THE HEALING PRESENCE OF THE LORD Lesson two: NT � The healing ministry of Jesus John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. NASU Ps 107:20 20 He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. NASU John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. NASU The Word was in the beginning; the Son of God is the Word and has been for eternity. Jesus the Son of God came and dwelt here on earth. Only a small number of people suspected His deity or walk in the prophetic until after His water baptism. This is when Holy Spirit anointed Jesus. At this time Father God openly anointed Jesus with the Spirit to equip and commission Him for the mission the Father sent Him to do here on earth. Jesus was filled with the Spirit just as we need to be filled with the Spirit. Luke 4:1 �Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,� NKJV Now Jesus is in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, here Jesus used the Word of God to over come the devils temptations; each time He uses the word, Gods presence became stronger. For Jesus is obeying Father God and it is pleasing to Him. The more we please the stronger His presence is with/in us. In Luke chapter 4, verse 14, it states this: �Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.� NKJV The ministry of Jesus was launched and He proclaims it in the following passage. Luke 4:18-21 18 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." NKJV In verses 22-30 we see that Jesus identifies Himself as a prophet and links His ministry with the OT prophets healing ministry. Jesus was to minister to all walks of life but He directs the ministry mostly to the poor also to the ordinary people. The OT prophets minister mostly to those in authority. In Luke it states this: Luke 5:17 Luke 5:17 And it came to pass on a certain day, as he [Jesus] was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. KJV Jesus was in the presence of the Lord. The power to heal was there, Gods presence. One might ask, how does He get the presence to come? I believe as we read through the Gospels we see Jesus always is talking/praying to Father God. He stays in close contact with Him. He only does the will of the Father. Jesus knew the Word of God; He never steps out side of the boundaries of the Word. His obedience pleased the Father. God said this: Mark 1:11� And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.� KJV We must walk in the Spirit doing the Fathers will. Doing just like Jesus, only what the Father told Him. Romans 8:8, tells us this: Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. NIV I want to please God don�t you? We must have faith and we must praise and thank God in all: Heb 11:6 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. NIV Ps 69:30-31 30 I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs. NIV As we walk in this, drawing near to God, His presence becomes stronger and the glory of God comes, this brings the healing power just as it was said in Luke 5:17� And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. NKJV We must have compassion for those who have a need, just as Jesus. Matt 14:13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. NIV Let us look at some scriptures that show Jesus ministering healing. Healing a royal official�s son: ______ John 4:46-54 The lame man at the pool of Bethesda: _______ John 5:1-18 The man born blind: _____________ John 9:1-41 Lazarus: _____________________ John 11:1-44 The centurion�s servant __________ Matthew 8:5-13 Two blind men _________________ Matthew 9:27-31 The blind men of Jericho _________ Matthew 20:29-34 Jairus� daughter_________________ Mark 5:21-43 The women with the issue of blood ___ Mark 5:25-34 Paralyzed man let down through the roof ___ Mark 2:2-12 A leper _____________________________Mark 1:40-45 Peter�s mother-in-law ________________ Mark 1:29-31 Man with a wither hand ______________ Mark 3:1-6 Deaf and dumb man _________________ Mark 7:31-37 Blind man in Bethsaida ______________ Mark 8:22-26 Widow of Nain�s son _________________ Luke 7:11-17 Women bent double __________________ Luke 13:10-17 Man with dropsy _____________________ Luke 14:1-6 Ten lepers ___________________________ Luke 17:11-19 High priest�s servant __________________ Luke 22:47-51 Jesus sets the example for us, how to minister healing. Read all the gospels and see how He ministered. Take a high lighter pen say light blue and mark all the healing scriptures in your Bible. Having God�s Word in our heart not just in our mind brings His presence even greater. Jesus knew the Father�s willingness to heal. Jesus healed those who came to Him asking to be healed and those who the Spirit told Him to go to. I am going to share with you one of our adventures in God. We minister healing in our meetings; people come and ask to be healed. We speak to the need and believe God to heal. At times Holy Spirit tell us to go and pray to minister healing. One example of this was when we were in India. We see many healings and salvations on these trips. Each mission trip is a month long, so there are many opportunities for ministry. One evening we were going to hold a meeting in a home of a believer in the slum area out side of Coimbatore, India. It was dark by the time we arrive in the area. The streets were to narrow for us to drive our car on so we had to walk into where the house was. There were many people walking, a number of the men were drunk and calling out in a loud voice. On both sides of the narrow street there are open sewer ditches. It is very dark we must try to stay to the center of the street. We must also keep our mind stayed on the Lord and not on the difficulty. It was getting late so we were walking fast so we would be on time. As we were walking a Hindu women calls out from the gate to her home come in to my home and pray for my son. I ask the pastor we were with if he knew her, he said no he had never even seen her before. So we ask Holy Spirit if this was of Him that we should go in to this home. If we do go in we will be late for the meeting or it could be a trap to keep us from having a meeting. Holy Spirit told us to go in, we did. We found a man the woman�s son had been in an auto accident six months back. He had not spoken since, and had to be fed through a tube. My wife and I and the other pastor prayed and spoke �healing come to this man�. He began to speak God was healing him, praise God. We left and walk to the meeting many people are now following us. At this Gospel meeting held in a home God was to move mightily. The house was filled with people, people were standing out side of the house, and the yard and street in front of the house was full of people. Those close to the open windows had their heads poked through wanting to see and hear all they could. All want to hear about the God that had just healed that man down the street. Many were saved, baptized in the Spirit and many were healed that night. I believe it was because we took time to ask Holy Spirit if He was the one who was telling us to go into that house and minister healing to that man. Our natural thought told us we should not. Next lesson: Letting Jesus Heal. |