Be Healed

On April 28, 2022   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Acts 10: 38

You know of Jesus of Nazareth . . . and how He went about . . . healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Today’s devotional is about Easter. Why do we celebrate Easter? Isn’t it because it is Resurrection Day? Our refrain is “He’s Alive!” So, if he is alive, is he still going about healing all who are oppressed or has he sat down on his laurels. I think both answers result in “I Am Healed,” or better still, “by His wounds [I was] healed,” (1 Peter 2: 24) because Jesus is either still going about doing good or he has sat down because “It is finished” (John 19: 30). Either way, you win!

You probably cannot appreciate how fervently I hope and pray that this series is impacting your life and health. The revelation that the Lord has provided has been astounding. We’ve seen that long before Jesus graced the earth, God declared Himself our healer. Then Jesus came and healed all who came to him. Even when they were not entitled, they pulled on that anointing within him and received. Some of them were just plain stubborn. Others, dared to hope.

God intended to spread His blessing across the earth. Initially, the blessing was sown in the Garden of Eden and that garden was supposed to expand until it covered the entire surface of the earth. Unfortunately, man’s insurrection allowed the curse to enter the earth. However, God had a plan. He sowed the blessing back into the soil of the earth when He buried His own son. Today’s verse capitalizes on that plan so perfectly in demonstrating God’s intent. Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were sick because “God was with Him.” Wow! That is remarkable. It seems, then, that “God with me” results in healing and the end of oppression and what is Jesus’ appointed name and title? Immanuel, which means God is with me.

Because Jesus is with us and because he and the Father have come to live within us, there is no good thing which is unavailable. They are good, they can only do good. When Christ is with us, there is health, healing, anointing, blessing, grace, mercy, peace and all other forms of goodness.

Jesus is still going about doing good and healing all who are oppressed. He is not dead. He is alive, praise God! The power and love which is reflected in today’s verse is still present and has no choice but to dwell in goodness. Jesus didn’t go about cursing people. He went around blessing them so if he is alive now, what is he doing? Is he without power now that he has been resurrected? I hardly think so.

Let this revelation cause joy to arise in your heart. Everywhere Jesus went, he healed. Where is Jesus right now? Is he not in your very own spirit? Have you not invited him to come live inside of you? I mean, let this truth go off in you like July 4th fireworks. This is the day of the Lord’s grace. This day he has healing in his hands. I pray you will be stubborn, confident, audacious and brave. If the Lord healed a Canaanite woman’s child and a Roman soldier’s servant, then why would he not heal you? It’s okay for you to demand your rights and stand on your promise. Be oppressed no longer. Be healed!

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Deliberate Faith

On April 14, 2022   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Luke 8: 46            NLV

But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.”

Come on, somebody shout! Man, I don’t know if I can write today’s Word of the Day because I am so excited about this. What is Jesus saying here?

Do you know this story? There was a woman who, for twelve years, suffered with a hemorrhage and none of the physicians were able to help her. However, having heard about Jesus she kept saying to herself, “If I just touch his garments, I shall get well,” (Mark 5: 28). So, although there was a large crowd around him, pressing in on every side, this woman determined that she would touch him and she believed that as soon as she touched even the hem of his garment, she would be healed. She, therefore, pressed her way through the crowd and managed to touch the fringe of his garment. As soon as she did, the hemorrhage dried up and she was healed. Jesus said he felt power go out from him and wanted to know who touched him. His disciples scoffed remarking about the crowd that swamped them. No, Jesus told them, this was different, “Someone deliberately touched me.”

So, what was it about this woman that caused her to be healed? The scriptures record Jesus as saying, “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” (Luke 8: 48). There is a huge revelation in this story if we can mine it out of here, because if we understand what happened here, we can reproduce the result over and over again for ourselves.

First, we need to understand that Jesus didn’t heal her. Don’t believe me? What did he say? “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” So, it was her faith. Second question, what was her faith in, or perhaps whom? She had heard about Jesus and how he was going about healing people so she, apparently, had faith that there was healing power on him or in him. But look, she didn’t need him to pray for her, lay his hands on her or even be aware of her presence. She had a point of contact built up in her mind. It would have still worked if she said, “If I can get within three feet of him, I will be healed.” It was a point at which her faith was released. Just look at the Roman soldier. Jesus didn’t have to go to his house for the man’s servant to be healed. He just asked that Jesus speak the word. That soldier’s point of faith was in Jesus’ word. Jesus replied to him, “‘Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment,” (Matthew 8: 13).

Alright, think about this. 1 Peter 2: 24 reads, “By His wounds you were healed,” but Jesus had not been wounded and striped yet. Come on, let that preach to you! What is going on here?

Did we not see verse upon verse from the Old Testament about healing? Jesus is the incarnation of the Word and he never deviated from the Father’s intent. Yahweh had healing in His wings thousands of years before Jesus graced the earth. What does that mean to us? What difference does it make?

The point is that God always had healing available to us. Jesus came to earth teaching and demonstrating. He was here to teach us how to walk in the earth, not to make it harder but to make it easier for us to gain everything the Father has for us. I am telling you that this river of blessing and healing is running through you and imprinted on your DNA. The woman in the story had simply made up her mind that she was going to get healed and Katie, bar the door, because she didn’t care who was between her and Jesus. She intended to touch him and be healed. Jesus said someone touched him deliberately. He was being bumped and crowded on every side, but he recognized when determination reached out to him and drew on the healing power of God. He felt it. Glory to God. That woman has the same Father we have. She was less entitled to healing than we are, yet it worked for her. I think we just need to be more stubborn and more determined. I am making up my mind today that I am going to be healed. I am not going to accept brokenness, injury or sickness in this body, which is, after all, the temple of God. How about you?

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Healing Virus

On March 6, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Jeremiah 30:17

For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds.

Okay, I will admit that today’s title sounds a little odd. Blame your Dad! That is just the way He said it to me. The point is, Jesus is on site, in your body, healing you.

Have you ever had a fever blister (cold sore)? If you ever have or ever do, the virus that causes the sore remains resident in your body forever. That struck me. Why does it not always cause a sore but sometimes will. Then our Father showed me a spin on this.

Isaiah 53: 5 says, “By his stripes we are healed.” Whose stripes? Remember the lashings Jesus took? Every part of his body was striped by the whip and in those wounds was your healing. 1 Peter 2: 24 confirms this, “by His wounds you were healed.” So, as I thought through this in an instant the Father showed me that Jesus healed us thousands of years ago and by his stripes we were and are healed, right now. If you are healed, then you are not working on getting healed. Yes?

Because Jesus lives inside of you, his healing power is in you too. It is like that virus that causes fever blisters. The virus is always there even when you cannot see evidence of it. In the same way Jesus and his healing power are always resident in your body. None the less, sometimes we do not manifest Jesus’ healing in the same way that the virus doesn’t always manifest a fever blister. Under what conditions does the virus activate and create a fever blister? How do we activate the resident healing within us so that it produces health? That is the question.

Father wants you to know that all of Jesus’ healing power is in you right now. It lives in you like a resident virus just waiting to be thrown into service. Some people catch a cold bug, but you have a healing bug that attacks any sickness that invades your body. I like that. Healing lives within you. It is always there. You were healed; you are healed. Connect with that healing virus, activate it with your faith and Be Healed!

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Prayer

On December 20, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Job 22: 28

“You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways.”

I want to change the way you and I think about prayer. As we charge into year 2020, I believe this is a great time to do so. I hope you have big plans for 2020. We are beginning a new decade and one that has been dreamed about for years. Science Fiction books and movies looked forward to this coming year and now it is upon us. Let’s have a great year and a great decade. If you are 85 years old this year, 95 or 15 set a new goal, a big goal and strap on your rocket boosters. 2019 was for sitting. Now is the time for setting an ambitious goal and going for it with gusto.

To make 2020 different from its predecessors we are going to have to look at things differently and do things differently. We might as well begin with one of our most sacred strongholds: prayer. If we keep praying like we prayed last year, we will get what we got last year. If you got what you wanted, that is great. If you didn’t then we should look at growing our understanding of working with God so that 2020 becomes a year of fabulous results and tremendous memories. I want for you the best of everything so let’s begin today preparing for a super year and decade.

For many of us, prayer amounts to asking God for what we want. We ask Him to do something for us. That is not an incorrect perspective, just an incomplete one. There is a lot more to manifesting our partnership with Yahweh than just asking Him to fulfill our wish list. The Christian experience has sometimes reduced prayer to little more than begging God to do something in our lives. We are active partners with God, so we need to learn our role in His way of doing things and then be fully prepared to step into that role in 2020. Today’s verse is the clue we need to send us on our way.

God did not create us so powerless that all we can do is beg Him to be active in our lives. He has spent eons pouring out His power and teachings so that we can be His partners. That means that He has empowered us to say something and have those decrees established. So, what does that begin to look like? You can pray for God to heal you. Good but let’s not pray a begging prayer, “Oh God, please heal me. Please, please God, touch my body with your healing.” That sounds good but, actually, it is unbiblical. God said he already has healed us (1 Peter 2: 24). So, we need to move to the next step – declaring. That is where today’s verse speaks to us. Decree a thing and God will establish it. We already know God’s will, it is for us to be healed, now declare God’s will, “I am healed. By his stripes, I am healed. Healing, manifest in my body.”

Whatever you need or want works by this same principle. The power to create whatever solution you need is resident in you right now (Romans 8: 11). We’ve got to start saying something. Once we do, the angels and the Holy Spirit can bring it to pass. We already know that all of God’s answers to our prayers are, “Yes” (2 Corinthians 1: 20) so what is stopping us from having all He agrees to? it is our not taking the next step, decreeing. We say, “Father, heal me.” He responds, “Okay, speak it and it shall be done according to your word.” That is the part we are missing.

Let’s get ready for a big year in 2020 by preparing ourselves now. Begin speaking the desire of your heart. The power is already in you. The answer to your question is already there. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring it up out of your spirit to your mind. Go inside yourself and understand that the power which created the universe is resident within you right now. It’s only a matter of letting that out now. God has already given you the answer to your prayer, it is the Holy Spirit. Start working with the spirit to get what is inside you right now, to the outside.

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Challenged

On January 23, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Philippians 4: 19                    God’s Word

My God will richly fill your every need in a glorious way through Christ Jesus.

Do you believe this verse? I mean do you really, really believe it? Today’s Word of the Day is not, surprisingly, about God meeting your needs. It is about believing. It is about challenging our beliefs. The truth is, most of us don’t really believe the Bible. We believe a version of the Bible. As we read the Bible we need to learn to challenge our belief system asking whether it agrees with the Bible.

Here is another verse, “By His stripes we are healed,” (Isaiah 53: 5) or its New Testament partner, 1 Peter 2: 24 “By His wounds you were healed.” Do you believe you were and, therefore, are healed? That is what it means to challenge your belief system.

We encounter verses frequently which are just over the top lavish. Here is another one for you, “Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes,” (Ephesians 3: 20 TLB). How much can we believe that our God really wants to and is going to bless us? How many caveats do we have for each of these verses?

Our belief system is built one verse at a time. You encounter verses like these and you have to spend time with them before you can really believe they are true. How about the verses that tell us to not to fear? How do you get those into your structure? Most people, including Christians, that I hear, talk about fear. They have more belief in fear than in faith. Why? We simply have not integrated God’s Word and our lives. We don’t stop and evaluate our lives in light of the Word. Everyday day when you read the Word of the Day you should look at the verse and ask how fully you believe it and how thoroughly you have slotted into your life paradigm. Do you live that verse? Does it affect who you are? If the words of the Bible aren’t changing your life then you are not allowing the Word of God to do its work. We have to run headlong into these verses and challenge ourselves to believe.

It is an ongoing practice and I doubt anyone has fully integrated every single verse in the Bible but that is our goal. Each week, we ought to become a little more Bible infused. We ought to think more and more like God and less and less as the world does. So, as you read the Bible, stop and ask yourself if you really believe what you just read. Did your mind simply acknowledge the words without affecting your beliefs? The Bible should challenge you. You won’t always like what it says, at least until you let the Holy Spirit teach you about it, but engage it, work with it and let it change your life.

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Revealed and Healed

On April 1, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 53: 5               Index Card 14

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Are you beginning to notice that I have a lot of verses on healing in my private collection? I told you, there are these old injuries. Frankly, I am quite active despite the injuries but I really don’t think I would be able to be active if I was not receiving a revelation of “I am the Lord who heals you” (Exodus 15: 26).

Peter quoted this passage of scripture in the New Testament. He says, “ … by His wounds you were healed” (1 Peter 2: 24).  So, I am trying to let the revelation that I WAS healed penetrate every cell and membrane in my body. I don’t need to GET healed, I am healed. Jesus was wounded so that I would be whole. My healing was in the miracle he wrought for us in his scourging, the cross, the grave and his glorious resurrection. He took those injuries, sicknesses and diseases to the cross and then buried them in the grave. Then he arose, renewed and restored. We now have that resurrection power working in our bones. “By his wounds we are healed.”

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