Authors: Praying Medic
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, who probably has as much time invested in this book as I do. She’s been my best friend, my counselor, and biggest encourager. She spent countless hours helping with the first round of editing and proofreading. She has helped me with the many prayer requests I’ve received through Facebook and my website and she’s helped decode the dreams I’ve had about healing. She’s an amazing woman and without her love and support, I probably would have given up on the book long ago. Thanks honey – you’re the best.
~ Praying Medic
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Misconceptions and Myths about Healing
Chapter 2 The Biblical Basis for Healing
Chapter 5 Healing and Relationships
Chapter 8 Power and Authority for Healing
Chapter 9 God’s Healing Presence
Chapter 10 Freeing the Prisoners
Chapter 12 The Word of Knowledge
Chapter 13 Healing: A Tool for Evangelism and a Gift
Chapter 15 Healing in the Workplace
Chapter 16 Healing in Health Care
Chapter 19 Proclaiming the Kingdom
Chapter 21 Persistence Pays Off
Chapter 22 Receiving Our Healing
Chapter 23 Keeping Our Healing
Chapter 24 When People Aren’t Healed
Chapter 26 Recording the Testimony
Chapter 27 The Future of Healing
Although I work as a trained paramedic, I am not a physician. I cannot diagnose diseases or recommend the best course of medical treatment for them. The advice given in this book is not intended to replace the advice of a medical doctor or other licensed health care professional. I do not assume liability for any harm that results from a decision to forego medical treatment. I cannot guarantee that the suggestions given in this book will result in the same outcomes I, or others, have experienced. I am not responsible for the outcomes that result from following the advice given in this book. There is no guarantee that the teaching in this book will lead to healing. While I believe wholeheartedly in divine healing, I also believe in and encourage you to seek standard diagnostic testing and medical treatment if it is indicated.
O
N THE STREETS OF
L
OS
Angeles, Steve Harmon spends his days meeting with friends, healing their illnesses, and teaching them how to release the power of God.
In Great Bend, Kansas, Pete Cabrera Jr. runs a soup kitchen. The sick and crippled come in. They leave healthy and sound. Hundreds have been healed through this ordinary man who has a passion for seeing the sick made well.
In Perth, Australia, Jessie Campbell releases the power of God on the town’s people each day while walking to the market. People are set free of demonic oppression. The sick are miraculously healed and God’s love is openly displayed for all to see.
In Atlantic City, New Jersey, my friend Tom Fischer strolls the boardwalk healing the sick, casting out demons and bringing strangers into a relationship with God. When the healed person stands in stunned amazement, trying to comprehend what just happened, Tom asks, “Ain’t that crazy?”
In Denmark, Helle Stock, a new believer walks the streets with a friend, healing dislocated shoulders and injured backs. She’s been a Christian for 22 days. She’s never read the Bible or taken a ministry class.
In San Jose, California, Jose Coelho and his friends visit the waiting room of a hospital emergency department. They announce that Jesus will heal anyone who wants to be healed. Those who speak up are healed and leave the hospital.
In Tacoma, Washington, a patient is diagnosed with life threatening internal bleeding in the emergency department. Six units of blood are transfused and an ambulance is called to transport him to another hospital for surgery. The paramedic prays with him during the transport. Upon arriving at the other hospital, no sign of bleeding can be found and the man is sent home.
There is a movement sweeping the globe today. It’s a wave of thousands of average people like you and I, who are releasing the healing power of God in everyday situations. These people are electricians, plumbers, waitresses, truck drivers, insurance salesmen, counselors, paramedics, college students and stay at home moms. Some are ex-drug addicts and some have criminal records. Few of them have been ordained into ministry or attended a seminary. In the eyes of most people, they are completely unqualified to do what they’re doing. Yet they’re touching strangers with the power of God everywhere they go.
What amazes me about this movement isn’t just the fact that ordinary people are being used by God to do miracles, it’s the consistency of healing being reported. Over the last five years I have read and watched on video over 1,000 testimonies from the healed and the healers. Among the most active healers, the reported success rates are over 80 percent. These aren’t inflated estimates or wishful thinking. Many of the healings have been recorded on video and posted for public scrutiny.
When you read the pages of scripture, you’ll find dozens of accounts of people who were healed by Jesus, the disciples or the Old Testament prophets. Healing stories are numerous, but what you won’t find is instruction on
how
these healings were done.
There are no explanations as to why Jesus put mud in the eye of one blind man, touched the eyes of another, and told a third that his faith had restored his sight. Jesus never explained why He healed the way He did. The New Testament writers were mostly silent on the hows and whys of healing. Most people who have had success in healing developed their own methods and theories as why one way works better than another.
Most people who have prayed for healing have wondered why some people were healed, while others were not. Some have had their symptoms reappear, with no explanation as to why. This book will answer these questions and many others.
This book began as a series of articles, which I posted online. I received a lot of positive feedback on the articles. One comment I heard often was that my explanations took the complex subject of healing and explained it in a way that was simple to understand. When my wife and I were trying to come up with a title for the book, we chose the words “divine healing made simple” because we believe that simplicity is the thing that makes this book different from other books on healing. Rather than confuse you with religious jargon, my goal is to take the mystery out of healing and make things as simple as possible.
My reason for writing this book is to train average people to heal the sick outside the walls of the church. Until recently, healing has been confined mostly to times of prayer during church services, healing conferences and evangelistic crusades. Most of the people involved are in full time ministry. Average people like you and I haven’t participated much. Healing in the workplace and in health care has been almost non-existent. The aim of this book is to teach you to use healing in virtually any setting.
The first half of the book provides background information for those who are new to healing. The later chapters are full of practical tips on how to operate in healing no matter where you are. We’ll examine the most successful approaches to healing and point out common mistakes people make. We’ll look at strategies for using healing where you work and in the medical field. If you put the things you learn into practice, this book will radically change your life and the lives of those around you.
If you consider the type of people who write books on healing, I’ll admit – I’m probably the least qualified candidate. I was an atheist for most of my life. At the age of 38, I became a Christian. As a new believer I listened to Bible teachers, but I rejected healing and the supernatural. I particularly mistrusted faith healers, who I saw as phonies or con-men. I’m not a theologian. I don’t have a college degree. I’ve never been ordained into ministry or even taken a ministry class. I’ve never pastored a church. Why would anyone read a book written by such an unqualified person?
Since 1982, I’ve worked in the field of emergency medicine; the majority of that time as a paramedic. After decades of seeing trauma, death and suffering on a daily basis, my heart cried out to God to do something about it. He heard my cry and answered in an unexpected way.
I’ve never had dreams as an adult. On August 8th in 2008, God appeared to me in the first dream I had in 25 years. Although I did not see God in the dream, I heard Him speak. He said, “I want you to pray with your patients. I’ll show you what is wrong with them. And when you pray, I will heal them.”
He then showed me a series of visions where I saw myself praying with patients, co-workers and hospital staff. At the time, I did not believe God still healed people. Since that night, I’ve had more than 200 dreams about the subject of healing. In each one, God revealed something about how healing works. Much of what I’ll share in this book comes directly from those dreams.
After I began having dreams about healing, I reluctantly started praying with my patients. Wavering between belief and skepticism I prayed for about 500 people during the next six months but I didn’t see anyone healed. I found it hard to continue praying when no one was being healed. I needed something to motivate me. I thought that if I wrote my stories on a blog, I’d be forced to pray with people so I would have something to write about. It was a case of backward thinking, but it worked. I kept praying and eventually the healing testimonies came in. Since 2008, I’ve authored a website, where I share stories about the people I’ve prayed with and seen healed.
The website motivated me to pray, but it also gave me the opportunity to post stories from others who operate in healing. It grew in popularity and through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, it connected me to thousands of people involved in healing around the world. During this time, my private identity has remained anonymous. Nearly all these friends know me only as “Praying Medic.”
My role in all of this has been to verify and publish healing testimonies, teach beginners how to operate in healing and facilitate discussions on healing. On my Facebook page, I’ve asked just about every question imaginable about healing, eliciting responses from skeptics and experienced healers alike. The comments run into the hundreds, with discussions lasting anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
This book can’t provide the answer to every question about healing. I still have many unanswered questions myself. During the writing of this book, I revised the manuscript frequently as more pieces of the healing puzzle dropped into place. I know that after the book goes to print, more answers will come to light. Healing, like medicine, is a body of knowledge that is continually expanding as we make new discoveries. This book is a snapshot in time, an incomplete glimpse of what we’ve learned so far. My hope is to share what we know today and encourage you to begin your own journey of discovery.
B
EING A FORMER ATHEIST AND
a person who flatly rejected healing a few years ago, I appreciate honest skepticism. While childlike faith is admirable, few of us are able to hold onto the simplicity of believing in miracles as we grow older. Most of us are exposed to fraud somewhere along the way and it hardens us little by little.
Miracles, especially those that come by faith, are not rational. That is to say that the miraculous does not appeal to the rational mind. When we see a sudden change in something, our mind wants to know what caused it. For example, if you observed a kettle of water boiling, you would not assume it was caused by a miracle. You would investigate other causes first. When a miracle is suggested as the cause of something, every other explanation should be ruled out first. A miracle is never the most likely cause of anything. It should be the last thing considered after other explanations have been eliminated.
The miracles of Jesus are the subject of this book. The carpenter from Nazareth understood skepticism and He expected it. His miracles were a challenge to the skeptics of His day. Skepticism is normal for those who are unfamiliar with the miraculous. But when we’re exposed to things that defy natural explanation, we must begin to consider supernatural explanations. When the miracles of Jesus were observed, the crowd was forced to admit, based on the evidence they saw with their own eyes, “Surely this man was sent from God, for no one could do such things unless God was with Him.” When we witness one miracle after another and harden our heart against the evidence, the choice to remain a skeptic destroys our ability to reason.
If you’re a skeptic, you need not believe in miracles without seeing them firsthand. I urge you to find people who claim to be working miracles and see them for yourself. These days they aren’t hard to find. Many of them have YouTube channels and do their healing in public. Interview those who are healed and the ones doing the healing and ask them the hard questions to satisfy your need to know the truth.
I’ve spent the last few years doing exactly that. I’ve listened to the testimonies and objections from believers and skeptics. We’ve discussed nearly every aspect of healing, including why some people are more successful at healing, why some people aren’t healed, why people “lose” their healing, whether there is clinical evidence to support the claims of healing and different views about God’s will for healing. Unless you settle your mind on these matters, you have virtually no chance of seeing people healed. Healing comes by faith. Faith is destroyed by doubt. If you doubt whether God wants people to be healed, you won’t see them healed. I won’t ask you to believe everything in this book merely because I wrote it. I only ask that you weigh the evidence and settle the issue in your mind. If the arguments for healing lack merit, then dismiss them. If they hold up under scrutiny, then believe them and move on to the next step, which is growing in faith and seeing people healed.