How to partner with the Holy Spirit to reclaim your health
We are quickly moving into a new season in the church. The “wineskin” of the healing movement is being reworked. The body of Christ has been praying for the sick, yet not seeing the measure of healing that God’s Word provides for. This has caused us to ask the question: Why do we read one thing about healing in the Word of God but experience another?
The wineskin, or “teaching,” has focused on the act of healing rather than on the position of being healed. We have been trying to get miraculous healing into sickly bodies. But an unhealthy body has difficulty receiving a healing and staying healed. We must understand that God’s ultimate goal isn’t healing. His goal is a body that has no sickness in it.
The truth from the Word we must begin to receive is that we have been redeemed from the curse of sickness. Why do we bear the sickness Jesus has redeemed us from? It’s not what God wants. In fact, it must grieve Jesus to know that we—His body, His church—are bearing the sickness He bore for us.
True though this is, however, we must not bring condemnation upon people who are sick. We must instead have the truth from God’s Word that brings their deliverance. Jesus always moved in compassion to deliver the sick. Sympathy brings agreement and locks us into sickness, but compassion brings deliverance and takes us out of sickness.
We are not to get healed only to expect to get sick again. An unrenewed mind will conform to the world and believe that walking in health isn’t possible. This is what the enemy wants us to believe. The devil’s goal is that we experience the sickness we have been redeemed from.
But the Bible says in 3 John 1:2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” God never designed us to be sick; He designed us to be well. We must renew our minds to this truth.
As the righteousness of Christ, we are in good standing with God. God made us to be like Him. We’re created in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). We are told in 1 John 4:17 that “as He is so are we in this world” (emphasis added). This means that in this world, in this time we are to be like Him. He has no sickness; therefore, we are to have no sickness. Jesus bore our sickness on the cross so we wouldn’t have to bear it.
As His body, for us to walk in health we must partner with the Holy Spirit. God’s Word tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:16 that we are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in us, and that the temple of God is holy and that is what we are.
The temple of God is designed by God to live by the Holy Spirit in health. If the Spirit in us can provide the anointing to bring healing, then why can’t He provide an anointing to walk in health? In this partnership we are the temple, or vehicle, and the Holy Spirit provides the power. We have a responsibility to maintain our bodies in good order.
I used to think I could do what I wanted regarding my diet and exercise, or lack of it. I thought, Well, this is my body, my life. But the Holy Spirit told me, “You only have one body; you mess it up and we both are out!” Then He led me to read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, which says, “You are not your own … for you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (NASB).
Wow! I realized I was destroying God’s body with my poor eating habits. I realized I couldn’t walk in health unless I changed what I was doing. I realized the Holy Spirit was as interested in my health as I was. As I partnered with Him, He provided the anointing I needed to establish a healthy body through good nutrition and exercise.
I am currently 67 years old, and by partnering with the Holy Spirit I’ve enjoyed health and strength. Understanding and believing the fullness of authority that we have as members of the body of Christ will move us from receiving healing to walking in health.
Cal Pierce is director of The Healing Rooms Ministries in Spokane, Wash., part of an international association of ministries with the common vision to bring healing back into the body of Christ. Based on Mark 16:17-18, The Healing Rooms focuses on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to work through His church to heal the sick. For more, visithealingrooms.com.