Be Healed In Jesus’ Name – Part 1. Healing and the Kingdom of God
Many people around the world are living in one of the most materially prosperous times in human history. Yet, based on my ministry in America, Asia, and Africa, people are still living with emotional hurt and pain, hatred – for someone else or directed at themselves – trauma, anger, disappointment, frustration, depression, shame, and fear. It might be my imagination, but it seems like these negative and destructive emotions are becoming increasingly common. In Japan, and I suspect in many other countries including America, people are so devastated and isolated by the culture around them that they are shutting themselves off from human contact. In Japan this phenomenon has a name – it is called hikikomori – meaning to draw back and close in. These people are called “the Hikikomori”, and they isolate themselves in a room and rarely come out for years, completely shut off from the world.
In my experience, these types of negative emotions are rooted in demonic lies – “you are not good enough, you are worthless, you are powerless, and you or your situation are hopeless”. These negative emotions, especially anger and its related emotions like hatred and depression, can also be the underlying causes of physical and mental illnesses.
And as with all previous generations, we have diseases like cancer and heart disease, which are especially prevalent in America.
Jesus had a deep, compassionate commitment to spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. His healing was not just for the sake of healing. It also demonstrated and released the presence of the Kingdom of God, the power of the Father flowing through Jesus into the lives of the ones He healed, and was a powerful tool for evangelism, especially in the hands of the disciples. And like everything Jesus did, spiritual, emotional, and physical healing glorified the Father.
Isaiah prophesied about Jesus:
“But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes that wounded Him we are healed and made whole” (Isaiah 53: 5 AMP).
Isaiah tells us that “we are healed and made whole” because of the cross. Not will be, could be, or might be – but are healed and made whole. Done, finished, completed. What a statement!
Jesus never promised us material prosperity. But He did claim that He was sent to set us free from spiritual and emotional prison and darkness, give sight to the blind, and heal broken hearts. He demonstrated what He meant when He cast out demons and healed the sick. Jesus came to heal and make us whole – the whole person – spirit, soul, and body in the service of His primary mission of redemption – release and advance the Kingdom of God, also known as the Gospel. As Jesus said, “I must preach the Good News (the Gospel) of the Kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4: 43 NIV). And based on His actions throughout His ministry and the ministries of the disciples and Paul, healing was a major part of the way in which the Kingdom of God was released.
Paul told the Corinthian church that he came to them with weakness, much fear, and trembling. And then he said:
“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power (1 Corinthians 2: 4, 5 NIV).
The Greek word for power in this passage is ‘dunamis’, meaning “miraculous power, a miracle; a mighty, wonderful work” (Strong’s Concordance G1411). Most of the miracles seen in Paul’s and the disciples’ ministries involved physical healing and demonic deliverance.
So what about the church today? Hurting, traumatized, lonely, sick, addicted, and isolated people are all around us – in our pews, in the homes and workplaces of our cities, and living on our streets. Do the people of God, the Church, have a responsibility to them, not just for their healing, but also to set them free so that they can release the Kingdom, thereby fulfilling God’s purpose for their lives? For me the answer is Yes! Like the early church, the Church today is called to set captives free and release prisoners from demonic darkness. Only Jesus can heal our spiritual wounds; Jesus heals us emotionally, especially when drugs and counselors cannot, and Jesus heals us physically, although He can work through conventional medicine. Often He heals us physically when medicine has nothing more to offer.
Healing prayer is needed today at least as much as in the past, and in spite of the material blessings in the world, perhaps more. People need prayers to:
Be set free from anger, hatred, trauma and hurt due to sexual, physical, or emotional abuse
Defeat the lies of the enemy
Heal wounded and broken hearts
Restore lives devastated by disease, illnesses, accidents, and addictions.
And only the church, in the name of Jesus, can do these things today, because only the followers of Jesus have the supernatural, God-given power and authority for this work.
I believe that the healing I am writing about is the number 1 priority of every Christian church. Not that we shouldn’t be concerned with social justice – speaking up for those in our society who are marginalized, lost, and abandoned and helping those who need food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. We are commanded by Jesus to do these things. But this help will not solve the basic problems of hurting people (who are most of us). Their basic problems are the belief that they are not good enough; the shame, fear, trauma, and pain they carry in their hearts, and the sense that they have no purpose and no reason to live. Social justice and materially helping those in need will not heal their traumatized, broken hearts and convince them that their lives have meaning – only Jesus can do that. And when He does, they experience joy, peace, hope, and a lightness and release from darkness they have rarely or never felt before. I have seen this transformation after an hour of healing prayer many times. It is wonderful!!
Broken-hearted people can carry their pain for decades. I have found in my ministry that many believe they have moved on from painful memories, often from trauma in their childhood. Outwardly, they seem ‘normal’, even happy. But for many the anger, hatred, and hurt are still there, just buried out of sight. And although they might have forgiven those who hurt them, they have not brought past anger, hatred, and hurt to Jesus. It is important to do this. Our encouraging words will not touch these places. Only Jesus can heal these wounds. But, and this is important, Jesus uses us to be His agents of power and transformation. Sure, Jesus on His own can heal, but mostly He calls us to be the conduit for His healing power. And if we don’t step up and engage, often healing will not happen.
Many of our spiritual, emotional, and even physical issues are rooted in the demonic. We need deliverance. We open doors to dark, hurtful spirits through:
extreme fears
hatred and unforgiveness
vows made to the occult (you might be surprised what is included in this category)
sin, especially sexual sins and resulting soul ties
suicidal thoughts and attempts
Unless these are renounced and their power over the person broken, doors are opened into their hearts for the enemy to enter and destroy their lives. Many of the well-dressed people in churches are battling these demons every day (the notion that Christians cannot be, at least, demonically influenced is wrong). Few in the church know about these demons and rarely is someone in the church equipped to help set them free.
If a person comes into your church looking for spiritual deliverance from demonic possession from his past association with witchcraft or satanism, would you be able to cast out these demons and close those doors? What if a middle-aged woman comes into your church struggling with anger and hatred related to repeated abuse when she was a child. Could you help her release that anger and hatred? Spiritual and emotional pain are not only the result of horrific and traumatic childhood experiences. Relatively benign events in a child’s life can also leave permanent scars that need deliverance and healing. I am not talking about conventional counseling therapies. In counseling, the counselor dispenses advice. What the brokenhearted person needs to hear are words from Jesus, not another person. The churches I am familiar with, with a few exceptions, are incapable of providing the basic healing that Jesus modeled and empowered and authorized us to practice. Pastors in these churches might say, “We don’t have anyone in our church struggling with these issues.” Yes, you do. More than you know.
There is also the more obvious type of healing – physical healing of diseases and other physical problems. Jesus healed diseases and illnesses. Aren’t we called by Him to do the same?
It is true, not everyone who receives healing prayer is physically healed. I have no answers for this reality. It is a tension I must live with. By faith and based on Scripture I will continue to pray for physical healing with expectancy. My role is to be obedient, and Jesus has made it clear to me that it is His will to heal.
The church should be known as a place where people can come to get released from anger, hatred, nightmares, addictions, depression, and illnesses, both mental and physical. The Church today needs to model itself after the Church in the Book of Acts. I believe that the more faith we have for healing, the more healing we will see. And the more healing we see, the more our faith will grow. Jesus intended that the Church be the place where the supernatural power of God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, is manifested. That is what the Church was created to offer the world. But the Church in the West today is dying because this power is no longer on display. In many parts of the world, especially the West, too often churches are not places where people are being transformed; they are places where people’s pains are medicated and managed, not healed.
I found this definition of evangelism in a book titled “Return to the Upper Room” by Charles Irish.
“Evangelism is the Holy-Spirit infused process whereby a person who is separated from Christ, excluded from God’s family, severed from God’s promises and hopelessly without God, is set free from the dark power of satan’s kingdom (i.e. kingdom of the world), and brought into the hope, promise, and liberty of the family of God through the blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross. Evangelism finds its completion when a person is born again of the Spirit, made a disciple of Jesus Christ, and brought to maturity in Christ” (pg. 39).
Evangelism – shepherding people into the Kingdom of God. But how do we ‘do’ evangelism? I believe that none of this is possible without spiritual deliverance – setting people free from bondage to satan – and in most cases significant emotional healing so that people can let go of the things of the world in which they find their ultimate value (idols), and turn to Jesus to be their all-in-all. In other words, repent. I believe that without some (or a lot of) deliverance and healing there can be no effective evangelism.
Yes, God can just touch someone and heal them. But in my experience, and the experience of many men and women who have healing ministries today and in the past, He has authorized followers of Jesus to facilitate this healing. He tells us, “You do it.” And if we don’t? Then I believe most of the time healing does not occur.
A healing ministry is not just for a few ‘select’ Christians. It is for all of us who are called. Our mission is to release the Kingdom of God. Being healed in spirit, soul, and body often opens the door for many of us to enter the Kingdom and begin experiencing the Kingdom life; and healing is the ongoing consequence of life in the Kingdom of God. No on will ever be completely healed this side of heaven. But we don’t have to wait for heaven to be healed. Jesus died so that healing begins now. In Jesus’ name.
Praying for restoration,
John