Rejoice Ministries & Church Presents:

GOD'S

At Christ's Church, Dallas, as people prayed and laid their hands on one another during the Holy Communion service, many were healed. A woman cried out with joy as she received her hearing, two people said they had come into church with knee injuries, and they were healed. Each time we pray like this, there are healings, some seemingly minor -- sore throats and headaches, and some dramatic.

Months ago, a person recovering from foot surgery, in great pain, experienced total healing, and walked out without crutches. These healings do not come as a result of some specially gifted person, clergyman or layman, praying for the sick one. They come as just "plain ordinary Christians" praying for one another. This kind of thing went on at Christ's Church, in one way or another for thirteen years, now it is happening here at Calvary Fellowship Of Branson. This is no recent outpouring, no "crest of the wave" experience. God has not reduced His blessings to His children just because they are "maturing!"

Does God want to heal all His people? The question is very important. I know that if I am definite, if I state uncompromisingly my conviction that God does indeed want to heal everyone, just as the Scripture says, people get healed. If I allow the idea that there are some people God does not want to heal, then not many are healed, because each person has the thought in his or her mind "Perhaps, I am the one God doesn't want to heal, perhaps God has some purpose in keeping me sick" and so he or she is hindered really taking hold of God's promise.

I don't believe we are going to see more than a trickle of healing until we have really settled it in our minds that God indeed wants to heal us -- that there is no doubt about it. There's a lot of Christians who don't believe God wants to heal everyone. A movie is being widely circulated and viewed right now in the Christian community that attempts to convince us that God does not want to heal everyone, that there are some people whom He leaves sick or injured in order that they can show their fortitude under affliction, show that they love God in spite of the fact that He leaves them in pain or handicapped.

What we often don't see is that this kind of situation does not bring glory to God, it calls attention rather to human endurance and faithfulness. It doesn't say "look how great and loving God is," but "look how courageous and faithful this human being is to put up with his or her suffering, and still remain loyal to God, even though He doesn't seem to be helping them." We have to admire the strength and patience of people who continue to love and trust God in spite of chronic sickness and disability, but we cannot say that their continued suffering brings honor to God. Would we now admire a human father to show that he had intentionally neglected his children's health, in order to prove that they would continue to love him anyway? It is surprising how far well-meaning people will carry this idea.

We were in a meeting some years ago, the chairman told us a young lady in the community who had been cruelly injured in an auto accident, and after some weeks in pain, had died. She had been a strong believer, and all through her ordeal had testified to her love for God. Because of her faithfulness, some in the town had accepted Jesus. Our chairman expressed the opinion, that God hadn't only used this girl's loyalty to bring people to Jesus, He had actually planned the whole thing -- caused or allowed the accident and the terrible injury to this child.

Do you believe that? My spirit cries out against it. Can you imagine Jesus planning an automobile accident in order that one of His people could be mangled for evangelistic purposes?!! How amazing it is that such ideas still thrive in the Christian world, even though Biblical evidence is totally against them.

If there is one thing the Bible has to say all the way through, it is that God is ready to heal His people of all their sickness. Psalm 103:3 is one example "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul ... who healeth all thy diseases." Even better than that, He wants to keep them in health. (Isaiah 40:31 i.e.) Re-read the 8th through the 15th chapters of Matthew, to remind yourselves how Jesus Christ operated. Notice the continuous flow of healing. Notice that Jesus denied no one. Notice the "alls" and "everys" that I have italicized below:

"He cut out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick." (8:16) "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages ... healing every sickness and every disease among the people." (9:35). "He gave them [the disciples] power ... to heal all manner of sick- ness, and all manner of disease." (10:1) "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." (10:8) "Great multitudes followed Him and He healed them all." (12:15)

Healing the sick is one of the major signs of the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus spent most of His time healing sick people. When John the Baptist sent to inquire whether Jesus was the Messiah or not, the answer Jesus gave was "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." (11:5) Healing was and is a sign of the Good News, it is one of the clear proofs by which God shows us "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

Whenever in Christian history there has been a revival of the power of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community, people begin to get healed. Whenever the Holy Spirit gains freedom in people's lives, one of the first things He does is to bring healing, both to them and through them. It isn't just in the Bible. God has again and again shown us throughout Christian history that He wants to heal.

Why do good Christians back away from this happy truth? Why is sickness still determinedly glorified, made the subject of movies and books, held out as a way to bring people to Jesus? Do you ever find Jesus saying, "Look how all these sick people are following Me faith fully, in spite of the fact that I have refused to heal them?" Actually, very few people would question that Jesus wants to heal them. It is the Father they have doubts about! It's all very well to talk about the mercy and love of Jesus.

Everybody knows Jesus is tender-hearted, and would never want anyone to be sick or suffering. What about the Father? His ways are inscrutable and past finding out. Are you never know what He is going to do? Jesus became human -- He understands -- but God the Father is a mysterious Person, Who is not averse to hurling a few thunderbolts! When we think about the Father, we almost automatically slip back into the Old Testament, forgetting that Jesus came to bring us a new picture, a true picture, one that the Old Testament did not have precisely because Jesus had not yet come.

Yet even the Old Testament assures us that God is our Healer. Jesus said to us so clearly "He that has seen Me has seen the Father!" Jesus told us so plainly that He and His Father are just alike. (John 14.6-12, et.al.) Jesus said "I don't do anything by myself. I only do what I see My Father do." (John 5:19) Jesus told us He was simply carrying out His Father's will in the things He was doing: "I came down from heaven," He said, "not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me." (John 6:38)

If Jesus healed everyone who asked Him, and a lot who didn't, and if Jesus only does what His Father wants Him to do, then the Father must want to heal everyone. Right? How can it he otherwise? If Jesus is the perfect Image and Expression of His Father, then the Father is no longer a mysterious God, hidden in the sky somewhere, ready to hurl destruction and condemnation. No, He is a Father Who has revealed Himself in the Person of His Son Jesus -- revealed Himself through what Jesus said and did. Why not accept that revelation?

In spite of the Scriptural evidence, we have a hard time believing God wants to heal everyone because everyone obviously doesn't get healed. I am daily confronted with people whom I admire, and whose love for God I cannot question,yet who remain sick or handicapped or even die. How can I believe God wants to heal all, when two of the closest and dearest people in my own life were not healed, but died? How can I say God wants to heal everyone when close members of my own family remain unhealed; when I myself have things in my physical body that need correction, but which as yet have not been healed?

These are hard questions -- I can answer them by saying that God does not do what He clearly says He will do. I can say that God is erratic and inconsistent, that He heals here and there, but only at His whim. I can say that God has some purpose in wanting these people to continue to be unhealed. I can write books, or produce movies that say it. I can say these things, and the temptation to do so is very strong, yet if I do, I contradict the clear witness and word of the Scriptures. I simply have no backing for my position at all. We do, of course, alter our ideas to fit our experience.

"God says He will heal me. I prayed and asked Him to, and He didn't, so He must have altered His policy." Yet if you are watching television and the picture goes fuzzy, do you immediately call the TV station and say "Hey, there's something wrong with your transmitter. I'm getting a poor picture!" No, you would not even think of such a thing. You would know that the problem was not in the transmitter, but in your receiver, and you would try to adjust it. If you couldn't get it adjusted, you would call in the repairman.

Yet, when we don't seem to be getting a clear picture from God, when we don't seem to be receiving what He says He's sending, we immediately respond "Oh, there must be something wrong with God's transmission. Perhaps He's turned the power off!" and so we invent explanations about how God stopped sending the power of the Holy Spirit after the Apostles died, or after the Bible was written, etc., etc.

Recently a leading evangelist has revived the old explanation that God just uses things like healing for a sort of bait, to get people to come to Jesus, but after they have come, He doesn't do it anymore! "You can't go around telling good Christians they don't have enough faith!" No, you certainly shouldn't do that! It's simply cruel to say to someone who is seriously ill, "If you just had a little more faith you would be all right. Grit your teeth and shut your eyes, and try harder to believe! Make a positive confession!"

It's so easy for the person who isn't sick to say such things to the one who is. We like saying to a starving person, "If you just trust Jesus He'll take care of you," and not giving him any food. Yet it is true that the reason we don't get healed is that we fail to receive from our Father what it is He wants to give us. There can be no other explanation that will fit what the Bible says. If you have read the Scripture, and if you have met the Lord, and been baptized in His Holy Spirit, and know how much He loves you -- if you are convinced that He does want to heal you, and you're not healed, then obviously your attention should be given to making yourself more open to receive.

You shouldn't blame yourself and condemn yourself if you do not seem to be cured, or if you have to continue to take medication or treatment for your condition. Don't try to force God's hand by giving up medication or other needed helps. But on the other hand you should not blame God. He doesn't want you sick. Don't stop praying. Don't stop trusting God for your healing no matter if it seems not to come right away. Is it that you don't have enough faith? That depends on what you mean by "faith."

Faith is simply openness to receive what God has promised. The reason we are so hesitant to imply that someone doesn't have the faith to be healed, is that we think that they don't love Jesus, or that they don't trust God. No, no! It just means they're not yet open to receive the particular healing they need. Faith is a focused thing. You have to have faith, that is, openness to God, to receive for a particular need. For example, I have great faith about getting healed from a cold in the head. I haven't kept a head cold for years and years, because I ask someone, usually my wife, to pray for me, and I get healed. If I get a chest cold, however, I have a harder time. You know why? I'm more scared about the chest cold, and I have a harder time being open to receive God's healing for it.

The same is true of more serious things. If a doctor has told someone they have a condition that is critical, or even potentially fatal, they may find it difficult to cope with. Can even God heal such a thing? Healing is a tender subject. I've been through enough in my lifetime not to want to put anyone under pressure or condemnation about it. Yet if I allow myself to say, for myself, or anyone else, "I guess God doesn't want you healed," I am inviting him to stop praying about it, to resign himself to his condition.

Even if I allow myself to say "I guess it isn't God's time for you to be healed" I am wrong, because again there is nothing in the Scripture that would say God delays healing us. Jesus never put anyone off, "I'II heal you later." To say "God will heal me some day" can be a way of avoiding the challenge to trust Him for healing now. I don't ever want to encourage people to think that God has refused them, or that He would ever refuse them, because Jesus refused no one.

Jesus said, "Ask and you will receive." The Greek can be translated in the progressive present tense, "Be asking," or "keep on asking" and you will receive. I know of a woman who prayed for five hours that her sight might be healed, and at the end of five hours she received the healing. Those of you who have read Guy Bevington know that he would sometimes fast for days about some sick person's healing. He wouldn't stop until they were healed!

Smith Wigglesworth was the same way. Why is this persistent prayer necessary? Is it because God is unwilling, and has to be persuaded, finally giving in just to get rid of us? That, again, would be a strange way for a loving Father to behave, wouldn't it? No that's not the reason. We need to continue to pray because we need to break through the barriers that are keeping us from receiving. What kind of things? We're getting some vitally important insight on that today.We are coming to realize that often the reason we cannot open ourselves to receive the good things God has for us, is that we are subconsciously prevented. We are hampered, not by our conscious thoughts and attitudes, but by the hurts and fears that lie hidden deep in the recesses of our souls, where Jesus has not yet been allowed to reach.

We are finding that as people allow the Lord to penetrate those areas, there is often not only a new release of Spiritual joy and freedom, but physical healing follows, sometimes dramatically, as happened this year in Victoria when one of God's children was instantly healed of two fatal diseases, as her friends stood 'round her and helped Jesus heal her soul. If you are seeking physical healing, and can't seem to break through to receive, you would be wise to seek healing for your soul as well as your body.

Large numbers of people here, at Calvary Branson, and in many other places, are involved in praying for this type of healing. Jesus healed people, first of all because He "had compassion on them." He was sorry for them, and didn't want them sick. His second reason for healing was so that the world could see the Kingdom of God at work. "If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you!" said Jesus. (Luke 11:20)

Some may believe that watching courage and endurance of people in sickness leads people to Christ, and I do not deny that that is true, but I think a far greater number will come when they see Jesus working though His people to heal the sick, and set the captives free. As in the New Testament ... when people see God's healing love at work, they will accept the Savior, Who wants to save or rescue not only our spirits, but also souls and bodies. The salvation Jesus offers includes the health and strength of the physical body. Let us not be satisfied until we have received that gift, too. Amen.

Rejoice Ministries & Church, Willmar, Minnesota, is authorized use and reproduction of "Healing For You" for online ministry purposes & reproduction.

About The Rev. Dr. Dennis Bennett, Martial Artist, Prorodeo Cowboy, Musician & Ordained Minister
as former Sr.Pastor of Christ's Church, Irving, TX, and former Sr.Pastor Of Calvary Fellowship of Branson, MO.
The Bennetts are a a Ministry Team, Pastors, Evangelists, Writers, Conference & Seminary Speakers.
Ree is managing Executive of Bennett & Assoc.; she is a certified christian & registered counselor.

Copyright © Bennett & Asso,a Calvary Church & Flwshp affiliate, 1999.

All rights reserved No reprints without prior permission of the publisher, owners, et.al.