31st March 2023 The healing miracle I saw unfolding before my eyes six days ago set me thinking about how we deal with what we are up against in the Healing Ministry. We know that Jesus – having publicly set out his Manifesto of the Kingdom (Luke 4:16-21) – sent his disciples out by twelve (Luke 9:1-2) and by Seventy (Luke 10:1-12) to announce the Kingdom of God and to heal sicknesses and expel demons. The ‘Great Commission’ just before his return to Heaven (Matthew 28:19-20) was for them – and us who follow in their train – to make disciples and teach them everything he had taught them to do, And in Mark’s ‘longer ending’ (ch 16:17-18), various ‘Kingdom’ signs are mentioned, including the expulsion of demons.
I must admit that while embracing the Healing ministry I was reluctant to engage with the Deliverance (from demons). In fact I avoided it wherever possible, and found the teaching and practice of some of the ministers complicated and difficult to find scriptural evidence for. I must say the teaching received at the recent John G Lake course was refreshing in its relatively simple form (More of that when I read further on it).
What really puzzled me was when ministers of Healing would ‘call out’ a sickness – as if it had a personality. Did that mean there was a demonic cause? I discovered a long time ago (when belonging to a team who offered prayer to those who were badly affected by the film “The Exorcist”) that the mere Suggestion of a demon being present can be in itself very disturbing to an afflicted person. Now I have come to realise that, not only are most afflictions not attributable to the demonic, but that we can still ‘call out’ a sickness because JUST AS JESUS COMMANDED/CALLED OUT EVERYTHING HE HAD CREATED (such as fig trees and even inanimate things like the wind and waves) SO WE MAY COMMAND/CALL OUT ALL THINGS JESUS CREATED. In the process of calling out a sickness (ie the pain and its cause), we might discover there is evidence of the demonic presence, but we should not assume that is always the case.
Since I experienced pain draining out of my arthritic knees while (unusually for me) expressing a ‘Tongue’, I have had freedom to bend my legs without pain, but when I get the odd twinge if I step arkwardly, I REBUKE IT AND COMMAND IT TO GO, IN JESUS NAME. It has to go because Jesus is Lord over it. As explained in one of my earlier posts, there is a time for Praying for God to heal sickness, and there is a right time to take the COMMAND/CONTROL “in Jesus Name” route.
Healing in Jesus' Name 