Crash Course in Healing

My friend organized a healing and miracles shin-dig downtown this week.  It was a blast.  I took a few photos but mostly I felt like I was invading people's privacy, so I don't have very many.

Sometimes ya gotta be bold.

Just about to go down

Two scared girls singing "Healer"

If I wasn't at work, that's where I was, which made for late nights and early mornings.  God sustained me through it all though and then I crashed hard, so I'm cheating this week and recycling this blog entry by using an old letter than I wrote to a friend.  She wanted prayer for her dad who fell off a roof and it was too great a distance so I had to just send my word, but I wrote her a basic how-to for healing.

Hi D, I'm praying for your dad, but if you go see him, there's really something to this "laying on of hands" thing. We see lots of miracles through that kind of prayer. There's a few things you need to understand for it to work though.

Jesus is our example. Jesus said that those of us that believe will do the same works he did and even greater. (John 14:11-13) And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16:17  He didn't say the super special gifted people would do these things.  He just said believers.

It is God's will for everyone to be healed. Jesus healed everyone who came to Him. There are no examples in the Bible of Jesus saying, "Oh, I'm not going to heal you because God's trying to develop some character in you." No, everybody gets healed. Jesus went to the cross for our healing as much as for our salvation. Everyone always glosses over that part. "By His stripes, we WERE healed." Were, as in past tense, already a done deal. He paid the ultimate price. We don't have to question it anymore. So when we pray for healing, it's not so much a prayer, but taking authority over a problem. Again, look at how Jesus did it. You don't see Him getting down on His knees and petitioning the Father, he simply spoke the words and people were healed. The same Spirit that was in Him is in you, so when you lay hands on someone, it's as if Jesus was doing it. Once you get your head around that, you're good to go.


So I'll just kinda tell you how I do it, not that there's a right or wrong way to pray, well actually there is a wrong way...  The aforementioned begging God to heal someone.  It's like saying what Jesus did on the cross was not enough.  "Get back up there and do a little more please."  Don't ask, know who you are, and know who Jesus is.  If I have a heads up before hand, I'll start building myself up by praying, listening to worship music and thinking about the awesome things I've seen God do. Having a heads up is overrated.  The less time that passes between deciding to pray for somebody and praying for them, the less time there is for you and the other person to get into doubt.  When the opportunity comes, just do it, even if it's more public than you would like.

I do try to get 1 or 2 other people to go with me and agree with me in prayer.  I start out by asking the Holy Spirit to come. I know He's already in me but what I'm really asking is "come in power" and I'm acknowledging that I'm depending on Him to do the work. Then I would probably say something like "All pain go in Jesus name. I command the bleeding to stop and all damaged blood vessels and tissues to be restored to the way that God created them to be in Jesus name." And so on for whatever you see or whatever God puts in your head to pray for. Then I thank Him for going to the cross for our healing as much as for our salvation (this is usually news to the person receiving it) and being with us ect. Then stop and ask your dad how he's feeling. You may have to repeat the process. Even Jesus had to pray twice. Stay on that pain until you see some real progress. Sometimes when I pull my hand off, I feel it vibrating like there's electricity going out through it and like I wasn't done yet, even though I ran out of things to say, (Jesus kept it short and sweet) so I plop my hand back on the person and just spend some time praising God, or singing or humming until my hand runs "out of juice." Other times I don't feel anything and they get totally healed so it's whatever, lol. But you do have to go and speak it out, because Satan and co. are not omnipresent, nor can they read your mind.

I realize this is really a crash course, and it took me a while of praying for people before consistently seeing results, but you need it now, so we'll ask God to catapult you into this and give you lots of grace for making mistakes and ministering angels to help you. I see you as a very compassionate and humble person that God would love to use in this way.

Her dad did end up recovering very quickly.   Another good reference for getting started is Healing 101.