triumphministries

 Avoiding the pitfalls of performance-based healing.....

After avoiding the only two people on this deserted winter beach, I sat down on a sand dune and let Him talk to me and what did He tell me...enough...enough...enough. Time out...stop piling more and more on your plate...eat what you have in front of you first. What a relief I had thought I was letting down the world if I didn’t take one more request, one more need, one more prayer, one more healing. But when He says rest it’s best to obey. As soon as I knew I could just deal with the load I already had instead of increasing it daily, I breathed and all of sudden people weren’t something to strategically avoid. I even had an amazing experience just after the beach, when laying hands on a girl with an injured leg who was perfectly healed. I realised this pressure to get it all done, count up all the results, calculate statistics, was not of God but of guess who? Our favourite enemy we all love to hate, satan...he had me working myself into a flurry of activity...and yes there were fantastic results as far as healings maybe 85-90% 0f people being healed....but that’s what it had become a contest, a competition, a race and man one thing I never want to hear is “I never knew you...depart from me....”

So knowing Him has become the dominant factor in my life and although I still sometimes fall into the pit of charged activity...I can restore myself more quickly by being with the One who made me....and the most amazing thing started to happen...I lost all interest in a formula or method...by the way there isn’t one and no one person’s technique or take on healing is the only one. The only one is His take...and from what I read in the Bible He was quite creative about the whole thing. I have found since I dropped being married to a method, I am truly married to Him and how He does things...all I do is ask Him...and amazingly He tells me through words of knowledge, pictures, Scriptures, actions, songs etc. Since relying totally on Him and not on a method, I have found people are returning to their first Love (Him), hearing His voice, sleeping at night, finding direction and getting healed as well! He told me quite clearly, “Don’t just give them a healing give them Me!”

I have since discovered sometimes, hard and aggressive is the way, sometimes just pouring love and life and glory into them brings the healing, sometimes singing (one of His songs) gives them the peace they need to fall asleep, sometimes a prayer on email or instant message frees them...it doesn’t matter the style or method...He is all that matters....So I confess I am off the method-train (like being off methodone, LOL) and on the Freedom Ride of my life!

And the latest reward for this freedom has been a boy who was dead for 5 hours is now alive and well, breathing on his own, no brain damage and completely healed of the disease that killed him.....So to Him goes the glory.....always!

Points to Consider...

• We are never justified by works and no matter how many people are suffering there will always be more (the poor will always be with us Jesus said)....if we are run by need we will run out of steam...we need to approach the Seeking the Kingdom from our relationship with Him.

• Doing the Word is more than simply laying hands on the sick and casting out devils, raising the dead...it is loving your enemies, forgiving those who hurt you and blessing those who curse you (not an easy call) etc.

• Healing is an introduction for people to get to know the Living God that healed them, it is not the final destination. We introduce people to the Person of Love, God Himself.

• People focus on a method when they are afraid of trusting the Holy Spirit and often are caught in someone else's belief system even if it does have some biblical basis.

• We are not worker bees we are sons of the Living God (I don't work for my Father's business I am about it and He is about mine..I seek and He adds).

• Healing is only a part of what God has for us (or those we pray for)...He wants us to know Him as a husband knows a wife and through experience (this is the Greek word for know in Eph 3:19 "...to know the love of God that passes knowledge that you may be filled with the fullness of God." And the same word "know" when Jesus told them to depart from Him even though they had done all the work.

• Being filled is not self-indulgent it is a matter of survival (you can not keep giving out 24/7 and expect to never be filled; overflow is a consequence of being filled with the Spirit....this overflow is given away

• If we have all faith to move miountains but have not love we are nothing....1Cor 13