Healing is for Today
At age sixteen I had no idea that God’s miracle gifts mentioned in the Gospels were still available to Christians. But the Holy Spirit had a big surprise for me, though I did not know I would be the recipient of one of His blessings.
That summer after I finished tenth grade, I attended my church’s Youth Retreat held at a large beach house sitting right on the sand dunes beside the Gulf of Mexico—about an hour from my home.
On the third day I was feeling sick and running a fever. Mother came and took me home. Our small town did not have a hospital. The doctor said I had malaria and he ordered quinine for me. But that did not seem to help much. I lay in bed three days. I guess I went in and out of consciousness, as I did not seem to respond to anyone.
At night after my boyfriend got off from work, he’d come sit by my bed, always bringing a chocolate milkshake, hoping I would wake up and talk to him. But I never even knew he came.
We lived in the small hotel that my mother managed. She had a great kitchen staff who cooked for our boarders and guests. One day the head “Cook”—we called her that—told Mother about a “Holy Ghost Revival” she was attending at night. She said visiting “faith healers” even prayed for sick people and they were healed.
Mother asked her to see if the evangelists holding the meetings would come pray over me.
One afternoon as I lay semi-conscious on my bed in the hotel, I suddenly opened my eyes. A black man and woman, both dressed in all white clothing, were leaning over me, shouting. “Be healed in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name be healed and get up.” Were they angels? I certainly thought so. Surely, I had died and gone to heaven.
Yet, I was fully awake. Here in my bed. Healed. Surprised. Recognizing things around me.
That night when my boyfriend dropped by, I was sitting in a chair beside the bed. Between sips of that delicious chocolate milkshake my voice got louder and louder as I tried to explain the details of my miraculous healing.
While my introduction to a miracle healing happened when I was sixteen, too many years passed before I fully acknowledged that God still gives signs, wonders, miracles.
Even though I read my Bible over the years, somehow, I missed the truth—perhaps because I was swayed by my church’s teaching that miracles ceased after the early church. Finally, I realized we must let the Word of God abide in us by building our faith, recognizing His promises, speaking His Word, and believing His gifts are for today. They did not die out with the death of Jesus’ disciples.
I have since attended large healing crusades and seen people miraculously healed. I even went to two packed-out meetings conducted by Kathryn Kuhlman. One of my Houston friends, told by doctors that her illness was terminal, was miraculously healed in one of her meetings. She was then in her thirties and today she is in her 90s.
As we grow in our relationship with Him, we can more clearly discern the difference between presumption and faith. I once heard a Bible teacher comment on this. “Presumption means assuming God will answer you in the exact way you envision and in your timetable. Faith on the other hand is the supernatural ability to trust God when He has spoken to your heart –trusting Him to fulfill His will in His time and in His way. Often this faith level comes after time spent in prayer, listening, and waiting on Him.”
In “Lord, I Need Your Healing Power,” my co-author Ruthanne Garlock and I list some ways God healed as recorded in Scripture. Our book contains testimonies of people who were healed, including six in my own church, as well as others we know personally. Another of my books, “Miracles Happen When You Pray” gives other miraculous testimonies.
How does God heal? Here are few Scripture references we mention in “Lord, I Need Your Healing Power.”
- Through people with the “gifts of healing” (I Cor. 12:9) or by “extraordinary miracles” as He did in Ephesians through Paul (Acts 19:11,12). Today people attend crusades where anointed men and women with the gift of healing pray for miracles.
- Through “laying on of hands” the sick are made well. (Mark 16:18). (See Hebrews 6:1-2).
- Through speaking God’s Word. “My word…shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please…” (Isaiah 55:11). (Also see Mark 11:23; 2 Corinthians 4:13; Matthew 7:7; Hebrews 4:12).
- Through anointing with oil and the prayer of faith. (James 5:14-16). (Mark 6:13).
- Through asking in the name of Jesus. (John 14:13 NIV) (See John 16:23; Acts 3:1-8).
- Through believing when you pray. (Mark 11:24).
- Through confession of sins and receiving Holy Communion with faith. (I Corinthians 11:23-32).
- Through two or more agreeing in prayer. (Matthew 18:19-20).
- Declaring or appropriating the blood covenant—Christ the sacrificial lamb whose body was broken for us. His blood shed for us (See 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; Exodus 12:1-13).
- Through anointed cloths: God performed miracles through Paul when “handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured…” (Acts 19:12, NIV). Evangelist Smith Wigglesworth (1851-1947) who likened them to a “storage battery,” sent anointed cloths to people with all kinds of diseases and received hundreds of reports of healing and deliverance. 1
The primary secret of Wigglesworth’s remarkable ministry of healing was his absolute faith in God’s Word. “Know your Book, live it, believe it, and obey it. Hide God’s Word in your heart. It will save your soul, quicken your body, and illumine your mind.” 2
- “Lord, I Need Your Healing Power,” Quin Sherrer and Ruthanne Garlock, (Lake Mary,FL: Charisma House, 2006);pp. 24-25.
- “Smith Wigglesworth, Apostle of Faith,” Stanley H. Frodsham, (Springfield, MO., Gospel Publishing House, 1948, 2002), 111.
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