Creating an Atmosphere for the Healing Power of God

Have you recently received a bad report from a medical test? Has a loved one just suffered a serious injury? The stunning blow from such news can instantly turn your world upside down.

The good news is God still heals today—in a variety of ways.

Sometimes God heals through anointing with oil, accompanied by the prayer of faith. Sometimes He heals through the laying on of hands. Sometimes He heals through the declaration of His Word.

Sometimes God heals through medical treatment or through the body’s natural recuperative powers. And yes, sometimes God heals through miracles—whether instantaneous or progressive.

If you or someone you love is hurting, now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to renew your faith and draw strength from God’s Word. Remember, the doctors’ prognosis is not always the final answer!

Calling Out to God

Beverly Hilliard had suffered from severe back pain for three years after a speeding SUV ran a red light and hit her car head-on. Her car was demolished, and her 2-year-old son was injured so badly that he had to undergo plastic surgery (although he did fully recover).

Beverly was on medication to help relieve pain, but nothing could take away her constant backache. Unable to work, she had difficulty walking up a flight of stairs, let alone bending down to pick up something from the floor.

Fourteen weeks of physical therapy didn’t alleviate the pain. Neither did the injections and numerous treatments her doctors administered to her spine.

One day a friend invited her to a prayer gathering to listen to a taped message by Colorado Springs, Colo., pastor Dutch Sheets. The sermon had been recorded at a women’s conference a few weeks earlier.

“I’m going, and I believe God is going to heal me tonight,” Beverly told her husband. That evening Beverly joined 30 women gathered in a home in her small Tennessee town to listen to the taped sermon on crying out to God. The text was Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know” (AMP).

As Pastor Sheets got into the heart of his message, he declared, “This is the year of great deliverance. God is going to show up. We are about to receive what we have been asking for for a long time.

“This is the season of breakthrough. Now is the time to speak to the mountain to be removed. Now is the time to war in a different way.

“Begin to use your voice like a weapon and speak forth,” he continued. “This is the time to apply Jeremiah 33:3.”

At these words, a lightning bolt of faith surged like an electric charge through everyone in the room. Immediately the women began praying for one another.

All of a sudden Beverly was touched by the power of God. Her pain was gone! She was instantly healed.

When she got home, her husband immediately noticed the difference in her condition and began rejoicing and praising God.

Beverly stopped taking her medication. Soon she returned to work, pain-free. What happened that night? The Word of God, proclaimed by an anointed preacher, released faith in its listeners to believe for signs, wonders and miracles. The women responded by laying hands on one another and calling out to God—and He answered.

For her part, Beverly had gone to the meeting with a high faith level, expecting to receive her healing. The message she heard released that faith—and again, God answered.

Increasing Our Faith

Jesus devoted much of His ministry to healing, and He encouraged and empowered His early followers to do the same. But nowhere does Scripture teach that divine healing ended when the last apostle died, as some people believe.

After the resurrection, when Jesus gave the Great Commission, He said, “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name … they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17-18, NKJV).

According to Jesus, the gift of healing wasn’t for the apostles only. It was—and is—for all believers. He declared, “I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” (John 14:12).

God still heals today, and He uses those who believe in Him as agents of healing!

We can establish our faith in God’s healing power on the validity of His Word, even when we don’t understand His ways. Unexpected illness or injury or pain can be discouraging and confusing, even to the strongest believers. At those times, the best we can do is to cry out, “Lord, increase my faith!”