I’ve been struck over the years by how so many diseases are beyond the reach of medical science to cure.  Medical science is quite good at disease management and keeping people alive while sick, but hundreds of millions live with chronic conditions that cause daily pain and distress.  Naaman was one such individual.

It is surprising how adaptable people are.  People can adapt to pain, discomfort, and even a limb that may not work as it should.  Often, they rarely think about it any more. Not Naaman though.  He appeared to have had his condition on his mind, so much so that his servants had his situation on their minds also.

2 Kings 5:2  Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Naaman was immediately interested.  He acted on the information and traveled to see Elisha.  Interestingly, he  took along gold and other valuables with the mindset that his healing was going to cost him something.

Healing costs nothing, of course.  It is provided free of charge to all who come to eat the children’s bread. I’ll be a little controversial though and say that while the gospel is free, it is simultaneously not free- it costs money to send missionaries out, to print Bibles,  and to send those with healing gifts out to the people.  But the power, the anointing, the Word itself is free. Anyway, I digress.  Back to Naaman.  After making the trip to Israel he met Elisha,

2 Kings 5:9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”  11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

Naaman was indignant about the method used by the prophet and almost went back to Damascus in a huff.  Fortunately, his servant prevailed on him to dip in the Jordan river and this is where humility played a major role.  He changed his mind.  He turned instead and went to dip in the river, and got healed.

Is that relevant to us?  Yes, it is.  In my work in the healing rooms, I have seen many get offended for one no-reason or another and leave before they could be ministered to. In truth, people can have legitimate reasons to leave a ministry venue, and I tell friends that if they are genuinely not comfortable in their spirits, go ahead and leave.  And just as you would do your research on doctors and specialists, by all means do your research about specific healing rooms and ministries.  Attend a few meetings to test their spirit.  Talk to others.  All too often, we walk into churches and lose all common sense.  I don’t let just anyone lay hands on me – neither should you.

However, some are so easily offended at nothing that they miss what God has for them.  God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and His ways are not our ways.  But some come with a firm opinion of how God has to minister to them.  Remember what Naaman said:

2 Kings 5:11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

I often wonder: if they knew this, why didn’t they just get their healing on their own?  God does more than all we can think or imagine,  so why try to put Him in a box?

What do we take away from Naaman’s example?  Humility is an avenue to healing.  As an example of humility, Bartimaeus is a great example. “Son of David, have mercy on me,” was his cry. Likewise, Jairus humbled himself before Jesus (Luke 8:41). So did the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43) and the ten lepers who were healed (Luke 17:12).

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Few have problems humbling themselves before God, many have problems humbling themselves before men. However, God doesn’t lay hands on you. Men do. You’ve got to deal with anointed men and women and that’s where it gets sticky. Yes, you might know more scripture than the minister, you may been a Christian longer and you may be more mature spiritually.  You might even be better looking.  However, you can still receive your healing through them.

Some men won’t allow themselves to be prayed for by women, to their own loss. If God sent a donkey or a three year-old to lay hands on me for healing, I’ll take it. Kathryn Kuhlman was one of the most anointed healing ministers that ever lived, if any man needed proof that God uses women in healing. However, I’ll blog on men’s attitudes to women in healing ministry in a later post.

Not a single chronic disease impresses God.  He is able and willing to heal your sicknesses and diseases.  Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand and He will lift you up, heal you and restore you through Jesus. Amen.

11God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

Those who are familiar with healing and deliverance ministry understand the significance of touch and how the anointing can be released through touch.

On one hand, we can look at this scripture and say: “well, this was specific to Paul as a healing method and nothing is said about its generalizability to other ministers”. They would recall when a dead body was thrown into a cave in which Elisha had been laid and the dead one came back to life on contact with Elisha’s corpse (2 Kings 13:20, 21). Surely, we would not introduce that as a general form of ministry, would we?

However, there are other precedents that seem to me to permit this form of healing ministry. Elisha (2 Kings 4:29) had his servant, Gehazi, take his staff to lay on the face of a dead boy for healing (although unsuccessful in that instance). Most important though, the woman with the issue of blood was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment.

Clearly it is not the cloth itself that heals, but the Holy Spirit’s anointing from the individual that impregnates the cloth. With these examples, I suggest this is a viable method of ministering and receiving healing today. However, as practiced today, this method is dramatically unsuccessful or at best, “hit-and-miss”. Why?

I believe the major reason is that we have little understanding in our churches about who has what kind of anointing, calling or gifting in any area. We just gather around en masse, lay hands on the cloths and send them out “on a hope and a prayer”. It is almost ritual now.

As an aside, I have been in meetings where twenty believers gather around a sick person and begin to pray. This irritates me, quite honestly. That is dignifying sickness and ascribing importance to the demonic activity behind some sicknesses. Why are twenty Christians needed to pray for healing for one person? Am I the only one to whom this seems ridiculous? The Greater One lives in us, doesn’t He? If one Christian can change a light bulb, one believing Christian should be able to pray successfully for a sick person’s healing.

Anyway, back to anointing cloths. What would it take to have a better success rate? Teaching and recognition of spiritual gifts…much more of it. Are we an army? Yes, but an army of specialists. Pilots fly planes, tank drivers drive tanks, engineers build bridges. This is important. You have this gift, I have another. Those who have this gifting and success in it should be doing it, not everyone. We just don’t operate like an army and so become largely ineffectual in warfare, particularly when contending for healing.

To conclude, I suggest that anointing cloths are a method by which God heals. Trained and anointed ministers in this area can have great results that glorify God and get the sick healed. Please tell us about your own experiences in this area.

On Saturdays, he would go up into the city and preach on street corners for hours on end. Now, I know we are all meant to preach the gospel and minister to those we meet, but Mark was anointed for this. He had a spiritual calling to evangelism that I don’t have. However, we all have callings in the Body of Christ, as does Mark.  It may not be to preach on street corners like him, but God didn’t call you or I to be “sightseers” on this ride.

Never say again that you have no gift or calling.  We all do.  If you seek the Lord, he will reveal it to you.  Think about it.  He wants a return on His investment, doesn’t He?  So it is in His interest, far more than yours, to let you know your calling.  If you complete your current assignment and uproot any bitterness you may have, He’ll move you on to the next assignment. You matter to God and He wants you to take hold of that for which He took hold of you.

I find the ministry of Jesus incredibly fascinating. There are 26 instances in the gospels where Jesus healed sick individuals (there were other mass healings). In all of the 26 instances, He never refused anyone, everyone was healed. Some may ask, “what about the Canaanite woman’s daughter in Matthew 15?”, but you know what, he healed her too. It just took a clarification of His mission and her persistence to receive her daughter’s healing. I love it when Jesus reaches forward into one dispensation to give us a gift in another dispensation, but that’s just how He is.

I’d like to continue along the lines however, of the the 12^th and 13^th ways by which God heals, namely: through a response to a Prophetic Word and through a Word of Wisdom. In Matthew 8:5-13, a centurion approached Jesus for the healing of his servant who was suffering greatly at home. Jesus volunteered to go and heal him, but the centurion demurred, asking Jesus just to say the word and his servant would be healed.  This is what follows:

10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

There are so many aspects here we could talk about, such as the centurion’s faith and how he understood authority, but my focus here is on how God heals. Notice what Jesus said:

“Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.”

This is an example of a Prophetic Word. God often heals through this means. It differs from a Word of Wisdom in that it has no instructions for the supplicant to perform. Notice he was not sent to dip himself or his servant into the river seven times as was Namaan the Syrian. It was simply a declaration of what would take place. Thank God for the Prophetic Word. Do you have to be a prophet to minister healing in this way? No you don’t. You simply have to have the prophetic gift in operation in your life. In the next post, I’ll look at the other related way God heals—through a Word of Wisdom. Have you seen or experienced healing through a Prophetic Word?

Based on scripture, the answer must be a resounding “yes”. The thing about God is that He honors hunger for his Word, His Presence and His works. Remember that in Mark 16, Jesus Himself said through the Great Commission that believers would,

… place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

The only qualifier He gives here is that you are a believer. In addition, His words in John 14:12 are,

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

So yes, you can minister effectively to the sick through the laying on hands, the anointing with oil, the Prayer of Agreement, Declaration or any of the other methods discussed earlier that are not based on spiritual gifts, but on faith. Most important, as I mentioned in the last post, are patience, compassion and outrage. You may have to be one who seizes these things by force, as in Matthew 11:12,

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

You may have to, as a successful healing ministry does not come easily, even with the gifts. Last, never stop seeking for spiritual gifts, including Healings, Faith, and Miracles, the latter of which I will be discussing next. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:31),

But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

Do you have a hunger to see healings in your family, church and ministry? If so, do write and share this with us.

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