Healing Help 2: Get Located!

We are confident that God listens to us if we ask for anything that has his approval. We know that he listens to our requests. So we know that we already have what we ask him for. 

(1 John 5:14-15 GW)

Feed your faith and starve your doubts.

Kenneth E. Hagin

Over the years I have had the privilege of praying for many sick people.  Many have been healed instantly, others had a period of recovery, and still others remained sick.  What factors make the difference? I don’t have all the answers, but I have learned a few things.  God has provided several different methods for us to receive healing.  This tells me that there are many different kinds of people and many different needs, and God wants to provide for them all.  He wants to heal people. I want to cooperate. In listening to people talk about their faith and their healing, I have come to believe that everyone is somewhere on a “continuum of faith” with respect to healing. If you need healing, take a minute to locate yourself.  If you’re praying for someone else to be healed, take time to talk with them and locate them.

For the Christian, the progression of faith for healing goes something like this:

1. I believe in God, who saved me through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is saving faith and it is “enough” to receive healing.  The need is to be taught that healing is in the redemptive work of Christ and that the same faith that received salvation can also receive healing.  This is a big step.  Romans 10:9-10 / Luke 17:6-7 / Romans 12:3.
2. I believe God can heal.  He is powerful enough to do anything.  There is no particular disease or condition that is too tough for Him.  All Christians believe this, or at least they should.  God is all-powerful.  Jeremiah 32:27
3. I believe God does heal today.  The move from “can heal” to does heal” is a big leap for some.  They have been taught otherwise.  This is a good place for a testimony of healing to encourage curiosity.  Many have been taught that God only healed until the Bible was compiled.  They need to get to know the God who doesn’t change.  God heals because that is who He is. Exodus 15:26 / Malachi 3:6 / Hebrews 13:8
4. I believe it is the will of God to heal.  Many believe He heals some, but not others.  They believe the reasons for His choices are not for us to know.  The truth is that God showed us His will in the Person of Jesus Christ.  He never refused to heal.  If they know Him, they know this. Take a walk through the Gospels and catch Jesus’s attitude.   Mark 1:40-42 / John 14:9 / Acts 10:38
5. I believe it is the will of God to heal me.  This transition from the general to the personal is a difficult one for some.  I know He wants to heal you, but I have failed so badly or am so weak in faith or so insignificant to God that I don’t qualify.  Condemnation and feelings of unworthiness impede many from receiving what is already theirs by grace.  Learning and believing who they are in Christ are the keys that turn this lock.  Luke 1:38 / 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 / Romans 5:19-21
6. I believe I am healed. Here is where I want to be:  I am not hoping to get healed.  I don’t believe He is going to heal me someday.  I see His Word, I pray and believe I receive when I pray.  Healing is an accomplished fact, and I have it now. Isaiah 53:4-5 / 1 Peter 2:24 / Mark 11:24
7. I am the healed, not the sick.  The ultimate aim is to so change my picture of myself as to think it very strange when symptoms touch my body.  I am healed, therefore I resist the temptation to be sick just as surely and vehemently as I resist the temptation to sin:  “It is written, Devil: By His stripes, I am healed!”  James 4:7 / Matthew 4:4

Moving from a general faith in God to a specific belief in the will of God to heal is the first phase.  Grasping that healing belongs to us because of what Jesus accomplished in redemption is the next.  Moving to an adamant faith that says,  “I have it now!” is the objective.  What a joy when the lights come on and faith becomes sight!  Each of these “Healing Helps” will touch on concepts to help in this journey.  Come on along!

Next Step:  Go back through the 7 markers in the progression above. If you need healing, be brutally honest with yourself.  Locate where you are.  Visit the scriptures given and meditate in them. (Write them down, carry them with you, read them and think about what they mean.  Try saying them out loud to yourself) If you’re trying to help someone else receive their healing, chat with them.  Listen to them until you get a good idea of where they are on the continuum.  That will let you know where to focus to help them move on to wholeness. 

For a real turbo boost in your healing ministry, check out our Healing Truth course from Faith Ministry Training Institute.