I would like to share an experience I had several years ago. I used to take walks in the park and I would spend quality time with God as I walked. One day I walked by a particular house, and I noticed a little boy playing in the front driveway. I love children and usually make an attempt to smile at them and maybe engage them in a short conversation. I looked at the little boy playing with his toy truck, and I noticed that his arm and hand were badly deformed. The boy noticed me standing there and looked up, and we ended up smiling at each other.

My heart was touched deeply by this child. I watched him play for a few minutes and my mind worked overtime as I stood there. Should I go and pray for him? Surely God wants this little boy's arm to be completely restored, wouldn't He? I pondered whether or not I should go pray for him, and as I thought about it, fear and doubt began to set in. What if I pray and God does not heal? What if the child's parents watch from their window and think that I am some weirdo trying to harm the boy? What if I raise the boy's expectation but then nothing happens? I even envisioned a scenario where I prayed for the boy, and while I was praying, the parents came running out of the house in fear that I was kidnapping their child. Or, I could imagine the boy crying and spending the rest of his life hating God because he didn't get healed. So I decided to continue walking and prayed for him under my breath.

This experience has touched me deeply because I knew that something wasn't right with my attitude. Since that day, I have stood in many grocery lines and walked by many sick people who obviously needed healing. I have passed them by, sometimes intentionally making a detour around them so I would not have a chance to even think about praying for them.

How about you? Have you been in a situation where you knew you needed to pray for somebody who obviously needed healing but you chose not to because you feared that nothing would happen? Was that the moment when you realized that you really didn't have the faith to believe that God still heals? Did you at that point wish you wouldn't feel that way? I know I have. I know that I have tried to find all sorts of excuses not to pray because of the fear that God might not heal.

Before we get started, I want to acknowledge Todd Bentley from Fresh Fire Ministries and his four-day ministry school, which has had a strong impact on my own thinking and understanding of physical healing. If some of my teaching tracks closely with Todd's materials or concepts, it is because he has been a definite influence on my understanding of healing and praying for the sick. I have incorporated some of his concepts on healing into my own. (If you are interested, you can find many of Todd's teachings on healing on his ministry web page, at www.freshfire.ca.)

The first thing I learned was that I had to repent from a wrong attitude. I have spent many years of my Christian walk wondering if God was still in the healing business. I have seen dedicated and devoted Christians become sick and then die even though they were surrounded by believing Christians who would pray for them extensively. It really discouraged me to see people not healed. As a result, I became convinced that even though God has the power to heal, He did not want to heal everybody. This opinion kept me from praying for the sick. I only prayed for them every once in a while. And when I did pray, I questioned God's willingness to heal this person. As a result, I did not pray believing. I did not believe that it really was God's will to heal everybody.

Needless to say, with this little faith, I have only seen a few minor healings take place. As a result, I decided to quit praying for the sick altogether. I tended to totally avoid situations where somebody might ask me to pray for the sick -- except for a few times when my heart was really moved for a certain person. I didn't realize that this attitude did not please God.

The problem was that I looked to my own strength and ability to heal instead of looking at God's ability and willingness to heal. I thought that if I just said the right words or prayed a long enough prayer, perhaps God would be convinced that the person I was praying for needed healing. I am not proud that I had this attitude. I confess it to you in case you are in the same position that I was in. Let me describe that position for you -- You have prayed and prayed and nothing seemed to happen. You then decided that you didn't want to pray for healing anymore because you could not bear the pain of seeing those you love remain sick and even go to their death.

God Brings Correction To Our Wrong Thinking

God showed me that my attitude about healing displeased Him. I repented quickly, because I don't want anything in me to hinder His flow.

To tell you the truth, I am glad I was wrong. I am glad that God still wants everybody to be healed after all. I just needed to get that extra push into the right direction and God was ready to do that. I am glad God is a patient God. How about you? Aren't you glad that He is a patient God, too? I know that He has stood by on many occasions just waiting for me to come around. I am glad He never gives up on us but is willing to break into our wrong thinking and attitudes to show us the right way. I am also glad that God doesn't let us get away with wrong attitudes. If we are willing to yield our wrong thinking to Him, He will be faithful to bring His gentle loving correction to it. He will gently remind us of His truth. He will also give us strategies of how to overcome the things that hinder us from receiving all He wants to give us.

I don't want anything to hinder His flow. I don't want anything in me or in my life that prevent His purposes from manifesting in My life. (I suspect you feel the same way that I do.) He is able to direct us in the right direction as we yield our hearts to Him. If we truly desire for His will to be accomplished in our lives, He will keep us from heading the wrong direction and He will reveal His will to us.

The Purpose Of This Teaching

This teaching is designed to spark your faith and cause it to become ignited. It is intended to empower you to believe God for healing -- whether you need healing in your own body or wish to see others healed. It is my hope that the material here will be the fuel you need to thrust you further into God's purposes for healing. It is also my desire that you will be encouraged to place your hands on sick people and believe for their healing. This requires a confidence that does not come from us, but from knowing that God truly desires to heal whoever we are praying for.

God turned my thinking around and got me pointed back in the right direction. In July God opened the door for me to attend a 4-day "School of the Spirit" training for healing, conducted by Todd Bentley. God used this training to ignite a flame of faith for healing in me. This flame was just about to diminish because of my unbelief but God caused a spark and fanned the flame. God used this healing conference to make it real to me that the death and resurrection of Jesus on Calvary provided physical healing as well as eternal salvation.

Salvation Includes Healing

The first key discussed in the session, which made my ears perk up, was the definition of the word "salvation". Let's look at it together. The definition is from Strong's Number 4982 (The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon.)

The word salvation is the Greek word "sozo", which is loosely derived from the obsolete Greek word for "safe" (saoz). It has the following meanings, "to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction one (from injury or peril)," or "to save a suffering one from perishing, e.g not to let them perish from disease," or to make well, heal, restore to health to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue to save in the technical biblical sense."

Did you get that? "To make well, heal, restore to health to preserve one who is in danger..."

Wow! Healing is a part of salvation! That was news to me. This may not be news to most of you but it was definitely news to me It has been there all this time but I just didn't see it. Perhaps one of the reasons I didn't see it was because I bought so much into the lie that I was hindered from seeing it. But thank God I am free! Another reason may be that I didn't take the time to research it. As is the case with many of God's truths, some of them are hidden deep within the word and can only be found through extensive study and meditation.

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