HOW HEALING COMES
1. If your only source of information about healing was the Bible, you could not come to any other conclusion than that it is always God’s will to heal.
a. But, people struggle with this because they don’t know what the Bible says, and / or they put experience above the word of God.
b. We’ve been taking time to look at God’s word to sort it out.
2. We’ve made the point that there are two key facts about healing which you must have if you are going to be healed and walk in health.
a. You must know that God has already provided healing for you through the Cross of Christ. He has already said yes to it. It is His will to heal you. Isa 53:4-6; I Pet 2:24
b. You must know how to take or receive what God has already provided. We take it by faith. Heb 6:12
3. We’ve just spent several weeks on the first point.
a. We looked at God’s willingness to heal and dealt with objections to healing people bring up.
b. We now want to look at the second key: how to take or receive what God has provided.
4. In the next few lessons we want to focus on how healing comes.
a. In order to receive something, you must know how it comes to you.
b. Christians are sometimes confused in the area of healing because they don’t know that it comes to us in one of two general ways:
1. People can be healed through gifts of healings.
2. People can be healed through faith in God’s word.
5. In this lesson, we’ll look at gifts of healings. I Cor 12:28
1. I Cor 12 deals with gifts or manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
a. v1–God does not want us ignorant about spiritual things (gifts is not in the original Greek).
1. v2–The people had followed idols and wrong spirits and needed instruction in the way the Holy Spirit works.
2. v3–If someone is speaking by the Holy Spirit, what he says will exalt
Jesus.
b. v4-6–The Holy Spirit has different or diverse ways of working, but it is the same God working in all the gifts, administrations, and operations.
2. v7–These different demonstrations of the Holy Spirit are called manifestations = different ways in which the Holy Ghost moves or works through people.
a. To call them gifts can be misleading without some basic facts.
b. In one sense, everything from God is a gift. But, these are not gifts to individuals which become the property of the individual and he can then use them when and as he wants.
c. They are ways in which the Holy Spirit works through certain people at certain times as He wills for the good of the body. v11
3. v8-10–These manifestations, demonstrations, or gifts of the Spirit are listed. They fall into three categories.
a. Three revelation gifts (gifts or manifestations which reveal something): word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits.
b. Three power gifts (gifts or manifestations which do something): gift of faith, working of miracles, gifts of healings.
c. Three utterance gifts (gifts or manifestations which say something): prophecy, divers kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.
4. These are not natural gifts, they are supernatural gifts from the Spirit of God.
a. The word of knowledge and word of wisdom are not a college education and great intelligence. Doctors and medicine are not gifts of healings. Tongues is not foreign languages you learn in school.
b. If these are natural gifts, then unbelievers have them, too.
5. Our purpose in this lesson is not to discuss all the gifts of the Spirit, but let’s give a brief definition of each and a couple of examples of a few of them.
a. Word of knowledge–Supernatural revelation by the Holy Ghost of certain facts in the mind of God. It’s always present tense information. Acts 5:3
b. Word of wisdom–Supernatural revelation by the Holy Ghost of the divine purpose and plan in the mind and will of God. It is always future. Acts 27:23-25
c. Discerning of spirits–Supernatural insight into the spirit world enabling you to see and / or hear God, angels (holy or fallen), or human spirits.
d. Faith–Special faith (Amp); The Holy Ghost enables a person to receive a miracle beyond the capacity of ordinary faith (raise the dead).
e. Working of miracles–Supernatural intervention by God in the ordinary course of nature. The gift of miracles enables someone to work a miracle (Moses parting Red Sea).
f. Gifts of healings–A person is empowered by the Holy Ghost to minister healing to others.
g. Prophecy–Supernatural utterance in a known tongue. Its purpose is edification, exhortation, and comfort. I Cor 14:3 (Not the same as the office of a prophet who foretells the future.
h. Diversities of tongues–Supernatural utterance in a language never learned by the speaker, nor understood by the speaker, nor necessarily always understood by the hearer.
i. Interpretation of tongues–Supernatural interpretation by the Holy Spirit of the meaning of an utterance in tongues. It is not a translation, but an interpretation.
6. v12-26–Paul explains that the body of Christ is one body made up of many members. v12–Note the body is called Christ.
a. Each member is equally a part of the body; we need all parts of the body.
b. v26–If one member is honored or suffers, it affects us all.
c. If you aren’t used in a manifestation of the Spirit, it doesn’t mean you don’t matter. The gifts are for the good of the whole body of which you are part.
7. v27-30–How we are placed in the body, how we are used, and how God works through us is His choice.
8. v31–We are to desire the gifts, that they be in operation in the body. Does that mean through you personally?
a. That is God’s choice. We just need to be willing to be used by God.
b. If we are used, we shouldn’t be proud. If we aren’t used, we shouldn’t be mad or jealous.
1. When a person is used in ministering gifts of healings, we often say: he has a healing anointing.
a. In other words, when he prays for, lays hands on, ministers to someone, tangible healing power or anointing flows from that person into the sick.
1. The anointing is actually the Holy Ghost manifesting or demonstrating Himself or moving through that person.
2. The person who is used in this way cannot turn that power on and off as he wills. It is up to the Holy Ghost when He chooses to move.
b. One way to receive healing is to be ministered to by someone with a gift of healing (healing anointing) when it is in manifestation or operation.
2. Two kinds of healings can happen in such a setting.
a. God sometimes sovereignly heals some in that atmosphere where His anointing is present — apart from their faith. No one has a promise that this will happen.
b. Healing comes to those who are ministered to in connection with their faith–they believe healing power is in operation and that when they are prayed for it will go into them and heal them — and it happens.
1. When Jesus came to earth and took on flesh, although He was still fully God, He did not live as God. He lived as a man.
a. He got hungry, tired, and was tempted — none of which happens to God. Mark 11:12; Mark 4:38; Matt 4:1-11
b. Phil 2:6,7–Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God]…stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being. (Amp)
2. When Jesus was thirty years old, He was baptized in the Jordan River by John and the Holy Ghost came on Him. Matt 3:13-17; John 1:29-34
a. After the Holy Ghost came on Him, Jesus began to do miracles. John 2:11
b. He did no miracles until He was anointed. Luke 4:16-19; Acts 10:38
c. Jesus then began to teach, preach, and heal. Matt 4:23-25; Luke 4:37-40
3. As His fame spread, people came to hear and be healed. Luke 5:15; 6:17-19
a. Virtue = DUNAMIS = miracle working power; healing power.
b. What did Jesus preach and teach? Among other things, that He was anointed to heal. Why? To feed their faith. Rom 10:17
4. We have a dramatic example of how this worked in Mark 5:24-34
a. A woman touched Jesus believing that if she did, she would be healed.
b. When she touched Him, power (virtue) flowed out of Jesus and healed her.
c. Jesus felt the power flow out of Him. Many people were touching Him, but only one was healed.
d. Her faith activated the healing power with which Jesus was anointed.
5. No one is promised that a healing anointing will heal them without their faith being involved.
a. Luke 5:17–The power of the Lord was present to heal because Jesus was there and He was anointed with healing power.
b. Yet, only one man was healed, and his faith was involved. v18-26
c. Jesus was anointed with healing power, and when people would believe it (exercise faith), that power would flow out of Jesus and heal them.
d. In 12 of 15 specifically described cases of healing in the ministry of Jesus, the faith of the individual was commended. That’s 4/5s of them.
1. It goes without saying, in order to be healed by a manifestation of the Spirit, you must be around someone who is used that way, and, the gift must be in operation when you are prayed for.
2. This is an easier way to receive healing than simply believing God’s written word. It takes less faith to receive.
a. Faith believes without seeing, and when someone is anointed with healing power, there is something to see and feel.
b. You can see the one who is anointed with power and feel their touch.
c. However, this method of being healed does require some faith. Many leave meetings where healing anointings are present unhealed, untouched.
3. It is easier to lose a healing that comes through a gift of the Spirit.
a. Counter attacks often come to people who have been healed — traces of the disease return. It is a challenge from the devil.
b. If one has not developed his faith, he may be moved by what he feels, and say: I guess I wasn’t healed after all — and lose it.
4. God loves us and wants us healed so much, He has put gifts of healings in the church to help those with weaker or lesser faith — another example of His willingness to heal all.
1. To build your faith in healing.
a. If you wait until you need faith to get faith, it may be too late.
b. Many people’s faith is weak due to confusion over how healing comes and and questions about why some fail to get healed.
2. To create a hunger in you for more manifestations of the Spirit to occur.
a. I Cor 12:31–But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best — the higher [gifts] and the choicest [graces]. (Amp)
b. I Cor 14:1–Earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual endowments. (Amp)
c. Acts 4:29,30–The early church, part of the body of which we are a part, prayed for God to manifest Himself in a mighty way.
3. Next week, we’ll deal healing that comes through faith in God’s word.