord, in other words, instructed them to heal first and preach later. When Jesus instructed His disciples to heal the sick, He gave them the authority over every disease by the same command to accomplish the task (Mark 6:7). You received the dynamic ability to cause changes the moment the Holy Spirit came to dwell in you. Therefore, don’t be satisfied with only preaching the gospel; learn to fulfill your heavenly Father’s desire and demonstrate the power of the resurrected Christ by healing the sick. Then he called his twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick (Luke 9:1-2). God wants us to pray with faith, boldness, and the expectation that what we decree in prayer will come to pass. He has given us the authority in the Name of Jesus to issue decrees with daring audacity and have them established. Some religious folks however gripe at our boldness, asking, “Who do they think they are, giving such decrees?” They expect us for instance, to pray and ask God to heal the sick, instead of taking it upon ourselves to command the sick to be healed in the Name of Jesus. Well, first of all, the Bible never says we should pray to God to heal the sick; rather, we’re to heal the sick. There’s no place in the Scriptures where God asks that we pray to Him to heal the sick. In Matthew 10:8, Luke 9:2, and Luke 10:9, Jesus charged the disciples to heal the sick; He didn’t ask them to pray to Him or to the Father to heal the sick.

In Mark 16:17-18 He said, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Jesus made it clear that we believers have been given the authority in His Name to heal the sick. In the third chapter of the book of Acts, while Peter and John were at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, they met a man who is impotent in his feet; and never walked from birth. Notice Peter’s language to the man: “…Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). He didn’t pray that God should heal the sick man. He was conscious of the authority he had and knew that though he couldn’t give the man money at that point in time, he could ‘give’ him healing in the Name of Jesus. The nature of God has been imparted to your spirit if you’re born again, therefore you’re to reign as a king in life (Romans 5:17AMP). When you pray for the sick, make bold decrees! Command the devils responsible for the sickness to come out and that the sick be healed in the Name of Jesus. Expect a change every time you issue such commands. This is the kind of prayer James refers to as prayer of faith in James 5:15. In praying for the sick to get well, there are certain truths to be mindful of; otherwise, you may pray from sunup to sundown with little or no impact. First, recognize that God wants them well; He isn’t the one responsible for the sickness. Some believe God uses sickness to carry out His plan or to correct His children; that’s a lie from the pit of hell. No sickness or disease is from God.

Secondly, does that sick person want to be well? This would be an important question to answer. Jesus asked certain folks in the Bible who apparently were in a distressing health situation the simple question, “What do you want?” So, it’s important the person is willing and ready to get well and that there’s mutual faith.

Thirdly, be in tune with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit can guide you to know whether or not a demon is responsible for that sickness or disease. That way, you’re able to deal with the situation. For example, the woman who was bowed over in Luke 13, Jesus showed us that Satan was responsible for her infirmity. The moment Jesus cast the devil out, the woman was healed. Never be afraid of demons or evil spirits. The Name of Jesus is greater than all. We cast out evil spirits with words, as Jesus did.

In Matthew 10:8, Luke 9:2, Luke 10:9, Jesus charged the disciples to heal the sick, and He didn’t ask them to pray to Him or to the Father to heal the sick. Evidently, we have authority from Jesus to heal the sick and bring health and joy to a dying world. Be bold about it.
-GSW-