There are so many misconceptions about divine healing. First, let me say, I come from a traditional Pentecostal background: I was an Assemblies of God pastor/youth pastor for thirteen years, and was apart of that great denomination for nineteen years. I have been in a
Charismatic church for the last eighteen years. I have studied the faith doctrine for the last seven or eight years. I was very apprehensive about charismatics and faith people. This is the honest truth; every person that I got to know that was a charismatic was really off-the-wall. They would make
predictions and they would never come true. Every faith person that I knew couldn’t get themselves healed of a cold much less cancer. The church that I go to now is full of people who are skilled in being used in the Gifts of the
Spirit. One of the very, few inspired statements that I made in my life, in my first twenty years as a Christian, was this: if we could just combine the beliefs of the Assemblies of God with the true faith of the faith people along with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, love and worship of the Charismatics we would really have something. I think I was right about
that! I do believe that God gave me a road map to healing during my seven year trial.
So I will try and answer some questions that are commonly brought up about faith/divine healing. I base these on Scripture proved through my personal experience. You need both to be effective.
Is it wrong to pray more than once about divine healing?
The answer is: depends! Once you have prayed in faith
and believed, you don’t have to pray again and ASK. The transaction is completed. Mark 11:24 says this “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Here’s an important side note: just because you’ve believed, doesn’t mean it has manifested. You take it when you pray, but it showing up could be immediate or take a little time. Look at Daniel chapters 9 and 10. Both prayers are answered immediately, but one took maybe 3 minutes and the second one took three weeks to manifest; due to demonic forces that were trying to prevent it. The difference between us and Daniel is that we have authority to make it manifest thanks to Jesus. Daniel could only pray and wait.
This is what I do: I pray once and then believe it is done. Then if it doesn’t show up; I go back and thank God and quote the promise and command it again to manifest. Here is an example. If I hurt my foot and there was pain this is what I do, it goes something like this. You are a good God, and I thank you that you provided healing for my foot already, I quote I Peter 2:24-“By your stripes, I was healed”- 2000 years ago, and then I say “pain in foot you are gone in the name of Jesus and anything that was damaged I command to be restored to perfect health immediately and now I thank you Lord that it is done” If nothing changes,
I don’t ask again, I just say something like this: “foot and pain I don’t think you heard me, you are pain free now in Jesus name. I command you to manifest. It always works, every time. It may be immediate or take a couple of hours. This faith muscle didn’t develop overnight. It does take time. Asking again means you didn’t believe it happened the first
time, and then you get into double-mindedness.
There are times when I struggle to get mind focused in faith, and I do what I call do-overs. Remember as a kid if you didn’t get it right, you could call a do-over. You would just start over from scratch and forget about what had already been tried. If you are struggling, you invariably
end up doing this. In other words, there are occasions, when I pray and am not focused and I just start over, sometimes three or four times, till I launch it right. I want it fixed in my heart and head. I used to struggle with this, but now I don’t. We are human, and fall short. The bottom line is it works either way.
If God wants me healed, he could just heal me right?
Wrong-He created the faith system and he operates according to his own rules. “According to your faith let it
be to you” (Matthew 9:29)
He doesn’t force people to be saved or healed; they must come to him and come by faith.
What about this confession thing?
What if I say something negative-Does that matter? Is it important the words we speak? You have heard about positive confession. People going around and saying they are healed when they are obviously not. So what’s up with that? What you say out of your head only won’t get you healed. What you believe in your heart, if you contradict with negative words, won’t get you healed either. You need both working together. Integrity-between heart and mind is shown by Romans 10:9, 10. It says "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God
has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
It does take a while for you word to line up with your heart and your heart to line up with your speech. They train each other. Let me be blunt; if you go around saying “I get the flu every year” you have just given the devil permission to mainline the flu into you every year. If it doesn’t happen it’s only because he is short handed.
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs
18:21)
It is important what you say-Someone has said that we are hung by our tongue.
We just don’t study it long enough to find out what the truth is: then we just don’t practice it hard enough for it to begin to work in our lives! It takes time. Faith (Divine Healing) works if we work it!