Praying Medic's Blog, page 110

SBNR Interview With Mark Rayner

Mark Rayner interviews me on the first episode of the new SBNR Show. We begin with a discussion about my early years as an atheist, how I became a believer and how God called me to healing the sick. Next we talk about keys to success in healing, and what it means to operate in the supernatural from a place of rest. We move on to a discussion about why anyone can see in the spirit and I share a few of the craziest things I’ve seen God do. We wrap up with a look at some future book projects me and my friends are working on.

The SBNR Show is hosted here.

“It Was Really Awesome”

If you have 2 minutes, here’s a healing lesson via the testimony from a second year student at Morningstar University.

Podcast 009: Steve Harmon

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My guest today is Steve Harmon, a guy who sets people free of sickness, trauma and demons every day. After sharing our thoughts on the NCAA basketball tournament, we discuss inner healing and deliverance then he reveals the two doctrines he hates most. We wrap things up with a story about a deliverance session that got a little crazy. Note: For the first 5 minutes of the program, Steve’s audio quality is poor, but it improves significantly after that.

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Steve’s messages can be found on Facebook through this link or by clicking on his picture.

Past Episodes

 

Responding to a Controlling Spirit

total word count: 291

Original Art by Altair4444

A person under the influence of a controlling spirit will love you only to the extent that you’re willing to be controlled by them. If a person will only love you when you are like them, when you agree with them, or when you’re willing to follow after and praise them, this person is under the influence of controlling spirit and if you continue in this relationship, this spirit is likely to gain control over you.

You can see these spirits at work in the way they try to control the behavior of others. Their agenda is to create uniform behavior and they meet non-compliance with punishment or shame. They discredit and slander in an attempt to create fear so people will conform to their expectations. A controlling spirit will gather others against you. By spreading gossip it polarizes and splits people into groups that hold enmity toward each other. It is destructive in all that it does and it will stop at nothing to get its way.

The shield that guards our hearts against the work of the all such spirits is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Our defense is cultivating love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and long suffering.

Since the goal of a controlling spirit is to manipulate people into following rigid patterns of behavior, the best way to defeat them is to demonstrate  freedom as it is expressed through love. We need not come under the influence of any other kind of spirit. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and controlling spirits are disempowered by freedom.

(I first found this message posted by an unknown author. I’ve modified it from the original version.)

Why You Shouldn’t Visit Me to Be Healed

I occasionally receive requests from people who either want me to travel so I can pray for them to be healed, or who ask if they can travel to see me to receive prayer. While some people have a list of reasons why you should let them take a crack at getting you healed, I’d like to tell you why you should not visit me to  be healed. In order to illustrate a problem some of us are wrestling with I’d like to share an exchange typical of the ones I have with someone who needs healing:

Them: Is it possible I could come to your place and get healed? I’m really suffering.

Me: Where do you live?

Them: Canada.

Me: I need to ask you a question and I need an honest answer: How would you feel if you came to Phoenix and I prayed for you and you were not healed?

Them: Honestly, I’d be disappointed, but it doesn’t matter. Many people have prayed for me and I haven’t been healed.  I know that Jesus will heal me, so I’ll keep looking for the right person.

I don’t want to seem insensitive to the suffering of others. I feel deeply for anyone who suffers. I also won’t tell people they don’t have enough faith, because the problem we’re dealing with has nothing to do with “having enough faith.” People like me can’t travel all over the world praying for the sick, and in most cases it’s a waste of money for the sick to travel in search of healing.

In the majority of cases where someone desires to receive something from God and they haven’t received it, (including things as diverse as dreams, the gift of tongues, or healing) the problem is actually one of how we view God and how we view ourselves. Let’s use the gift of tongues as an example:

Many people aren’t speaking in tongues because they believe that God is the one who controls the process. They believe that if they’re going to speak in tongues, God will take over their body and make it happen. If you believe God is the one in control of the process, it gives you no reason to try speaking in tongues yourself. The truth is that God does not take over your body and force you to speak in tongues. You are the one in control of the process. All He does is inspire the things you say. So many believers are a stalemate; they’re waiting for God to do something that they must do themselves. This wrong view of God prevents people from having what they desire. In a similar way, many people have not been healed because of wrong views they have about God, themselves or the healing process.

Many of us see healing as something like opening a combination lock. We might believe in healing and we may even believe God wants us to be healed. So far, so good. The problem (or so we think) is finding the right combination, and with healing, it seems to be a matter of visiting as many people as you can until you get the right person to lay hands on you. Many of us embrace this model of healing because we’ve heard of people being healed after having hundreds of people pray for them. Such stories make us think healing is a game of numbers. You just need to play the game long enough and receive prayer from enough people until you hit the jackpot.

What we fail to consider is that in most of the cases where someone was healed after receiving prayer from hundreds of people, something was uncovered in the final prayer session that went unrecognized until then, and once it was exposed, the person received their healing. It isn’t a matter of finding the person with the right anointing as much as it is discerning the root of a problem and removing it. (Go here for an example.) If you’ve received prayer from many believers and haven’t been healed, the chances of me getting you healed are rather slim. It’s likely you’re going to spend a lot of money buying a ticket to visit me and be disappointed when you aren’t healed.

Failed healing can be caused by a number of things. Unless you’re willing to investigate the possibility that your healing is being blocked by something like emotional trauma or a mental stronghold involving your thinking (or any number of other things) you’re probably not going to be healed no matter how many anointed men of God pray for you. In these cases, it’s not a matter of anointing. It’s a mater of getting to the root of an issue the enemy is exploiting, bringing it into the light and letting Jesus deal with it. Most of the time, the problem is that we’re believing a lie that is empowering the enemy. These lies are nearly always things we believe about ourselves, about others or about God.

Believers tend to think that because we have the Holy Spirit in us, we’re less prone to believing lies than non-Christians, but the truth is that because we listen to more teaching about God (some of which is true and some of which isn’t) we’re more likely to have wrong ideas about Him than non-believers by virtue of the fact we’re exposed to more theology. It’s surprising how many lies Christians believe about God and about themselves. The good news is that once the lies we believe are exposed and removed and the truth is allowed to take their place, we can receive healing just as easily as anyone. The right combination for healing is a matter of making ourselves just as able to receive healing as God is to give it.

Here’s one last reason why you shouldn’t visit me to be healed:

It isn’t actually my calling to heal all the sick and injured people I encounter. While I love seeing people healed, and I rejoice every time a demon is made homeless, my main calling is not healing the sick, but training people to heal the sick. This calling involves writing blog posts and books and connecting with the few people I come across who are passionate about learning how to release healing and miracles. If I had to choose between seeing 100 people a day healed through my prayers or seeing 5 people a day trained in healing, I’d spend my time training. Those 5 people, once they’re trained, are going to heal thousands and some of the people they minister to will learn to heal as well. While it’s good for me to spend time healing the sick, it’s better for me to spend my time developing materials that train and equip the saints for ministry. That is my real calling and it’s the main reason why I seldom travel or pray for people in person upon request.

So before you buy a ticket to Phoenix, why not spend a little time with doctor Jesus and ask Him what lies you believe about yourself or about Him? Let Him reveal the lies and ask Him to show you the truth. Believe what He tells you and ask Him to heal your body and soul. Then send me your testimony. And maybe when we meet it will be to celebrate your victory.

Related:

I’ve Received Prayer – Why Am I Still Sick?

Why is Healing a Process?

For more information on healing, check out my book Divine Healing Made Simple.

Podcast 008: Street Healing

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In today’s episode, my wife and I discuss some of the most common problems encountered when doing street healing.

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Resources:
There’s an entire chapter on street healing in my book  Divine Healing Made Simple .



Past Episodes

Healed of Multiple Sclerosis

This woman shares her testimony of healing of multiple sclerosis and several other medical conditions.

The Jesus of Your Disability Check

This message is going to offend a few people. I apologize in advance, but I believe some of you need to hear this. So I’ll be as gentle as I can.

I’ve been thinking about the many friends I have who are in various stages of sickness, and injury, who have received prayer over and over again, without being healed. The failure of healing to manifest has caused some to give up hope  for being healed. Many have been told that they’re not able to work because of their condition. It’s not easy to argue with the diagnosis of a physician or the assessment of someone you respect. Many people have decided that it must be Jesus’ plan for them to remain disabled and now their prayers have turned from healing to getting by on whatever assistance they can receive from others. Their prayers involve obtaining a better insurance plan, a donation, a loan from a friend, approval for an insurance claim, approval for a state disability check, successful surgery or some other outcome that has nothing to do with healing.

If you’ve given up hope for healing, and you’re a Christian, you must have some kind of explanation (a theology) that allows you to keep believing in a good and loving God who doesn’t want you to be healed. Many times, those who are not healed will convince themselves that God is using their sickness or disability to develop something in their character. While I think it’s abundantly clear that God uses various forms of trial and testing to develop character, you cannot point to a single example from scripture that illustrates, teaches, or even remotely suggests that sickness is one of the ways He does that.  And if your theology doesn’t come from the pages of scripture—where are you getting it from?

Some would point to Job as an example of how God uses sickness to develop character. If you read the book of Job carefully you’ll find that Job already had great character before he was afflicted by Satan with sickness.

And what about Paul? Didn’t God refuse to remove Paul’s  thorn in the flesh?

And what about the sickness of Timothy and Epaphroditus? Don’t these cases suggest that perhaps God doesn’t want to heal everyone?

Finally there are objections to healing that are based on personal experiences. Nearly all of us have prayed for friends, relatives or ourselves and seen no change. It seems logical to conclude that maybe God doesn’t always want us healed.

Determining God’s Will

There are a couple of ways by which we can attempt to understand God’s will for healing. One way is to look at personal experiences. Many people have  testimonies of healing and they believe their healing demonstrates that it is God’s will to heal. Others point to the many people who have not been healed and hold them up as evidence that God doesn’t always want to heal. This method is a purely subjective one that accounts only for individual experiences. It is not broad enough in scope nor authoritative enough to conclusively demonstrate God’s will toward healing.

Another option is to look at the writings about the life of people like Job. So let’s look at the part of Job’s story that is usually left out. Job was a man of unequaled character before he became sick and judging by his comments at the end of the book—he was no better off in the character department when it was all over. The sickness that Job suffered did not improve his character. It merely revealed the character he already had. That’s why the Lord boasted about him to Satan at the beginning of the story.

Many people hold up Paul’s writings about his personal experiences as evidence of God’s will for healing. And here’s the problem with that approach:

All the verses used in these discussions are obscure passages. None of them bring any real clarity to the discussion. Paul’s discussion of Timothy’s stomach problem, the illness of Epaphroditus and of Paul’s own thorn in the flesh are not explained well enough for us to come to an air-tight conclusions about God’s will. They suggest and hint at things, but Paul never comes right out and reveals the truth about any of these matters. He never reveals the sources of any of the sickness and never tells us if any of these men were ultimately healed. He never actually says whether his thorn in the flesh was a form of sickness. With Paul’s writings, all we are left with are guesses about what God’s will is. Guesses based on weak and circumstantial evidence. Building major doctrinal positions around obscure passages always leaves you on shaky ground.

A third option is to search the gospels to see how Jesus viewed healing. This approach leaves little room for discussion or ambiguity. Jesus demonstrated healing daily to the disciples and healed everyone who needed it. When he sent out the disciples, his instructions were for them to heal the sick and cast out demons. He made no exceptions or exclusions. He never taught that anyone could not be healed. On the one occasion when the disciples failed to heal a boy – Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief. He clearly expected them to heal everyone who needed healing. The best theology by far is the theology of Jesus.

The Son of Man  did not fill the pockets of the poor with silver or gold. It could argued from this that God may use poverty to build character. He did not set up factories to employ people. From this you might infer that unemployment builds character. But healing is another matter. Jesus healed thousands. It was often recorded that when surrounded by a multitude of sick and demon possessed, that “He healed them all.” Not one person was ever turned away for either healing or deliverance. What can we conclude from this?

It tells me that Jesus thought everyone can and ought be healed without exception—because He made no exceptions.

If it is the will of the Father for people to be sick, no one in history disobeyed the will of the Father more than Jesus.

Jesus is the best revelation of the will of the Father that we will ever have. Far better than obscure passages from the epistles and much better than personal experience.

Let me ask you a direct question: What husband is okay with his bride living as a cripple—scraping by, never knowing if she will have enough money to pay her bills?

Do you really think Jesus wants you to remain a cripple the rest of your life?

Jesus is your husband. He is the lover of your soul. He is the man you’re going to spend eternity with. He is a better husband than any man you’re ever going to meet. And He always healed everyone who came to Him for healing.

Maybe you’ve been told that God’s will is not always healing.

Maybe you believe that Jesus has a reason for you to live in pain.

Maybe you’ve been told that God is teaching you a lesson.

Maybe you’ve been told you’re not good enough in His eyes to be healed.

Some of these ideas come from anointed men of God.

Some of them sound plausible.

They’re nothing but lies.

Do yourself a favor and stop believing these lies.

Start believing that your savior wants you healed.

Refuse to settle for anything less.

Refuse to accept the lie that a disability check is your only future.

Refuse to believe that surgery is your only option.

Refuse to be labeled “terminal”, “incurable”, or any other diagnosis that says there is no hope.

Stop labeling yourself by your disease.

Your disease is not yours to keep.

Your disease is not your identity.

It’s a temporary condition that Jesus wants you to be healed of.

Schuler Murdock put it this way:

I would say that having a disabling injury or illness is similar to being a prisoner of war. You’re in prison, but you never stop planning your escape and you never give up hope for a rescue. But for the season that you’re there, you still have to eat what’s available to you. It’s not good to completely surrender and succumb to being a prisoner for the rest of your life—despite the circumstances and prognosis. We’re still ranking soldiers in the sovereign army of the King and we should carry ourselves accordingly.

Related Articles:

The Biblical Basis for Healing

Power and Authority For Healing

For more on healing, check out my book Divine Healing Made Simple:

Podcast 007: Reforming Your Inner Mean Girl

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Today my wife and I discuss the new book Reform Your Inner Mean Girl. Although the book is not written by Christians, the authors identify some common problems people have with inner-bullying voices and they prescribe steps that are similar to those used in the ministry of inner healing. We compare and contrast  their approach to dealing with inner voices and our approach.

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Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

We’re recommending this book with a few words of caution: Many of the principles the authors discuss are valid and the book may help you identify the voices you live with. If you have friends or family who are not Christians, the book may be able to open a door for a discussion with them about the nature of this problem and it might allow you at some point to bring Jesus into the conversation. However, since the authors are not Christians, if you decide to purchase the book please use wisdom and discernment. Always allow the Holy Spirit to lead you and provide direction in these matters.

If you’d like to take the Inner Mean Girl quiz, click this link. (The page does ask for your name and e-mail address)

Reform Your Inner Mean Girl: 7 Steps to Stop Bullying Yourself and Start Loving Yourself

Past Episodes

 

Seeing in the Spirit Made Simple – Now Available in Paperback

For those who have been waiting patiently for the paperback version of Seeing in the Spirit Made Simple to become available, your wait is over. We published the paperback this morning, so now you can get it in print or as an e-book. Let me share a few words about why I wrote this book:

I do not believe that seeing in the spirit is a gift which is only given to a few people, a special anointing you must seek, or something you must receive by impartation. I believe seeing in the spirit is an innate ability we all possess, which simply needs to be developed through exercise.

I wasn’t born with a fully-developed ability to to see in the spirit. Until just a few years ago, I had never seen a vision from God. My ability had to be developed over time, and if someone like me can learn to do it, so can you. The goal of this book is to provide a path you can follow to develop your ability to see in the spirit.

In addition to providing biblical instruction and plenty of testimonies and illustrations, I include exercises at the end of most chapters which will help you develop your ability to see in the spirit.

To check out the paperback click the image below.

To check out the ebook, click an icon below: