3/10/07 – Healing

Hi all,

I'd like to share some things about receiving healing that have kept me pretty healthy since I was 18.

When I was a boy and then as a teenager, my little brother and I got shots at least twice a week, sometimes 3 times, for allergies - pollen, cats, mold spores, ragweed, stuff like that. My grandfather was a doctor so mom would take us in the back door of his office where Karen, a young, pretty, tall blonde nurse with one of those 1960's/early 70's era nurse hats perched on top her carefully coiffed hair, would take my arm in her icy fingers and with a deceptively sweet smile holding my attention, jab a needle into my arm and then out before I knew what hit me. My brother Steve was next in line - and that was our routine from spring, through summer, until just after the first frost. Boy! She had icy hands.

Besides that, every winter, come late January or February, I'd get pneumonia or at least bronchitis. One year I was hospitalized with mono (that was the year Barb and I got serious about dating - think there was a connection?). Like clockwork, I knew I'd be sick at that time of year, and like clockwork, I was.

I'd like to share how I got healed of those allergies, though my brother, now 46, is at least as bad now as he was then, and the annual mid-winter illness. But first I need to share a couple concepts that may appear unrelated, but when assembled in the right order, provide a clear picture about healing.

The first thing to remember is that your body is not saved. (nor does it want to be)

That's a real revelation for some, because we assume since we are saved our bodies are saved, but that's not the case. Romans 8:23 tells us we are waiting for the redemption of the body. Jesus saved our spirits, and one day we will have a glorified body, and though he purchased our healing on the cross, appropriating that healing to an earthly body is what this is all about.

That being the case, it means that this body is of the earth and to the earth it seeks to return. Anyone over 40 can relate to the sag in the body and can confirm the body is being drawn down to the earth. Ha.

That means it's (the body) merely a trained tool, that our eternal part, our spirit and soul, inhabit for a few years. Your spirit is saved, your mind is on it's way to learning how to think like God, but that body came from the earth and it's just a tool, your earth-suit.

That means like plants and animals, it can be trained. We train roses to climb over and through trellises, and we train our pets to roll over - they are of the earth and respond accordingly. Your body is built the same way - to be trained.

You have to take authority over your body the same way you would take authority over a pet dog, or your garden...and you and I do this in many areas without thinking about it...but in the area of health it's another story.

The trouble is, most people's bodies have been trained by the media and culture, and not on Biblical truth.

Like anything that needs training, starting off is the hardest part. If you've ever started an exercise regime you know your body takes a while to get up to speed, and it will protest any effort to stretch it's muscles or be made to stick to any firm routine. The body would prefer to be lazy, undisciplined, and subject to carnal, earthly things - craving of food, input from various media, things to make it feel better, and so forth. Stiff muscles does not mean it's rebelling, it just means it's trying to submit to your will, it's just going to take a bit of time to come up to speed.

There are some good things the body has been trained in. If I ask what goes with warm cookies right out of the oven, most of us would answer 'milk'. How about orange juice? No? You want milk because you trained your body to expect milk with cookies - that's the only difference. Since you were little, your mom set a glass of milk down with the cookies.

How about a pizza? For some, only a Pepsi will do. Others, a Coke. I used to be a Pepsi man myself. Today, water with lemon. I purposed to change my body's tastes, and I did it. Oh, my body really craved that sweet Pepsi for a long time, especially since Pizza Hut has the saltiest pizza around and that Pepsi just fit right...well, ahem, I was successful in retraining my body to ask for and enjoy water. Now soft drinks don't taste the same and I rarely drink them.

(OK, at the movies I get a big tub of chemical soaked popcorn masquerading as butter and a large Pepsi - but that's it)

When we first dated and got married, Barb was used to drinking apple juice with popcorn. Yuk. But now, 28+ years of marriage later and I often sit down with a glass of juice with my popcorn if I'm at home. I got used to it, or more specifically, my body has been trained over the years to expect and desire juice at home - and it knows whether it's at home or at a movie theater for sure.

We all wage this war over whether to listen to our body or tell it what to do:

We want to stay in bed of a morning, our minds tell us we must get up - who wins? Most of the time your mind - and your body obediently plods along to get ready for work or church or exercise or errands. But there are days we let the body dictate the pace, getting up when we (the body) FEEL like it.

There are other times you listen to your body in the negative. One cheeseburger is nice, two would be better don't you think? "Why yes, stomach, I agree, 2 cheeseburgers would taste so much better than 1, and of course (says the body) we must have the larger size of fries to go with that right?" And we obey the body.

But perhaps you turn the body down cold on other things. Maybe you used to be a smoker and you told the body to quit, and it gradually gave up trying to tell you it needed a nicotine fix. Whatever the situation, you  have been victorious in many areas over your body's appetites. Healing is the same way - you CAN tell it what it will and will not accept in the way of aches, pains, illnesses and diseases, or at least limit their effects.

So get this down - you are in charge of your body and can tell it what to do - Paul said he treated his body like a slave - I Cor 9:27 - ordering it what it could and could not do. Meditate on your daily routine, and fix in your mind the times during the day you tell the body what it will do, and times you listen to your body. Think about your body as a tool, that can be reconditioned and trained and made to submit to your will. Think on little ways you can tell your body to change it's ways a bit.

That is part 1.

The 2nd part is that your will is sovereign. Neither God, the devil, nor your body can violate your will. They can influence your will, but your will is sovereign.

We've been raised to believe your body tells you what is what concerning sickness, disease, or injury. That's not scriptural. Our will is like a gatekeeper at a castle. Let down the drawbridge and illness will find it's way to your body...put up the drawbridge to keep it out. That drawbridge is governed by your will...I will say however, that once the enemy is inside - your body is ill - it's more of a fight pushing it back out and over that moat. But it can be done.

These two elements are the single biggest factors of why people are not healed by God. They think God will touch them sovereignly - they've been good, they love God, they are believing, they've learned all the right verses - why would he not touch them? That is performance Christianity and God's not into you jumping through hoops for him. God will heal you, but he'll do it according to what he's done for you as his child - that means learn how to use what your Daddy has done for you.

My oldest son's Special Education aide got brain cancer - inoperable. I went to see her, she had prayer at her church and all, but was about to leave this world and her husband and 3 young children. I talked to her about her will and faith. I asked if she wanted to die. If she wanted that cancer. (it may seem like a silly question, but you'd be surprised how many people just want to go be with Jesus when they are that close to death, and I don't fault them)

She wanted to fight it. I got her to state her will, got her to understand the sovereignty of it, and left her with some material on healing. That included the fact that Jesus already paid for her healing, but it was going to be her will to appropriate it, the same way she did when she got saved. Our spirits take salvation right away because we are spirit, created by the Father who is a Spirit, so there's no fight. But our bodies are of the earth, not heavenly material, so it must be trained to submit to God. We didn't pray that first meeting.

About a week later I went back to talk to her. I asked her if I was to lay hands on her and pray what would happen, and she boldly stated that she knew she would be healed. I laid hands on her, commanded the thing out of her body and told her body to be healed, that it reject that cancer and obey God's Word, and left.

10 days later I went back...I couldn't find her - turned out she was in rehab learning how to walk again. She told me she had a CT the morning I came and the tumor was still as big as a lemon in her brain. At 2pm she had other tests, including another CT looking at other elements, and the tumor was the size of a pea. They released her a few days later.

God didn't touch her until she set her will, rose up in anger over the cancer, that she discovered it had no right to be in her body, and then spoke to it - and commanded her body to rise up and reject that thing in the name of Jesus.

Your spirit was changed immediately because Jesus died first and foremost for your spirit, but as already noted, your body isn't saved. That means you must choose to appropriate out of your free will what Jesus did for the body, and then take the initiative to make your body obey what Jesus did - enforce Jesus' work on the cross. You are one of God's kids, don't be expecting your Father to touch you like you're unsaved - you have access to the whole kingdom, so learn to use what the Father has provided because that's how he's relating to you.

Understand I'm talking about 1 small slice of a pie - God does touch people sovereignly, especially the unsaved. And James 5:14-15 tells people to call for the elders of the (house) church to anoint them with oil and pray the prayer of faith and they'll be healed.

Yet the fact remains that Christians as a population group are generally just as sick as non-believers. So I am addressing concepts to change that - just a slice of the subject of healing, but a valid slice that is rarely talked about.

I am not talking about presumption. Frances Hunter told the story years ago of a woman who came up front, got prayer for her eyes (she wanted 20/20 vision) and then stomped her glasses on the floor. She was pulled over that night driving home because she was weaving back and forth - they thought she was drunk - but in reality she was as blind as a bat. She was presumptuous, not in faith. I am not talking about that.

I am talking about a long term plan that may take weeks or months to become fully implemented.

When I was 17 I realized the above 2 truths. I became determined to make my body re-train itself to reject allergies to pollen, and to reject annual illness.

It took me the fall of my junior year of high school and the first weeks of my senior year before my body fully lined up with the wholeness Jesus bought. After all, it had been trained to getting those shots every spring and summer and fall...

What did I do? I prayed exactly 1 time. Immediately after that I commanded my body to line up with God's Word - I Peter 2:24 to be precise - and that is all. After that I just reminded my sniffily nose and watering eyes that my body was healed as I dabbed my eyes and blew my nose. If I told my body once, I told it 100 times it was healed and it may as well dry up because I wasn't backing down and it better get in line with God - and I said it just like that, over and over and over. EVERY time I blew my nose I told my body it was healed and to get with the plan. After a while I could feel the momentum shift inside my immune system.

That first fall I decreased the number of tissues I stuck in my pockets before school to last me the day from 28 (8 in each of the front pockets, and 6 in the two back ones - and yes, I looked like a football player with pads on) down to 4 in each of the front and 3 in each of the back.

The next year I got it down to 2 in the front, and even today I naturally have 1 or 2 in my pockets just for normal blowing the nose or spitting out my gum or whatever.

I re-trained my body to reject allergies. My senior year of high school I got mono, but that was the last winter illness I've had. I saw it coming up, I rejected the bronchitis and pneumonia, but that mono got me that February of 19'76. (but I still married her)

The trouble is, our society and culture trains us to accept the flu season, the allergy season, and preaches fear of cancer or worse at every turn.

Jesus said in John 10:17-18 that "no man takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself." Jesus willfully gave up his life, his authority to be carried to the cross.

This world trains us to give up our lives, yet in fact your will is sovereign. You don't have to get some bug floating around or other disease. The news says flu season is coming up and you automatically think about what is coming up and how inconvenient it's going to be and you hope you won't get it and you wonder about the cost of the medicine and should you get the shot...you just laid down your will like a castle draw bridge opening up. You have to renew your mind so you stop thinking like that.  

Where do you start? First the revelation that you don't have to accept whatever it is. For me, I got a little angry when I realized I had been trained to think sickness every winter and shots when it got warm. I got angry and said NO MORE. It stirred me up.

Start with something small. Something where you can tell your body what's what, and it will obey relatively quickly. I'm not talking about a weight loss resolution, I'm talking about something you can be healed of, if only your body wouldn't subject itself to that condition.

I know it works. We raised our Golden Retriever, Abby, to be healed. On more than one day she would get cow kicked or horse kicked and come limping up to us - we'd lay hands on her and command the leg to be healed - and off she would run completely normal. She was raised that way as a puppy. (Pets are lower animals and therefore come under the spiritual influence of their owners)

For Christians who've lived believing that you must be subject to the illnesses of the world, and their bodies are therefore used to having the earth's way in illness, it will take determination and will power and time to retrain the body to the life of God flowing from your spirit out into it.

For instance. When I start to feel my head hurt, I first make an assessment of the situation; am I dehydrated, overly tired or stressed? If so, I obey my body and rest, get some water - take a walk in the out of doors or watch a favorite movie or sleep.

But if the cause is unknown - like a sudden jab of pain - I put my hand on my head where it hurts, command the pain to leave and the head/body to be healed in Jesus' name, and then go about my business. In the rare event (now it's rare, I used to have to do it all the time) it comes back or didn't leave the first time, I don't pray or command, I just tell my body I already prayed and commanded, and it had better line up right now - and it goes away. I NEVER command a 2nd time. I just remind my body I already told it to be healed. I put my hand on my head a 2nd time and say, "I told you to be healed so get with it...you are healed so don't fight it, submit." or something very close to that. And go about my business.

So what to do? The first thing is to go back to the Word and meditate on the authority of the name of Jesus - the most powerful name in the universe. People reveal their lack of faith by repeatedly and ever louder speaking the name of Jesus - commanding this and that in His name - showing they never really believed it the first time. Actually, if your faith is in the name of Jesus and the power of the Father, one time, softly, is all that is required - and yes I've cast demons out and seen people healed that way, because my faith really is in Jesus, not the loudness of my voice or forcefulness of my command.

You don't have to accept that condition in your body. When Barb and I were 22 with our first born being 6 months old, Barb suffered a terrible accident. She fell through a window and crushed the right side of her face - cheek bone, eye socket - all gone. Skull fracture, nerve damage and more.

The doctors wired her back together, put a piece of plastic under her eye because there wasn't enough bone to do anything with for an eye socket, and sewed her up. The told us she'd obliterated the pathway down the cheek bone the nerves to the face go through, so she would have a drooping face like a stroke victim, have blurred and double vision, and a burning sensation, but never again would she feel anything with her skin on that right side.

We rejected that prognosis. I brought her a tape of healing scriptures in the hospital, we prayed exactly 1 time, we commanded exactly 1 time, and after that we worshipped. She would worship for hours on end in the hospital, uttering only thanksgiving and worship to God for being God, and his goodness for healing her.

Within 7 days feeling came back into her face, and within 30 she was completely whole. To this day, only she can tell the difference of the reconstructive work.

Your will is sovereign. You don't have to accept what the culture has trained you to accept. Your body will be trained whichever way you choose - if you accept the ailment or illness or injury - your body will be trained that way. If you reject the prognosis, then have the revelation of your will, the power of Jesus, and have the guts and determination to walk it out.

Start with a cold or allergy or injury. At first you may only shorten the healing time by 1 day - meaning instead of 1 week to heal it, it only takes 5-6 days to heal. But that's a start.

Your body has been trained to submit to that ailment for a long time in many cases. It may take a while to get it retrained.

With our kids we followed the rule that if a condition persisted more than 24 hours we went to the doctor. There IS a time to listen to the body. But if all else is normal, you may have a chance to retrain it.

When I was 18 I fell off a skateboard and broke 3 metatarsal bones in my left foot. (Note to self: Don't try to learn to ride a skateboard wearing loose fitting sandals). A surgeon put me under, cut open my foot, and put the bones back together nice and neat the way they were before.

But there was a healing meeting in town later that week, and I told my mom the Lord was going to heal me there...I got out of the hospital, went to the meetings, but no word came about foot problems. After the meeting ended I got prayer for my foot. Nothing happened.

It would have stayed that way too, except that I already knew the drill. I had prayer, I looked down at my foot and told it that it was healed when they prayed for it, and then proceeded to hobble back and forth across the back of that church (in cast and crutches) doing nothing but worshipping the Father for healing me, and thanking him for healing me, and just loving on him because he is so good.

I was in the middle of my 5th time across the back, crutches in hand, when suddenly I felt a pin prick of heat in my foot. I looked down and saw through the cast to my foot, and saw that pin prick grow larger to about 3" around, encompassing the whole of the injury. It stayed that large for 2-3 seconds, then shrunk and disappeared. I knew I was healed. My toes were no longer purple, I could wiggle them. That settled it.

Barb's brother is an orthopedic surgeon and he briefly looked at the foot and said it was impossible, but offered no other explanation. Much to my mom's consternation, I went home, soaked and cut the cast off, and went back to work the next morning - never any problem since then.

The bones would have healed in 6 weeks, but I had a job and I wanted healed, and I knew to command and then worship. I knew my authority, knew my body had to obey, and then got caught up in worship and the power of God came on me...it's happened over the years over and over and over again. Once you set your will and speak to your body, stay in worship, get caught up in worship and praise and thanksgiving...and let the presence of God come!

It can happen to you too.

I hope this helps...

 

Food for thought this week.
John Fenn
cwowi.org