This is the only gift that’s described plurally because there are different forms of healing to combat the various classes of sickness and disease. The Gifts of Healing, have nothing to do with medical science but stem from God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus is our shining example of a man baptized with God’s Spirit, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38). Join Carl now as he shares a powerful testimony, when these Gifts of Healing were in operation. It’s time you operated in them too!
Here is a complete transcript of the podcast (below)…
Let’s continue our study of the nine spiritual gifts and today we will discuss the gifts of healing. Let’s read our key passage once more.
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. 8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; 9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; 10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: 11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.” 1 Cor 12:7-11
Did you notice it says ‘gifts’ of healing, plural, instead of gift as the others are described singularly? It’s written this way because there are various classes of sickness and consequently, there are various classes of healing to counter these different categories of sickness. Let’s start out by saying; the gift of healing has nothing to do with medical science or human learning. Think about it, Luke who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts was a medical doctor and went with the Apostle Paul on several of his missionary journeys. Luke was even with Paul when he was shipwrecked and they were on the island of Melita together in the Mediterranean. However, nothing is said about Luke ministering to the people on the island with his medical knowledge. But the father in law of the chief man of the island was sick and Paul laid hands on him and he was healed supernaturally.
This was the gifts of healing in manifestation. Then the islanders brought the sick from all over the island and when Paul ministered to them, they were healed. The 28th chapter of the Book of Acts covers this account and you can read it for yourself. Now just to make it clear I’m not against medical science or doctors in any way, shape or form. All healing comes from God and these man assist man in attaining the health that God provides. Whether it’s through physical means or assisting the body to regenerate itself, I believe God has sincerely equipped these men with much knowledge to assist in aiding man to good health. But if medical science were enough, Luke would have intervened with his natural medical knowledge on the island of Melita, but no friend, in order for Publius the chief man of the Island to be healed; he required the laying on of hands for supernatural healing.
It should also be noted that if doctors and medical science were solely God’s method of healing, medical treatment would always be free from errors and doctors would never make any mistakes, but this is clearly not the case. Once again doctors, nurses and medical science do their best, that’s not in question and without the usage of antibiotics or surgical procedures, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. There are also many good Christian doctors out there who have their patient’s best interests at heart, and choose the well being of the patient over the drug companies desire to sell more drugs by taking advantage of their patients, who know no better. Now healing that comes supernaturally doesn’t come by diagnosis or by prescribing treatment. Divine healing is usually administered in three ways: 1) the laying on of hands, 2) anointing with oil or 3) simply by verbally commanding the sickness to leave and speaking the word of God over the person. But let me also add here that we’re commissioned by the Lord to heal the sick in Mt 10:8, Mk 16:17, Lk 9:2 and how we do so is described in James 5:15. In other words, we don’t sit around waiting for the gift of healing to appear before we pray for the sick, no, we are commissioned to do so and apply our faith in that area. Remember it’s the Holy Spirit who distributes this gift as He wills, not us, but we need to do our part also.
Now let’s make this point again, Jesus ministered not as the Son of God but as a man anointed by the Holy Ghost. Jesus was just as much the Son of God when he was 25 as He was the Son of God when he was 30 years old. He had not healed a single person at 25, not one miracle of healing had been wrought under His ministry prior to His receiving the Baptism of the Holy Ghost at the age of 30 in the River Jordan, by John the Baptist. It was from this point onwards, that Jesus said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” and later on, Jesus reiterated his power when he said this in Luke 4:18-19, ” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.“
Jesus ministered to the sick then as anyone else would minister to the sick today, i.e., by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. However, there’s something we need to bear in mind, before we proceed any further. In Jn 3:34 it says that Christ had the Holy Spirit without measure. Therefore, we would see a full manifestation of spiritual gifts operating in Jesus ministry that we wouldn’t see in anyone else’s ministry today, because like I said, Jesus had the Spirit without measure. No other person has the Spirit without measure today. However, one could also infer that the entire Body of Christ has the same measure of the Spirit collectively as Jesus had individually. Therefore, just one person would not have the same measure of success ministering even the gifts of healing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry because He had an unlimited measure of the Holy Spirit. Therefore in the ministry of Jesus, every manner of sickness and every manner of disease was healed (Matt 9:35), but that is not always the case with ministers today.
Therefore, Jesus moved in all the gifts of the Spirit except tongues and interpretation, which are exclusive to this dispensation of Grace or the church age, which Jesus ushered in by his death, burial and resurrection. Now some scholars believe that Jesus did pray in tongues, as it’s mentioned in the Gospel of John, that he ‘groaned in the spirit’ (Jn 11:33), but this possible display of glossalalia is conjecture and cannot be verified. Now in my own life, I’ve been blessed to have witnessed several workings of the gifts of healing. I’ve laid hands on several people down the years and been fortunate enough to see cancer healed three times, Chron’s disease healed twice, a brain tumor healed, scoliosis, celiac’s disease, shingles and the healing of several other sicknesses and diseases. I give Jesus all the glory and I take no credit for it. I would also add that on each occasion I prayed by faith for the person. I’m also not special and God’s not a respecter of persons. If you make yourself available God, will use you in the gifts too.
One example I would like to share, which is very special to me, occurred in 2003 in Stafford Texas, at a food pantry called Amigos De Dios. I was serving there in my spare time and knew Carolyn a lovely lady who ran the pantry. I was also looking after her books at the time and taking care of the administrative aspects of the organization, in my spare time as a favor to her. Anyway, so I was working there on a Friday and this was the day we handed out food and prayed for people. This specific day a lady approached me and said these words, “I have a brain tumor, I’m going to be operated upon on Tuesday, but I believe the Lord can heal me.” I was a bit taken aback initially, but started to pray under my breath. So I asked a few of the helpers there to gather round and we started to lay hands on this lady and command the brain tumor to wither and die, which how Jesus would have prayed, when he encountered an obstacle in his life. I didn’t ask God to heal her, no; we stood on the word of God and commanded the tumor to leave and that’s how I would also pray if it were cancer or crone’s disease or fibromyalgia or any other sickness for that matter. We pray and believe God and leave the rest up to him, we don’t beg God to do something, because this is not acting in faith.
So, as I said, several of us had started praying for this lady but for some reason I lost my peace over it, I couldn’t shake it off. I just didn’t feel right in my spirit about the situation. Then I heard a still small voice in my spirit say, “She has unforgiveness”. I ignored it for a few seconds but the words came back a second time, “She has unforgiveness”. So I plucked up the courage to ask her, hey ….errr….do you have any issues with unforgiveness by chance? She replied, “I hate my brother and I hate my mother”. Now hate is a strong word friend. So I put a handkerchief in her hand as an illustration and told her to hold it tight. I said, as long as you hold on to that forgiveness, God is unable to heal you because unforgiveness is a thief that robs from us, it gives Satan legal ground to work in our lives.” Remember in Mk 11:25 right after Jesus gave the illustration of speaking to the mountain or obstacle, he said, 25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Now that’s why a lot of people kneel in church you see, because if they stand they have to forgive…sorry about that… anyway my point is that unforgivness is the last thing Jesus mentioned right after speaking to the hindrance or obstacle in our lives. In other words unforgiveness can prevent your prayers from being answered because your Father is unable to forgive you, unless you first forgive the other person and your trespasses are wiped clean. So after explaining this to her, she confessed unforgiveness, repented, asked the Lord to forgive her and the moment she did, her face changed literally, her countenance started to brighten up and she smiled for the first time and started crying. It was at that moment I knew it was time to pray and we’d be successful, because there were no longer any legal hindrances to getting her prayers answered.
So, one more time, we laid hands on her and commanded the brain tumor to wither and die. This time she smiled and said, “I know the Lord has done it, I know he’s healed me“. She went away that day with victory in here heart. The very next Tuesday she saw her doctor. She instructed him to perform another test to see if the brain tumor was still there. The doctor insisted it hadn’t gone away and there was no need. But this lady stood her ground and said she wasn’t willing to be operated upon until she had a 2nd test. Eventually the doctor gave in and complied and he performed another test. Lo and behold the results came back and there was no evidence of a brain tumor, whatsoever, praise God! The doctor was simply amazed. This lady told Him that Jesus had healed her and he was a Jewish gentleman, and that gave him food for thought. Friend this is one aspect of the gifts of healing in operation in my life. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I had enough general faith to see a brain tumor disappear but for the few of us who prayed for that lady that day, God performed a miracle of healing, through the gift of healing and we were all very blessed because of it. Friend, what God has done for me, he will do for you. What I advise, is if you have a friend who’s sick; meditate on God’s word in the area of healing in order to increase your faith and their faith, in the area of healing. Meditate on 1Pet 2:24, Isa 53, Mt 8:17 and Psalm 103. Make yourself available for God to move so when he leads you to pray for someone, you will be ready for the miracle that works through you, as HE wills it! That’s why I am teaching on these spiritual gifts so that we may have an opportunity to use them. Remember it’s Gods responsibility to heal not you, so the pressure is on Him, not you.
Related keyword searches:
