God wants to heal our lives. He wants to heal our hearts and minds and bodies.
We know this in the church and for many of us we have made it our habits of church and christianity to declare and pray healing over others.
And yet, we have often made healing a product of church. We have taken what is meant to be a free gift of God to all people and have made it a proprietary (something owned by just a few people) product of the church.
To our great shame, healing has become part of our business plan.
Healing has taken on this form: Get people to come to church so they can give their tithes so we can pay our bills. Heal people at church so they can tithe and we can pay our bills. Give people a spiritual experience in church and they will tithe so that we can pay our bills.
Test this out in your heart. Would you be willing to take the healing of God to the streets and heal people without even telling them about your church or who you are?
At the time of this writing, I have been to about 250 village churches in the last five years and what I find is that churches are often fighting over the sheep.
In churches we have made a spectacle of healing and have crafted supernatural encounters with God that may or may not be inhabited by the Holy Spirit.
What if you were healing people where they are, in their homes, in the marketplace, in the field, without ever needing them to come to your church? 110
What if you were to give away the healing of the Lord Jesus Christ for free? Well, this is exactly what Christ instructs us to do.
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.” Matthew 10:8 ESV
But of course, we have made even the ability to heal a proprietary product. We teach that only the big people can heal. We gather to exalt the one who heals.
This is idolatry. We have taken advantage of weak people who do not yet know their strength in the Lord and we keep them weak by refusing to teach them that they too can heal.
“Heal the sick .. and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Luke 10:9 ESV
Everyone can pray healing for others. The work of the Kingdom is for everyone. There is no special anointing, there is simply the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit which everyone can have.
We must teach our people to heal.
God is trying to break out of our churches.
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20 NIV
Healing, the touch and miracle of our Lord that drives pain away, is to be taken to the common person by the common person to every part of your community.
At Capturing Courage International Ministries we have learned a healing prayer model from Impact Nations 111 and we teach this wherever we go. It is a simple model by which Jesus brings healing through anyone. If you do nothing else, do this.
Teach others to heal others.
Here are instructions for praying healing for others. Even children can do this:
1. We ask the person, “Where is your pain?”
- the person responds, my shoulder (or hip, knee, stomach, back, etc) has pain
2. We ask the person to rate the pain,“How bad is the pain from 1 to 10?”
- 1 being low, 10 being high pain
3. The person may say,“The pain is 7 out of 10”
- we ask this so that when the pain is removed the person can notice the change
4. We ask, “May I touch your shoulder?”
- the person usually says ‘yes’
- if the person says ‘no’ then just hold your hand out and over the pain spot
- note: if the pain is in a modest area you may not want to touch
- men: do not touch women in a way that is not normal between men and women
5. We touch the shoulder and we pray,
“I declare that all pain in the (shoulder) must go right now in the name of Jesus.”
6. Then we ask, “How is the pain?”
- the person will say, “It is still there a bit.”
- or the person will say, “The pain is gone.”
If the person says,“The pain is gone.” We celebrate, we thank God for his healing.
If the person says, “The pain is still there.” We repeat from step #2
as the person rates the pain again, this helps to build faith that healing can happen
7. We repeat steps #5 and #6 until the pain is gone.
“I declare that all pain in the __________ must go right now in the name of Jesus.”
8. We teach this to everyone we know. Everyone can pray healing for each other.
The Holy Spirit is for all people. There are not those who have more anointing than anyone else. There are only those who have had more or less amounts of practice.
This Sunday, begin to teach your congregation to heal each other.
Apologize that you have kept this gift from them. Confess that you have enjoyed all the power. Today set about giving this gift to them.
If you are a school teacher, teach this to your students, (children learn this better than adults!) Imagine if you could send them home to declare healing to their parents and grandparents. Wouldn’t that be great and amazing!
Jesus wants to heal you. Jesus wants to heal your neighbour. Jesus wants to heal your enemy. Jesus wants to heal your community.
Press through in pure honest love that wants the best for that other person. Do not yell some healing words in prayer and go on without checking in with that person,“How is the pain? Is it better?”
Pray again. Push through for full healing in the name of Jesus.
“And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” James 5:15 ESV
Note: this requires a believing heart full of compassion with self out of the way. It also requires that we as healers take on the responsibility to heal. James is clear, it is our prayers of faith that will heal others. Be a pray’er of faith. 112
Then, give this gift to everyone you know. Teach it to your children. Teach it to your grandma and grandpa. Teach it to your wife or husband. Teach it to your neighbour.
“Hello neighbour. I have just learned a really simple way to offer the healing of Jesus to others. Can I practice on you? Do you have any pain right now? Oh, in your knee? Okay, well how bad is the pain on a scale of 1-10?
A seven. Okay. May I touch your knee? I declare that all pain in the knee must go right now in the name of Jesus. How is the pain now? Ah, a five? Fantastic. Praise the Lord. Okay, let’s pray again. I declare that all pain in the knee must go right now in the name of Jesus. How is the pain? It is gone?! Amen, fantastic. Thank you Jesus.”
Try this with others. It is a simple prayer. There are no heroics. No screaming voices. No loud demonstrations. It is not for show. It is not for fame. It is not an advertisement for your church.
It is the simple, profound, heart-felt, gift of Jesus, through you, to others.
“He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.” Psalm 107:20 ESV
PRAYER
“God we come before you today in the name and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, teach us to pray without thought of ourselves or our churches. Teach us to bless others just because you love them. Help me to put my trust in your for my daily bread, so that I may freely give your healing to others free of all charge in any way. Purify my love for people. Thank you that you desire to heal us God. Thank you that you are the great physician and the healer of our lives.”
APPLICATION
Whole-Hearted for Others (summary of SULHA,AGREEMENTS, of RESTORATION and a CALLING OUT)
In many places in scripture the healing of the body seems to be right alongside forgiveness. It is as
though healing results in forgiveness and forgiveness results in healing.
Consider these following verses:
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11
“But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
“And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” James 5:15
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,” Psalm 103:2-3
What is evident is that the work of Jesus heals us on both a physical level and a deep inner level. If we are to pray physical healing we are extending (agreeing to Christ’s) forgiveness and visa-versa.
For our application we look at the heart of this matter for ourselves. It could be noted that in order to have a heart that will pray healing for others that we must have a heart that would agree with their forgiveness, their bounty, and their thriving. 113
Have you ever tried praying physical healing for someone to whom you still carry a grudge?
It doesn’t work. Physical healing doesn’t seem to work unless we have the heart of God for people in all ways. We must come in a spirit of sulha, a heart that would eagerly desire that all a person’s wrongs be put behind them.
I would venture to say that our judgments against people are large factors that block the Lord’s healing in their lives.
Consider these passages about forgiveness:
• Matthew 6:14-15 • Mark 11:25
• Colossians 3:13 • Ephesians 4:31-32
• 1 John 1:9 • Leviticus 19:18
As an inner-healing prayer minister, I have seen inner healing work it’s way out to the physical being of a person and when I pray physical healing for people we witness an inner lightness and restoration to their inner person. Healing prayer works both inward and outward affecting the whole person.
This is why we must enter into the spirit of sulha if we are to both experience and participate in the Kingdom of God on this earth and into eternity. I am convinced that the work we do here changes the face of eternity.
Sulha is more than forgiveness. It is the whole-hearted desire for God’s best to those who have hurt us.
God’s heart is to heal us, to restore us, to nurture us back to the original image of who he created us to be before sin entered the world. The Kingdom of God come to earth means that you and I can live a new kind of life from the inside out.
We then live that out to a hurting world. The body of Christ is sent to be healing practitioners to our communities and nations. We are set aside for this great work of restoration of all people’s back to God.
In this, we must equip the body of Christ with the knowledge of how to heal for Jesus loves to heal, and he loves to heal through ordinary common people.
SUMMARY – HEALING
God’s heart is for our healing Isaiah 61:1; Psalm 103:1-5
God is THE healer Luke 4:18; John 5:8-9
The prayer of faith heals people James 5:15-16
Healing happens through simple prayers Matthew 8:16; Acts 3:6
It is by the Holy Spirit that healing happens Romans 8:1
Ask and it will be given to you Matthew 7:7; Matthew 21:22; Luke 11:9
Healing is to be given freely Matthew 10:8
110 In all of my ministry travels I have come to the conclusion that God is trying to break out of our churches. The ministry of God does not require a church building. Healing, making disciples, sharing the gospel, teaching in the sitting and the walking, baptizing, hearing the voice of God, obedience to the Spirit, reading the word, and breaking bread together, can all happen in our homes, communities, and market places. God’s ministry and power does not need to be official, only effective.
111 impactnations.org
112 In James 5:16 we read, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” We must be clear that righteousness has nothing to do with position of leadership but with relationship with Christ (position in Christ). It is Christ who is our righteousness. As we are ‘in Christ’, abiding, resting, trusting, we are righteous because of who He is, and due to this abiding our prayers are powerful. John 15:4
113 This is the heart of Sulha as we studied in Module Two, Month #5, Sulha, page 36; Month #6, Lives of Sulha, page 81; Month #8, We Run Toward the World, page 133 ; and in Module Three, Month #10, Sulha, pages 141-142
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