Healing Journeys – 3
God’s Power at Work Within Us
In my last Healing Journeys post, I shared a brief version of how God used my two best friends to bring healing to my body. While they prayed over me, God’s power was flowing through them to relieve the physical pain in my hip joint forever and I continually thank God for this.
God’s power also flows through people to bring healing from emotional pain and related sicknesses. Allow me to illustrate this by looking at the third chapter of Ephesians as a continuation of the previous posts in this series. The apostle Paul begins this chapter by explaining that “both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3:6 NLT). Although most of us are not deserving of them, endless “treasures” are available to those who are in Christ (v 8). These treasures are free and God’s plan was to provide them to us through the people of the church! “God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” This means that God wants to use “the church”, that is, the people who believe in Jesus Christ, to do his work in this world and to show the unseen spirits his power through US! I find this absolutely amazing! The almighty God, who can do anything without anybody’s help, chooses to use US to do his work!
Healing Prayer
I want to share with you another example of how God chose to use other believers (“the church”) to bring healing to me:
Years ago, “unseen spirits” had been making me anxious and worried and fearful. At the time, I did not know that spirits were even involved in my emotional turmoil. Most of us think that circumstances or people are the source of our anxieties, worries and fears. I was blaming my financial situation, stressful relationships in the home, and an overload of responsibilities for my headaches, poor digestion and elimination, and daily fatigue. I had been diagnosed with an under-active thyroid, meaning that my thyroid was not producing normal amounts of hormones required for the body to be well.
I had been on thyroid medication for years and was sick and tired of taking these little pills daily. I wanted to get off of them. However, when I asked my doctors about this, they told me that this condition would never get better, it could only get worse. There is no medical cure or reversal for hypothyroidism. I was told this again and again by medical professionals.
By this time in my life, I had learned a little bit about prayer for healing and God had been leading me to explore this further by participating in a small Christian prayer group that focused on healing. Unfortunately, the group dissolved after several months because the pastor who was hosting it moved away to begin a healing retreat centre on Manitoulin Island. To encourage me to continue with what God had put on my heart, a friend from this group introduced me to a local healing ministry that I had never heard of, or noticed before. She encouraged me to go for a visit and “check it out”. Little did I know that God had more in store for me than just going to check it out. I visited the Barrie Healing Rooms, a local Christian healing prayer ministry, to meet the director and ask a few basic questions about how the ministry functions. The director suggested that I go through the procedure that every visitor goes through when they first come for prayer. It sounded simple enough, so I complied! I decided to ask for prayer for “thyroid”. That’s all I wrote down. That’s all I said. Nothing more, nothing less.
The experience was absolutely amazing! Not only did I receive three very valid and very appropriate prophetic words from the Lord through the team of three strangers who were praying for me, but I began to feel better right away. I was less tired, more energized and had fewer and fewer headaches until they eventually disappeared forever. My digestive system also improved and blood tests later showed that the thyroid hormone levels were back to normal. Medically speaking, this was impossible, but with God nothing is impossible! God was using the believers on this prayer team – who were strangers to me – to provide me with encouragement and physical healing!
With enthusiasm, I chose to learn more about divine healing and how it comes about. I learned that many sicknesses and diseases have a spiritual reason for being in our bodies. God uses others in the body of Christ to help us identify these spiritual reasons, or “roots”. I learned that my thyroid was not functioning properly because of the anxiety, stress, fear and worry in my life. Then I decided to do something about these spiritual root issues. I studied and learned from the Word of God to trust him for all my needs, to give my burdens to the Lord, to believe that he is always with me, to trust that he gave me the strength to do all things, and that worry will not ever help me and cannot add a single day to my life. My finances improved, my relationships improved and, very quickly, my health improved. I praise God for his faithfulness to his Word. But I had to know his Word to be able to benefit from it! The prayer team already knew his Word and they were being used by God to share it with me!
Let’s take a look at the end of Ephesians, chapter 3. In verse 12, it says that “Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.” You can do this too. Anyone who has put his faith in Christ is invited to come boldly, and confidently, and expectantly into his presence to ask for healing – whether that is inner healing or physical healing. Look what Paul says: “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.” (v 16-17) That’s what happened to me! My inner strength came from God’s Holy Spirit, Christ made his home in my heart and I began to trust him. Then God’s roots grew in me and made me stronger – emotionally and physically! This will also happen to you because God treats everyone the same. God wants all his people to know “how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is” (v 18). He wants us all to experience his great love, though it is often difficult to understand.
God’s Mighty Power Within us for All Generations
When you finally understand God’s love and experience it, “you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” (v 19). The life and power in us is given to us by God. It is given to us to pass on to others. This brings me back to both my healing journey stories that I’ve shared with you so far. God’s power was flowing through other people to bring healing to my mind and body and spirit. I learned this through experience. I pray that you will also learn it, as well as your children, and your children’s children…
“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” (v 20-21)
God is using his power in believers to heal.
I invite you to share your questions and comments in the “Leave a Reply” area below.
More “Healing Journeys” stories to come very soon!
To read the previous posts of this series, click on the links below.