God's healing touch

I believe God heals people supernaturally today.

I believe this is supported by scripture and I believe there is overwhelming evidence from everyday life today.

Jesus made an astounding claim towards the end of his earthly life.  In John 14:11-12, Jesus tells his disciples:

"Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.  I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father."

This passage tells me that believers today will be able to do what Jesus did - empowered by the Holy Spirit.  In effect, God heals people and we are the channel.

Our church approved a statement on divine healing prayer a little over four years ago.  This statement dealt with spiritual, emotional and physical healing.  It took the view that God heals supernaturally in all these areas today, although he may choose to work often through medical science and the healing powers of the body.

After church approval, we introduced an after-service prayer ministry.

As a team member, I am convinced this has met a real need in our church.  There have been deep moments of prayer with people coming to us with a whole range of issues that matter profoundly to them.  Our job as prayer team members has been to bring these people into the presence of Jesus Christ where he can embrace them with his love.

Most prayer requests have been about family or relationship issues.  It is difficult to measure how God moves in emotional issues - these often take many years to resolve.

I am not aware that there have been any direct physical healings through divine healing prayer in our church.  Why is that?

I don't know.  I read of amazing miracles - miracles like those in Jesus' day - in many parts of the world in our own time.  For example, Rolland and Heidi Baker tell stories of people being healed of blindness and deafness and of others being raised from the dead in their ministry among orphans and the poor in Mozambique.  Their book Always Enough is inspiring.

Similar things are happening in some places in North America.

One book that I read early on in my own quest to know more about divine healing was Power Healing by John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement.  I found it to be a reasoned discussion of
divine healing and his own struggles in this area.

He, too, was frustrated in the early stages of his healing prayer ministry.  No one was physically healed directly by God in the first 10 months that his church conducted healing sessions.  And then one person was healed miraculously.  And things changed after that.

What brought about the change?  Only God knows for sure.  But, looking back, Wimber said:

"This period of failure was a learning experience, a time in which I was purged of my pride and self-sufficiency.  I was humiliated and I was humbled.  God had first to cleanse a vessel before it was fit to fill with his precious oil of healing."

As I think about that, I realize it is not for me to tell God what to do or to try to force his hand.  My job is simply to be there in Christ's presence as he works in the lives of those who come for prayer.

The Bible says that Jesus' heart went out to those who were sick or broken in spirit.  As Heidi Baker says, he "loved on them."

That is what we are to do as we minister to others in healing prayer.