Authors: Praying Medic
I
T’S TIME TO DISCUSS THE
practical fundamentals of healing the sick. From my own experiences and in what I’ve learned from those who have successfully ministered healing over decades, a common message comes forth: To operate successfully in healing it’s imperative to establish a strong, active relationship with the Holy Spirit. All that we do must be led and powered by the Spirit of God.
As we minister healing to others, we’re not primarily about the business of healing. We are ambassadors of heaven, facilitating new relationships with those who may not know God. If we don’t know His ways, we can’t share Him with the world. Establishing and maintaining our relationship with God is the first order of business. The authority to heal comes from being a disciple of Jesus. If you’re not one of His disciples yet, you can become one. A disciple is a student; one who learns from a teacher. You may ask, “How do I become a disciple?” The first step is to ask Jesus to come into your heart and life. This request lets Jesus know that you want to know Him and you want Him to guide you in life – so do it sincerely.
You may ask, is it really that simple? Yes, it is. At that point, the Holy Spirit is within you even if you feel no immediate change in your body or mind. Some people experience a noticeable change while others do not. Don’t be concerned if you don’t notice anything different – in time you will. Start by simply understanding that Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit to come and live in you – forever. The Holy Spirit is like a quiet voice bringing wisdom and revelation to you. His role is to “lead you into all truth” but a teacher needs a willing student. You become a disciple when you allow yourself to be taught His ways. You can learn many things about God by reading the scriptures, but the only way to know God
himself
is through the experiences you have with Him personally. I would encourage you to ask questions of the Holy Spirit and listen for His answers. This is how you develop a relationship with the living God and grow confident that He is truly guiding you. You may encounter people who will tell you that you must speak in tongues, be water baptized, or a number of other things before you truly have the Holy Spirit living in you. While all of these things are beneficial, I would caution against using them as a litmus test for proof of spiritual life. I heard the voice of God, had visions, and prophesied before I spoke in tongues or had been baptized in water.
My next bit of advice is to get rid of daily distractions and seek the face of God in solitude. Unplug your television and use the time to rest in God’s presence. Sing, worship, pray, let God give you visions and dreams, do some fasting and get acquainted with Him in ways you haven’t before. As your relationship with God grows so will your faith for healing. You may notice immediate answers to prayer. You may learn to pray in a language you don’t understand. You might feel impressions or emotions about situations in the lives of other people that you would not otherwise know. This can be a way the Holy Spirit will lead you to pray for them.
The following advice comes from a friend, Brian Fenimore, who has been healing the sick for decades. Don’t ever try to heal the sick while remaining detached from the presence of the Holy Spirit. You can heal the sick on faith or authority alone and many people have done it. When we do this, we start to believe we can heal the sick without the direct involvement of the Holy Spirit. We’ll build a kingdom for ourselves, and eventually the healing dynamic will collapse. After a successful run, we may find that people aren’t being healed and wonder what happened. The failure comes because we left the Holy Spirit out of the encounter. Always invite the Holy Spirit to lead the healing encounter and allow Him to do with the person what He wants done. Ministry with the Holy Spirit is a dance. He leads and we follow.
The vast majority of divine healing comes through faith. It’s that simple. Children can be used in healing because they haven’t been poisoned with doubt. If you have doubts about God’s desire to heal the sick through you, replacing doubt with faith is critical. One way to build faith is to lay hands on anyone who will let you. At first, you may not see many people healed, but eventually you will. It depends of the level of faith you begin with. I had to overcome a lot of skepticism, but you may not and you may see miracles immediately. As I prayed with people my faith grew and the frequency of miracles increased. You should expect the same results.
When I began in healing, I found every passage in the New Testament that had to do with healing and I studied and memorized them. Then I went through the Old Testament. Reading Scripture passages about healing is a faith-building experience. Study, study, study, then rest in the Holy Spirit and let Him apply it to your spirit. One thing we all need is to have our minds renewed to the truth of God’s will concerning healing, and exercises like this can help.
If you need healing, try to find someone who has had success in healing, and have them pray for you. My own healing made a profound impact on my faith for healing others. I suffered from months of shoulder pain. One day I went to a meeting where a man prayed for me. The next day I felt the pain leave and realized I was healed. Pursue your healing until you receive it.
Many people have been successful in healing before you. They all have lessons you can learn from. If you know people who operate in healing, go with them when they minister. If healing is happening at a certain place make a point to be there and witness it firsthand. Bill Johnson said, “If you want to kill giants, hang around giant-killers.” There’s wisdom in this principle. My daughter and wife have become proficient at healing because they’ve been around me when I do it and their faith has grown alongside mine.
Read books, watch videos – especially testimonies of healing and instruction. Many people who operate in healing have mp3s and podcasts you can listen to. There are many other good books that have been written about healing. I have a lot of resources on my website and part of my own training came from reviewing material I wanted to publish. Devour all you can, then rest in the Holy Spirit and let Him sort things out for you.
I receive a lot of requests for healing by e-mail. Some of the more amazing testimonies came from these long-distance requests. A number of friends do healing through an application on Facebook that utilizes the chat feature. They’ve amassed thousands of healing testimonies in just a few years. Thousands have been healed over Skype prayer sessions. Be open to healing over distances, particularly if praying for people in public is just too frightening for you.
Assessing a person’s degree of illness or injury is something I must do as a paramedic but it’s also helpful in healing. I ask the patient questions before I begin. Part of this is to establish the bridge of relationship:
1. Ask about the onset of symptoms – when and how the sickness or injury happened.
2. Ask about severity of pain on a scale from one to ten, with “1” being almost no pain and “10” being the worst pain imaginable. This is helpful in evaluating the progress of healing. If the pain was an “8” at the start and a few minutes later it’s a “3”, you’re making progress.
3. Ask about limitations in activity or range of motion.
4. Ask how long they’ve had the symptoms.
5. Ask about treatment they’ve had. Antibiotics damage the immune system; so commanding the immune system to be healed may be in order. Radiation and chemotherapy also damage the body. You may need to command that damage to be healed. Don’t be discouraged by what you hear. It’s just information so that when they are healed, you’ll know what they were healed of.
A good way to start is by approaching friends, family, co-workers and strangers who may need healing. When I order food at a restaurant or coffee shop they usually ask, “Is that all you need today?” Sometimes I’ll reply, “That’s it... unless you know someone who needs healing.” I often find people with headaches or other things to heal. When I’m shopping I look for canes, casts, immobilizers, splints, wheelchairs and people hobbling along in obvious pain. These folks are usually open to healing. Introduce yourself, build some trust and ask if they would like to be healed. If they say no, bless them and keep going. Eventually you will find people who want prayer.
You’ll find many different methods of healing that other people have had success with. Most of them work. Some are better than others, but none are foolproof. I saw an approach that I liked so I borrowed it then adapted it to fit my personality. It works for me but it doesn’t work for everyone. Don’t get hung up on following a certain method. Develop your own, as I did. In fact, you might consider using different methods at different times. Jesus used a different method nearly every time and had great success.
Among my friends who have the highest success rates in healing, there is agreement on one approach that seems to work best. It involves commanding sickness or pain to leave and commanding healing to take its place. Don’t beg or plead with God to heal anyone. The most common mistake people make is begging God to heal. The second is quitting too soon. Persistence brings breakthrough. You’ll have to get used to a little embarrassment. You may look a bit foolish repeatedly commanding a broken leg to be healed when there is no outward sign that it’s helping. Yet the vast majority of healings I’ve seen came because I stood there looking like an idiot, repeatedly commanding an injury to be healed until it finally was healed.
One of the ways we can heal is by laying hands on the sick. If you’re able to physically touch the sick person, it may help, but it isn’t always necessary. Often times I don’t touch people and they are still healed. Command sickness, disease, inflammation, pain, darkness, depression, or unclean spirits to leave. Next command organs, blood vessels, nerves, ligaments, tendons, bones, cartilage, muscles and other anatomical structures to be healed.
Yes, I said command spirits to leave. One of the things I’ve learned is that there are usually demons hanging around sick and injured people. I didn’t say these people were possessed by spirits, but spirits are often found around sickness, disease and trauma. I’ve had a number of experiences where I commanded a knee or ankle to be healed and nothing happened even after five or six attempts. In some cases, I closed my eyes and God showed me a spirit that needed to be removed and in other cases I assumed a spirit was there and commanded it to leave. In almost every case, the next command brought complete healing. Remember that when the disciples could not heal the boy with seizures, Jesus removed the spirit that caused the sickness. Once the spirit was evicted, the boy was healed. If healing is going poorly consider the possibility that a spirit is present that must be removed.
Don’t be discouraged if nothing happens the first time you command healing to happen. Do it again. Don’t be discouraged if nothing happens the second time. Do it again. Don’t give up if nothing happens the third time. Do it again. Keep commanding the affliction to leave and command the sick or injured body part to be healed. If the individual you are praying for is willing to let you continue praying, by all means – keep going. But be sensitive to their comfort level and realize that they may not have the time or desire to have you continue after a few attempts. Be courteous and consider that they may have a busy schedule. If it seems like they are uncomfortable having you continue, respect their wishes and allow them to go about their day.
When I started seeing people healed, most of it came after four or five times of commanding healing to happen. Be persistent and don’t quit. If you see any change in symptoms or severity of pain after four or five times, keep going. You’re making progress. If you see any change at all, you can eventually get it to go away completely.
In the Christian community where healing and miracles are common, a distinction is made between a
healing
and a
miracle.
When a person is healed through a gradual process, it is said to be a
healing.
When a condition disappears immediately, it is said to be a
miracle.
I tend not to make the distinction myself, but if you discuss healing and miracles with certain groups of people, you’ll find that many of them insist on using the correct terms.
In the practice of healing, patience is worth its weight in gold. Some people will only be healed after an hour or even several hours of battling against the disease. Would your time be well spent if it took two hours to get someone healed of diabetes or blindness? Would you consider it a good use of your time if it took 15 hours to get someone healed of Lou Gehrig’s disease? And would you be content to pray for a resurrection for 24 hours if that’s what it took? As your faith grows, healing will take less time and the frequency of miracles should increase. As my faith has grown in the last year, most people are being healed after just one or two commands.
Commanding healing is a strong place to begin, but there are other ways to get people healed and some diseases don’t respond to commands. Resist the temptation to rely on this approach exclusively, even though it works well. I see healing as a battle and like real warfare; we have a variety of weapons at our disposal. Sometimes an assault rifle is the weapon of choice. Sometimes a grenade is better and once in a while a 2,000-pound bomb is needed to get the job done. If you’re having problems getting someone healed, ask God for the right weapon.
Commanding healing is like engaging in close combat with the enemy. It’s effective in most cases, but it has limitations. There were times when Jesus confronted the enemy directly and times when He did not. Consider the paralytic whom He told to take up his mat and walk.
Jesus didn’t command him to be healed or cast out a demon. He didn’t touch him. He gave him a command to obey, which he couldn’t obey unless his body was healed. His body obeyed the command and was healed, so that he could stand up. In this example, Jesus didn’t even acknowledge the disease. He commanded the man to do something that required healing to happen.