Unhealed Healers

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Matthew 10:1-4

In the popular television series, The Chosen, they often tackle some difficult issues in the life of Jesus and His disciples. One such issue is the question of why some people get miraculously healed and others do not. They tackle this issue in Season 3, Episode 2 by having James son of Alphaeus (or “Little James” as he’s called on the show) ask Jesus why Jesus hasn’t healed him. Little James walks with a limp and deals with “a kind of paralysis” on the show, yet, Jesus still chose to send Little James out to do ministry where James is used by God to bring healing to others. (You can watch this poignant scene here.)

This scene is particularly powerful because the actor who plays Little James, Jordan Walker Ross, isn’t acting when he walks with a limp. He was born with cerebral palsy and scoliosis. The struggles and questions of the character Little James were similar to Ross’s own real life struggles and questions.

Whether you agree with the particular answers Jesus gives in the scene or the particular theology of healing that the show portrays, it still raises and important question.

Why would Jesus use a person to heal others while not healing the person He’s using?

This question hit home with me as I listened to Ross being interviewed about this scene. He was very honest about his struggles with not being healed and the insecurities that he has battled. (You can watch that interview here.)

I had just finished a lunch meeting with someone and was sitting in my car, outside of Panera, watching the interview on my phone. And before I had a chance to even ask the Lord why He chooses to heal through people whom He hasn’t yet healed, the Lord answered the question. Maybe my spirit asked the question before my brain could catch up, and God decided to answer my spirit before my brain knew what was happening.

So, as I sat there in my car, the Lord brought to mind my own prayers about myself, that God would change certain parts of me to look more like Jesus. I had just prayed those prayers that morning. And as the Lord brought those prayers to mind, suddenly I knew what God was telling me.

“I only heal through people who are still unhealed.”

God was reminding me that He has healed people through me, and yet there are parts of my life that are still unhealed. The parts of my life that are unhealed are not as obvious as Ross’s or Little James, but they are still there. There are parts of my character, my heart, my thinking, and more that are yet to be fully healed. In fact, I will never be “fully healed” in totality this side of heaven. No one will.

So, yes, God will heal through people who are still unhealed because that is all of us. That is all He has to work with. The only One who walked this earth who was completely healed and whole was Jesus Himself. So, now, whenever Jesus heals someone through the prayers of another person or through the laying on of hands of another person, He is healing through someone still unhealed in some way. That’s all He has to work with.

Sometimes our “unhealed” parts are physical. Sometimes they are emotional or spiritual. Sometimes they have to do with parts of our personality or character. Sometimes it has to do with the condition of our heart or mind. All of us walk this earth partially healed and partially not. In Christ, we have been made new creations, yet that new creation is still working its way through us toward fullness.

We are already new creations in Christ, and we are not yet living in the fullness of it all.

Jesus healing others through people who themselves are not yet physically healed is a prophetic sign to us all. It’s a mirror showing us the reality of our own lives. It’s both a celebration of the grace of God who is willing to dwell in and use imperfect vessels of clay, and it is a humbling reminder of our own unhealed, unwhole parts yet to be brought into their fullness.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
2 Corinthians 4:6-10

Partnering with God: A short bible study

Let’s try a little bible study thought experiment. Read the following passage of scripture and answer this question, “Who performed the miracles?” It’s a simple question, but I don’t want you to answer based on your theology or preconceived notions. Answer only based on what the text actually says.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
Acts 2:43

So, who performed the signs and wonders according to this passage? Answer: the apostles. Here’s what the passage didn’t say but what our own theology might expect it to say, “God performed many signs and wonders through the apostles.” Maybe that is what we wished it said. It would certainly be a bit less messy theologically if it was phrased that way. But that’s not what it said. It said the wonders and signs were performed “by the apostles.” Interesting.

Let’s try it again. Read the following passage of scripture and answer this question, “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.
Acts 5:12

Just to provoke a little more reflection, I’ll ask this question. “According to this passage, not your theology, was it God who did the signs and wonders or the apostles?” I know, I know. Humans can’t do miracles, only God can. But this passage is clear that it was the apostles who did the signs and wonders.

Let’s look at some more passages and ask the same question, “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Acts 6:8

Answer? Stephen. Now this passage helps us a little in telling us that he was “full of God’s grace and power,” but the passage is once again unapologetic about naming Stephen as the one who “performed great wonders and signs.”

Or how about this next one. “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
Acts 8:6-7

Answer? Philip.

Last one. Except this time, I’ll change the question slightly. For this one I’m asking, “Who cast out the demon?”

Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
Acts 16:18

I know, I know. We want to be able to say God cast out the demon or Jesus cast out the demon or, even, the power of the Spirit cast out the demon. But what does the word of God actually say? Paul is clear when he says, “I command you….” Paul commanded that demonic spirit to leave and, at that moment, it left the woman.

So what am I getting at?

When God does the miraculous on the earth, He chooses to partner with us in doing it. The partnership is so close that scripture often fails to say the qualifiers that we would expect, like, “God did X through such and such person.” It often skips all of that and just says that the person performed the miracle.

What are we to make of this?

Scripture often describes the relationship between Christ and the Church as a marriage between husband and wife (see Ephesians 5:31-32 & John 3:28-29). There is a partnership and a union between us and Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, where the two become one (like husband and wife).

Imagine a husband who works and brings home all the household income and a wife who stays home to manage the house and the kids. Now imagine the wife is the one who organizes their family budget and makes sure all the bills get paid on time. So here’s the question, “Who pays the bills?”

On the one hand, the wife is the one who actually pays the bills, but on the other hand it’s the husband who provides all the income to pay the bills. There is a partnership happening here. It’s not totally correct to say the husband pays the bills (although he is the source of all their resources to do so). It’s also not totally correct to say the wife pays the bills (although she actually executes the action of paying the bills and the bills might not get paid if she didn’t). They both play a role in the bills getting paid. If one or the other didn’t do their part, the bills might not get paid.

This same dynamic is at play when we partner with God to see supernatural signs, wonders, and miracles. Jesus’s death and resurrection provided all the resources for healing. The power of the Spirit in us (not our own power) is what is operating in and through us as we pray for healing. Yet, we do have a part to play. And while our part is small, it is important. We must exercise the delegated authority given to us. We must release the power that is in us. By faith, we must act in prayer.

This is why the scriptures so often say that it was the apostles who performed the miracles, or Stephen, or Philip, or Paul. While we all know the power didn’t originate with them, it did flow through them. They were an essential piece of the partnership to see the Kingdom of God breakout on the earth.

There are other passages of scripture that highlight the fact that God wants to partner with us and work through us to see the miraculous happen around us.

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul…
Acts 19:11

This passage makes it more clear that God is the one working through Paul. And Paul mentioned this supernatural partnership himself when he wrote to the Romans.

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Romans 15:18-19

Notice the back and forth. Initially, Paul’s ministry is “what Christ has accomplished through me.” Then it’s “what I have said and done–by the power of signs and wonders.” Then it’s back to, “through the power of the Spirit of God.” This back and forth (it was God, it was me, it was God, it was me, it was God in me, etc) is all an attempt to use limited human language to try to describe this mysterious partnership and oneness with Christ (Christ in you the hope of glory – Colossians 1:27).

James does something similar when he discusses healing prayer.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.
James 5:15

So, is it the “prayer offered in faith” that makes the sick person well? Or, is it that “the Lord will raise them up?” And of course the answer is “Yes.” Both/And. Partnership. Union.

In our previous analogy, if we asked the husband, “Who pays the bills,” what do you think he would say? I think he would say, “My wife does.” This, to me, explains Acts 2:42; 5:12; 6:8; 8:6; 16:8 and many other passages of scripture. Who did the miracles? The apostles did. Stephen did. Philip did. Paul did. You and I do.

Yet, if you asked the wife the same question, what do you think she would say? I think she would say something like, “I click the button but my husband is the one who brings home the bacon.” This is essentially how Peter responded after the lame beggar got healed in Acts 3:6-8. Peter said, “Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?…It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see” (Acts 3:12-16).

Fruit of the Fear of the Lord

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.
Acts 5:3-5

I believe God wants to return the church to the fear of the Lord. But before we could return to the fear of the Lord, we had to learn about the love of the Father. Once we know we are loved completely, then we can have the right heart posture when it comes to the fear, awe, and reverence of the Lord. Fear of the Lord isn’t about being scared of an abusive father. Fear of the Lord is about being in total reverence of an awesome God such that obedience is all we want to do.

And the fear of the Lord brings really good fruit. Ananias lied to the church and to God about his offering. After he dropped to the ground dead, the rest of verse 5 says, “great fear seized all who heard what had happened” (Acts 5:5).

Then when his wife Sapphira came in three hours later, she delivered the same lie to the church and to God. After she dropped dead before them all, the Bible says, “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events” (Acts 5:11).

But fear is bad, right?

Well, some kinds of fear are bad. Certain kinds of fear can be used by the enemy to paralyze us into inaction and disobedience. But this kind of fear, the fear of the Lord, led to really good fruit. Notice the report that happens right after this event.

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.
Acts 5:12-14

When people take a heart posture of awe, reverence, and holy fear of the Lord, God seems to love to move powerfully through that. Something similar happened to the apostle Paul.

Paul was doing “extraordinary” miracles as he saw people healed from illness and delivered from demonic oppression. Some of the Jews who witnessed Paul’s ministry were so impressed that they tried to imitate what he was doing. Though they didn’t believe in Jesus, have a relationship with Him, or have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, they still attempted to use Jesus’s name to cast demons out of people who were demonized.

It didn’t go well.

The demons recognized the name of Jesus, and they even recognized Paul’s name. But the demons saw that these seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were operating outside of the delegated authority of Jesus and the power of the Spirit. So these seven brothers got completely beat up by the demonized man they were praying for. It was so bad that these seven guys ran out of the house naked and bleeding (see Acts 19:13-16).

The very next lines of scripture are instructive:

When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
Acts 19:17-20

Did you see the fruit of the fear of the Lord?

The name of the Lord was held in high honor.
People began to openly confess and repent of their sin and rebellion.
People left their old way of life that involved the occult and witchcraft.
People were willing to surrender things of tremendous monetary value just to follow Jesus.
The gospel spread widely.
The message of the gospel grew in power.

A couple years ago I had an encounter with the tangible fear of the Lord. It is hard to describe but I try to do so here. It was like the Lord pulled back the curtain and gave me just a taste of the fullness of His Presence, and I was completely undone. God is indescribably awesome, powerful and fearsome. God is love, more than we even know. God is also holy. He isn’t someone to take lightly.

Romans 11:22 advises us to, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God…” The word in the Greek translated here as “sternness” means “severity or sharpness,” like a sheer cliff. You know that feeling you get when you walk to the edge of a sheer cliff that drops hundreds of feet either to the ocean or to the rocks below? That feeling of awe, wonder, and heart-pounding fear? That’s what the fear of the Lord is like, and we, as the church, need to return to it. If we do, good fruit awaits us there.

Amazement

People were overwhelmed with amazement.
Mark 7:37

Jesus went into the region east of the Sea of Galilee called the Decapolis. This region was known for ten cities that were networked with each other and Greek in culture. It would have been likely to find a high Gentile population in this region. Yet, word of Jesus’s miracles had spread and people brought Him a man who was deaf and mute.

Jesus touched the man’s tongue, put His fingers in the man’s ears, and commanded them to “Be opened!” In the original language this is a passive imperative in the second person. That means it is a command that can only be obeyed passively. One way we see Jesus heal in the Gospels is to command parts of the body to “be healed” or “be opened” or “be made well.” Jesus isn’t commanding the unhealthy body part to heal itself. Instead, because these are passive imperatives, He’s essentially speaking to the unhealthy body part and commanding it to receive healing from God (passive).

When the man’s hearing and speaking were immediately healed, the people “were overwhelmed with amazement.” And these were likely Gentiles or, at the very least, Hellenized Jews. Jesus was getting a better response from these folks than from many of the Jewish leaders.

Being overwhelmed with amazement is the proper response to the Kingdom of God invading earth. It is the proper response to seeing or hearing about a healing, a miracle or a deliverance. This is how we were supposed to react to these things. Unfortunately, cynicism, skepticism, and the fear of being tricked by charlatans has left a deep wound in the heart of the American church. And this has caused muted reactions to moments when God moves in power.

Here are some reasons why many Christians are no longer overwhelmed with amazement when God moves in power:

Unbelief: they’ve heard too many stories, or witnessed it themselves, of fake healings or church leaders trying to use the miraculous for personal and financial gain. So when they hear of a testimony of someone getting healed or set free from demonic oppression, they just don’t believe it.

Indifference: they don’t necessarily doubt the stories of healings and miracles, they just have been taught that these things aren’t important. They’ve been taught an almost Gnostic version of the gospel that says the really important story is the one where a soul gets saved. Material/physical stuff doesn’t matter. Or an updated version of this is where a person gets really excited about a person outside the church finding loving community inside the church, yet all other stories of God moving in power get a shrug of the shoulders.

Confusion: they hear these stories and don’t really have a compartment in their brain to put it. They’ve lived in the American culture that is saturated with the worship of rationalism and empiricism, so God doing the supernatural is disorienting. They don’t know what to do with these stories of healing and miracles so the stories are mostly met with blank stares.

Familiarity: they have been a part of a church community where healings and deliverances happen regularly. Over time, people become so accustomed to God moving in supernatural power that they take it for granted. It becomes so commonplace that people stop living in awe and wonder of the Lord.

All of the above reactions are understandable, but they’re also unhealthy. The people of the Decapolis had it right. When God moves in power, when the Kingdom of God invades the kingdom of darkness, when someone gets healed or delivered, the proper response is worship. The proper response is awe and wonder. The proper response is deep gratitude and thanksgiving. And if we see it happen right in front of us, the proper response is to be overwhelmed with amazement!

Attending to Jesus

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Mark 1:12-13

It is astounding to me that Jesus––God incarnate––needed angels to attend to Him after His time of fasting and testing in the wilderness. The fact that Jesus would humble Himself to the point of needing attending to is amazing to me. He allowed Himself to be in need. He allowed Himself to suffer. He allowed Himself to go through the fire of trial and temptation.

This truth also points to the reality that Jesus continually chose not to tap into His power as God and instead continued to act only as a man. God does not need help. God does not need attending to by angels. But we do as humans. Jesus chose not to pull from His divinity. Instead, He chose only to pull from His connection to His Father and from the Holy Spirit within and upon Him. He did this to model for us the resources we have in our own connection to the Father and the Holy Spirit within and upon us.

The apostle Paul said it this way:

…have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
Philippians 2:5-7

Jesus, although He was in very nature God, never used His divinity to His own advantage. He chose to stay dependent on the Father and empowered by the Holy Spirit. All of Jesus’s strength came from the Father and through the Spirit. All of Jesus’s miracles, healings, and power came from the Father and through the Spirit. Though He could have tapped into His divinity at any point, He continually chose not to. And in doing so, He left us without excuse.

We don’t get to read through the Gospel accounts and let ourself off the hook by saying, “Yeah, but that was Jesus. He was God.” Jesus didn’t leave us that out. He modeled full dependency on the Father, complete obedience, and total cooperation with the Spirit as a man. When we are called to be Christ-like, this is what that means.

Jesus implied our ability to imitate His life when He said:

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
John 14:11-12

Jesus expected that we could look at His miraculous works and allow that to foster faith in Him. He also expected that whoever believes in Him would be able to do the same miraculous works, and even greater. What an incredible claim! And if that claim was spoken by a televangelist, I wouldn’t believe it. But it wasn’t. It was spoken by Jesus Himself and recorded in the word of God.

Jesus is our goal. He is our benchmark. His life is what we are trying to replicate by the transforming power of the Spirit within us. Our goal is to imitate the life of Jesus…full obedience and dependence on the Father…full cooperation with the Holy Spirit…total surrender to God’s will. And along with this the expectation that we too will face trials, temptations, and hardships in this life just as Jesus did. We too will face moments of such depths that we’ll also need angels to attend to us.

Expensive Miracles (Part 2)

In my original post entitled Expensive Miracles I discussed how Jesus expects our thinking and our actions to change if we have experienced miracles in our midst. We can’t go back to business as usual. Here is a summary quote from that post.

As Bill Johnson said, miracles are expensive. Once they are happening in our midst, we can’t go back to business as usual. Jesus expects more. He expects that they change how we operate in the world, that they change how we think and reason. If they don’t, we become like the Pharisees who saw so many of Jesus’s miracles and walked away with hardened hearts.

In this post I want to explore the consequences of seeing miracles happen and then not responding. Jesus warns that there is a greater responsibility for those who have witnessed the supernatural. When we’ve seen people radically saved, miraculously healed, or powerfully delivered from a demonic presence we are held accountable to those experiences. We don’t get to ignore them, hide them, or make little of them. Here is Jesus in His own words:

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Matthew 11:20-24

Jesus expected that the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum––after having seen so many healings, deliverances and miracles––would embrace the miracles and repent. But repent of what?

We should always repent of our sin regardless of whether we’ve seen miracles in our midst. Yet here in this passage of scripture Jesus is specifically expecting repentance for unbelief. They had the absolute honor of seeing miracles in their midst, yet their response to them was lukewarm at best. Rather than embracing the miracles and Jesus––the One who did the miracles––they were likely offended or embarrassed by them. Jesus does not take lightly that kind of response to His supernatural work. It’s as if we are almost better off not experiencing the supernatural side of the Kingdom of God than experiencing it and rejecting it.

Remember what happened in Jesus’s own hometown when they responded similarly.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue,and many who heard him were amazed.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Jesus was amazed by the people in His own hometown but not in a good way. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Their rejection of Jesus and His supernatural ministry caused a limitation in what happened in their midst. Miracles did not happen. What we learn here is that God will not continue to move supernaturally in a community that continues to reject Him and His miracles.

This is a sobering warning for those of us who have experienced the Holy Spirit move powerfully in our midst. God is slow to anger and abounding in love. But He will not throw His pearls to pigs and see them trampled (see Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:6). He will not continue to entertain the sin of unbelief. He is a good Father who disciplines His children. Part of His love for us includes leaving places where He and His miracles are not welcomed.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled“(Matthew 5:6). God is looking for the teachable, the humble, and the hungry. He is looking for those who won’t be offended by His supernatural work. He’s looking for a people who refuse to be cavalier about His wonder working power. He’s inviting those who are curious about the supernatural possibilities of God’s Kingdom to lean into faith and embrace the impossible.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:26

When miracles happen in our midst, we can choose to lean into them rather than away from them. We can choose to get curious about the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and how they can operate in a healthy way in the church. We can choose to take greater risks praying for healing and deliverance. We can see the miraculous in our midst as an incredible honor rather than a burden to be managed. The Holy Spirit didn’t have to come in power and perform miracles in our midst. But if He decides to show up in this way, we can embrace Him with open arms. We can celebrate that a measure of the Kingdom is breaking out among us! Praise God for His generosity and kindness! Praise Him for His miraculous power in our midst!

Words of Knowledge for Healing

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
Mark 10:46-52

Sometimes on a Sunday morning before church, I’ll ask God if He wants me to focus on praying for anything in particular in the church service that morning. Sometimes I don’t hear anything. Sometimes I sense that He wants me to invite people to give their lives to Jesus or pray for people dealing with emotional needs. Other times I will hear a particular physical ailment to pray for.

I want to be obedient to do whatever it is He asked me to do. People tend to be fine with me praying for salvation or for emotional healing. Yet, when I pray for physical healing, that can sometimes cause some discomfort in the room.

The reason I pray for healing like this is multifaceted. I’ll admit that I don’t always hear the Lord correctly. My gifts have a lot of room to grow, and I am still a work in progress. But here is why I try:

1) The Lord has given me spiritual gifts that I want to faithfully steward. This requires their use. I want others to discover their gifts and put them to good use as well.

2) I want to take risks of obedience that don’t always make rational sense. I want to model obedience over rationalism and skepticism.

3) I believe it is loving to pray for healing. Those who desperately desire to be physically healed tend to love healing prayer. Those who live with the privilege of a healthy body sometimes don’t.

4) The Sunday morning worship service is my workplace. Praying this way is me stepping out in faith at work. I want people in our church to do the same. I want them to sit at their work desk, ask the Holy Spirit who and what they should pray for that day, and then obey…even if it doesn’t make sense…even if it is a little awkward.

5) I want to see people get miraculously healed in our midst. I’ve seen it happen a lot at our church. I want to continue to see it happen more and more. The only way for it to continue is for us to continue to step out in faith and ask for it.

6) I want to normalize the supernatural side of the Kingdom of God. I believe this is what following Jesus was always meant to be. This is what Christianity looks like in the rest of the world. The church in the West is lagging behind. Healings, signs & wonders, casting out demons, words of knowledge, prophesy, prophetic dreams, encounters with the Holy Spirit…I want all of it to become “normal Christianity” for my whole church just as it has become normal Christianity for me and some others. This is what following Jesus looked like in the Gospels and the book of Acts. This is what normal Christianity currently looks like in the Southern Hemisphere of the world and in the East.

A “word of knowledge” is a supernatural download of information from the Lord to our mind from the Holy Spirit. It’s often about another person. It is one of the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12. Many followers of Jesus have gotten little bits of information about people from the Spirit and didn’t know that’s what was happening. Maybe they didn’t know it was the Holy Spirit or that it was a gift meant for the church. A word of knowledge for healing is a supernatural download of information about someone else’s physical illness as an indicator that God wants to heal it.

I was asked by a friend if standing up and giving a word of knowledge and then praying for healing was ever in the Bible. It’s a question that is rooted in legitimate skepticism about the charismatic tradition and the abuses of televangelists in the past.

There are a few things that came to mind when this question was asked. First, you can’t read more than two paragraphs of the Gospels without Jesus healing someone, performing a miracle, or casting out a demon. Healing was a regular, daily part of Jesus ministry and the ministry of the disciples.

Secondly, one must believe that Jesus used supernatural gifts of the Spirit to do His supernatural ministry in order to find an example of Jesus using “words of knowledge.” Some Christians believe Jesus just used His divinity to do all of His miracles. But if one holds this view, then we could never expect to find any example of Jesus using any of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit.

I do believe Jesus used the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in order to set an example to His disciples and to us. If He simply used His divinity, we could never follow His example (something we’re asked to do repeatedly). And I do believe that, in many of these scenarios of healing, Jesus used what we would call a “word of knowledge” to determine the source and identity of the illness. We see this specifically with the crippled woman in the synagogue in Luke 13:10-17 and the demonized boy after the Transfiguration in Mark 9:14-29. In both cases Jesus supernaturally diagnoses the source of the physical ailment and the solution. These were words of knowledge for healing (maybe with a little “discerning the spirits” mixed in, another gift listed in 1 Corinthians 12).

I also believe there were lots of instances with Jesus that resemble what we do when we give words of knowledge for healing in a church service. For instance, when the demon in the man at the synagogue in Capernaum starting yelling at Jesus, He immediately cast the demon out of the man in front of the whole congregation (Mark 1:21-34; Luke 4:31-37). We likely wouldn’t be that bold in our church. We’d likely drag the person off to the prayer room and do deliverance there. In other words, in so many ways, we are much more tame with the supernatural than Jesus ever was.

We know that Jesus dropped a bunch of words of knowledge on the woman at the well, and these words of knowledge actually exposed her sin (John 4:1-42). We would rightly hesitate to be so bold as that! Yet Jesus didn’t hesitate at all. The woman’s own testimony was, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!” Again, we are much more tame with the supernatural than Jesus ever was.

But the scenario that most resembles doing words of knowledge for healing in a church service is the interaction between Jesus, the disciples, and blind Bartimaeus. Here is the sequence from Mark 10:

Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus for healing.
Jesus sent a message to Bartimaeus through His disciples indicating that Jesus wanted to heal him.
The disciples delivered the personal message to Bartimaeus in the midst of a large crowd of people.
Bartimaeus identifies his need for healing, his desire for healing, and his faith for Jesus healing him.
Jesus heals Bartimaeus through the conduit of Bartimaeus’s own faith.

That same chain of events is what happens when a person gives a word of knowledge for healing in a church service. Jesus is sending a message through a disciple that indicates what Jesus wants to do. That person/disciple must be obedient and say what they heard. The person needing healing then responds in faith, acknowledging their need and believing that Jesus wants to heal them in that moment. Their faith becomes a possible conduit through which Jesus heals them.

I’ve personally seen this happen a number of times in a number of different worship services. And once you’ve seen it once, you believe it can happen again and again. But it requires obedience and faith, both on the part of the “disciple delivering Jesus’s message” and on the part of the “Bartimaeus” in the room.

Even after all of these biblical examples, I understand the skepticism that still may exist. There have been abuses with this kind of healing ministry in the past in certain streams of the church. It makes sense that people would be wary of the improper use of words of knowledge for healing. Someone may read all of the above and respond with something like, “Yeah, but we aren’t Jesus. His ministry was different.” I get it. But to this objection I would offer Jesus’ own words.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
John 14:12

I am fine with the critique that argues that there are better ways to pray for healing in a church service than doing words of knowledge for healing. Maybe so. If so, let’s discover what those are. But I believe not praying for healing is just not an option for churches moving forward. The churches around the world that are growing are the ones who are fully embracing the gifts of the Spirit. Our post-Christian culture is resembling the rest of the world more and more. And so, I believe we must resemble the faithful global church more and more.

Consider the possibility that you have already been getting words of knowledge and just didn’t know what they were. Maybe you don’t use that terminology, or maybe you didn’t know it was a gift of the Spirit. Yet, many of you reading this right now have experienced the Lord give you a small nugget of information about someone through the Holy Spirit that you couldn’t have possibly known otherwise. Consider how God may want to use that gift in your life to love others. Could seeing others get healed be a part of that?

Expensive Miracles

Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they replied.
“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
They answered, “Seven.”
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
Mark 8:13-21

Jesus was warning the disciples against a worldview that put politics at the center (yeast of Herod) and a worldview that put religion at the center (yeast of the Pharisees). The yeast of Herod doesn’t want faith to come into the public square (Matthew 14:3-5). The yeast of the Pharisees was a form of godliness with no power (2 Timothy 3:5; Matthew 22:29).

But the disciples had minds that were still set on the wisdom of the world and not the wisdom of God. They thought Jesus was talking about the fact that they only had one loaf of bread and forgot to bring more.

Aware of this, Jesus reveals to us His expectations of the disciples. The disciples were there when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fed 5000. They were also there when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fed 4000. And because they had seen and experienced these miracles, Jesus expected a change in the way they processed things. Jesus expected those miracles to change their thinking, their faith, and their reasoning. He expected them to see now with different eyes and hear with different ears and, at the very least, remember what God can do with a little bread.

Bill Johnson says it this way, “Miracles are expensive because they require change. Miracles that are just observed and applauded but haven’t shifted my perspective have not had their full impact. They are supposed to actually change the way I deal with the situations of my life.”

Once we’ve seen miracles happen right in front of us, we lose the right not to believe it can happen again. Once we’ve seen people healed right in front of us, once we’ve seen people delivered from demonic oppression, once we’ve seen God supernaturally provide, we can’t go back to standard western Christianity. Jesus, having shown us our inheritance in the Kingdom of God, now expects us to think differently about how we do church and about how problems get solved.

Jesus expected the disciples to look at that one loaf of bread differently. Since they had seen the miracles of feeding the 5000 and feeding the 4000, He expected them to look at that one loaf of bread and see the potential for abundance rather than scarcity. He expected them to have eyes of faith, hearts that were softened, and ears that could hear what the Spirit was doing.

The apostle Paul said it this way to the Corinthians:

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom…
1 Corinthians 2:4-7

Paul had shifted from human wisdom to God’s wisdom. He wasn’t interested in using reasoning that was common to the kingdoms of this world. He wanted to use reasoning that was common to the Kingdom of God. He wanted their faith to rest on the fact that the message of the gospel came with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. His desire was to declare God’s wisdom, not the so-called wisdom of the current culture that he was in. Paul had seen too much, he had experienced too much, to go back to thinking with human wisdom rather than God’s wisdom. He had seen too much not to expect God’s demonstration of power.

As Bill Johnson said, miracles are expensive. Once they are happening in our midst, we can’t go back to business as usual. Jesus expects more. He expects that they change how we operate in the world, that they change how we think and reason. If they don’t, we become like the Pharisees who saw so many of Jesus’s miracles and walked away with hardened hearts.

Afraid Yet Filled

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
Matthew 28:5-8

Afraid yet filled with joy. The women just had two encounters. They first encountered an empty tomb. This caused confusion and fear. Why would Jesus’s enemies desecrate His body by stealing it from the tomb? And before they could process it all, they had a second encounter, this time with an angel.

Their fear was not the sinful kind of fear that is steeped in distrust of God and worry about the future. The fear they were experiencing in this moment was the fear of the Lord. It was a holy fear of reverence and awe having just been in the presence of an angel who was dripping with the glory of the Lord. God was doing something glorious and yet so far outside of their understanding that it brought both fear and joy.

Afraid yet filled with joy.

This sums up the whole of a life walking with Jesus as He does the unexpected, the miraculous, the unthinkable. The disciples regularly experienced this mixture. When Jesus walked on water, when Jesus healed people who hadn’t been able to walk for decades, when Jesus cast out demons that no one else could, when Jesus touched people He shouldn’t have (like bleeding women and leprous men), the disciples lived in wondrous awe. They felt the fear of the Lord and the joy of the Lord all at the same time.

As followers of Jesus, we follow Him to our own cross and to our own tomb. We put to death the selfish, sinful things that hold us back from fullness of life with Christ. And we also follow Him out of that tomb, walking into new life as a new creation, a new kind of humanity that the world has never seen before.

When we believe in the impossible because of resurrection power coursing through our veins, and when we witness the impossible become possible right in front of us, we will regularly feel as the women did that day–afraid yet filled with joy. The holy fear of the Lord–the reverent awe of His holiness and power–mixes with the incredible, abundant joy of seeing heaven come to earth, and we are never the same!

He is risen!

Good Soil

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Matthew 13:3-8

After telling the people the Parable of the Sower, Jesus pulled His disciples aside and explained it (Matthew 13:18-23). The seed is the message about the Kingdom of God. The different soils represent the various conditions of our heart. The fruit produced doesn’t have to do with the quality of the seed but the quality of the soil. And the truths found in this parable are true not only for the message of the Kingdom of God but also the demonstration of the Kingdom.

For instance, why didn’t everyone believe after seeing Jesus do so many miracles, signs, and wonders? They had just witnessed a demonstration of the Kingdom of God coming to earth. How could someone not believe after seeing that? The Parable of the Sower explains it. Witnessing a miracle is a seed of the Kingdom. Our response to a miracle reveals the condition of our hearts.

Jesus’s miracles were not occasional. They were a staple in His life. He was demonstrating the Kingdom everywhere He went. It was not a side ministry. It was His ministry.

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“He took up our infirmities
and bore our diseases.”
Matthew 8:16-17

The Pharisees were particularly bothered when Jesus cast out demons. (This is still true today!) Maybe because they had seen faith-healers before who were easily falsified. But having authority over demons and casting them out was something no one could fake and something they couldn’t do. The soil of their hearts got exposed. Their only recourse was to claim Jesus was demonized Himself and using demons to cast out demons.

While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
Matthew 9:32-34

A little while later, they accused Him of being demon-possessed again after he delivered another man, so Jesus decided to clarify the situation.

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?…But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Matthew 12:25-28

The Kingdom had come in their midst. It had shown up right in front of them in the form of healings and deliverances. People being set free from illness and from demons was supposed to be a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. It was good seed scattered by the Good Sower. It was supposed to be good news that people rejoiced over. Instead, because of their path-hardened hearts, the Pharisees used it as an accusation against Jesus. The very thing that should have been a reason to crown Jesus King of Kings was used against Him to bring a crown of thorns upon His head.