I’m going to deal with the next of these gifts of power, the gift of healing, or the gifts of healings. In the original Greek of the New Testament, both words are plural, gifts of healings.
We may understand these various ways, each healing that you receive is a gift and that there are various kinds of healings.
In the original it is gifts of healings. What is the nature of the healing that is spoken about here?
I would say that, in essence, it’s the healing power of God channeled through the one who ministers the gift into the body of the one who is sick.
Healing is directly related to sickness. Where there is no sickness, there is no need of healing.
So healing is God’s divine supernatural power channeled through a human believer into the body of the one who is sick, coming against that sickness, dealing with it, and replacing it by health.
If we make an objective study of the ministry of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, I think we could say that Jesus spent at least one-third of his public ministry healing the sick and casting out demons. Now I do not believe that has ever ceased to be the will of God. I believe that’s still God’s will for those who minister the gospel today.
I have am set in the office of a Teacher so, I spend most of my time in the “Word” so, I can fulfill my destiny- for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.
In Luke 4, verse 40, we find this description of the ministry of Jesus. And while the sun was setting, all who had any sick with various diseases brought them to him. And laying his hands on every one of them, he was healing them.
It is a significant fact that Jesus never turned away a sick person who came to him for healing. There is no record of that in any of the Gospels. He never said your sickness is too severe or it is not the will of God to heal you.
In this instance described here, Jesus laid his hands on all who were sick. The power of God flowed from the hands of Jesus into the bodies of these sick persons, drove out the sickness, and replaced it by health.
So, there was a healing power that emanated from the person of Jesus.
This is dealt with more fully in an incident in Mark chapter 5, the healing of the woman who had the hemorrhage or the issue of blood.
Reading in Mark’s Gospel chapter 5, beginning at verse 24. And a great multitude was following him and pressing in on him. And a woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse, after hearing about Jesus, came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak. For she thought, if I just touch his garments, I shall get well. And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
And immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my clothes?
In Luke 8:45 And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?”
I want you to see that though this woman touched the garments of Jesus with her hand, with her faith she touched him.
His disciples said to him, you see the multitude pressing in on you, and you say, who touched me?
And he looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman, fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. Certain things that we need to see there.
First, supernatural healing power emanated from the body of Jesus. In a certain sense, this power was available to everybody and he was surrounded by a crowd, but not everybody received the power. One woman did. Why?
Because her personal faith released the power. Everybody else was thronging Jesus, but she touched him. Her faith released that healing virtue.
Secondly, there was a manifest change in her own body. She felt the change. She knew the hemorrhage had ceased. So that is an example of how the healing power of God operates.
Then we look again in Luke chapter 5 verse 17. And it came about one day that he, Jesus, was teaching. And there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee in Judea and from Jerusalem.
And the power of the Lord was present for him to perform healing.
We see here that this supernatural power of God can actually permeate a place.
The whole of a certain place can be filled or charged with this supernatural power. As a result, a paralyzed man who was brought in was healed.
Sometime this is the only way people in crusades, the healing power of God must be present in the place.
Another example is given in Acts chapter 5 in the ministry of Peter, verses 15 and 16. It says they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on any one of them.
And also, the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.
Again, we see the reality of this supernatural healing power that comes first through Jesus, when the gospel of the kingdom is preached with signs following.
Secondly, to those who are directly related to him and serve him in faith.
In this case, the healing power of God was conveyed through Peter’s shadow. Peter’s shadow was the aura around him of the power of God.
Now I also want to show you an example of this healing power in the ministry of Paul.
In Acts chapter 28, verses 8 and 9, speaking about what happened after Paul and his company landed on the island of Malta, we read this.
It came about that the father of Publius was lying in bed afflicted with recurrent fever and dysentery. And Paul went in to see him. And after he had prayed, he laid his hands on him and healed him.
And after this had happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases came to him and getting cured.
We notice there’s a noticeably clear statement in this scripture. It says that Paul laid his hands on this man and healed him. Paul healed him.
In the early church they did not preach sermons on healing, they just went out and healed them, then they would preach the gospel of the Kingdom.
Now we know, of course, that the healing power comes from God. But nevertheless, God has committed it to his servants. And there is a time when we have an obligation to heal.
For instance, Jesus, when he sent out his first disciples, said, whatever city you enter, heal the sick.
He did not say, pray to me to heal the sick. He did not say, pray to God. He said, “You heal the sick.”
I believe that those of us who are bondservants of the Lord Jesus Christ must face up to this obligation.
At times and places of his own choosing, Jesus expects us to minister his healing power, that the sick may be healed.
There are times that we notice, the Lord has just placed a gift of healing in our hands, we can feel a heat in them, if we pray they will just fall under the power of God, and will not get hurt, because the power of God will be all over them. After this God usually launches us in the exercised of this “gift of healing” for the rest of our life, where people get instantly healed.
This is how it operates. Before this you may often pray with faith for people to be healed, and they may get healed. But when “the gift of healing” operates, it’s different. You don’t try to exercise your faith. You just keep quiet in you spirit waiting on the Lord come into contact God on behalf of the person, and then at a given moment, the gift comes through you, and you know that if the person will receive the gift, at that moment they’ll be healed.
Of course, there is still an element of personal faith required in the person that is prayed for. God gives the gift, but the person being prayed for still must receive that gift of healing. And then must learn how to keep it, because the Devil will come back and lie to you, even giving you symptoms of the illness.
How many people get healed when you pray for them? You also can operate in “the gifts of healing.” But you need to be able to hear from God, because sometimes there is a root in their heart that must be dealt with first, or they will always be getting sick.