Against Flesh and Blood?

This week I was reminded once again of a phenomena that has occurred on a regular basis over the past few years of my life: just as I cozy up to fall asleep for the night, I will begin to manifest allergy symptoms, specifically, watery eyes and swollen nasal passages. I don't think it happens every night, but it doesn't seem to have been seasonal, either.

Well, this week I did a set of experiments. About 30 minutes before I intended to go to bed for the night, I laid myself down and snuggled up my face right next to the sheets and then snuggled up into my pillow. I waited awhile in each position, monitoring my nose and eyes. No allergy symptoms appeared! But, sure enough, about 30 minutes later when I was determined to go to sleep for the night, my eyes started watering and my nose became swollen to the point that I had to breathe with my mouth open. I did similar tests for the 2 following nights and had similar results.

Healing Training with God

I got sick last week with a nasty bug. I had a headache, stuffy nose, sore throat, and a cough that rattled my lungs. I had recently been reading several ex-Pentecostal articles that were highly condemning of binding demons and casting out sickness, so I felt like my faith for speaking healing into myself was too low to have effect. So, I prayed a simple prayer to God, "God, will you please take away my headache?"

At the very same moment I finished speaking my request, my headache was completely gone. I thanked God for healing my headache. I then perceived God urging me in my spirit, "Ok, now it's your turn."

Report of Recent Healings

(1) My son hit me on the bridge of my nose with a toy and I started getting a huge bruise. I commanded the bruise to be healed in Jesus's name, and it disappeared without a trace within a matter of minutes.

(2) My neighbor had an extremely bad case of allergies (stuffy head and headache). I prayed for her, and she reported that her allergy symptoms disappeared when she went into the house (a few minutes after I prayed for her). The reduction in allergy symptoms persisted.

(3) My son hit his head on the corner of a cabinet very hard and had an inch-long dent in his forehead. The injury quickly swelled up--it looked horrible--but I rebuked it in Jesus's name. My son joined me and repeated over and over, "In Jesus' name, bruise be healed!" The pain and swelling of the bruise healed significantly within about half and hour.

Praise Jesus for His wonderful mercy and sacrifice for us all! The Lord is good and worthy to be praised. Thank you, Jesus!

Report of Recent Healings

My prayers have resulted in several instant healings the past couple weeks. Here's a list:

(1) My husband Josh and I prayed for my particularly bad case of menstrual symptoms, and the pain left within a few minutes.

(2) My knee started hurting badly after getting slightly out of joint. I commanded the knee to go back in place and the pain to flee, and my knee was instantly healed.

(3) My sister started having very bad menstrual pain precisely when we were about to spend our quality "sister time" together. I commanded tormenting spirits to leave, pain to flee, and body to function properly, and she was healed instantly. (In addition, all other menstrual symptoms left in their entirety that very day.)

(4) I started feeling exceptionally nauseous a couple days ago. Josh and I both prayed for the nausea to go. I later commanded my hormones to come into balance and for foreign aggravates to be destroyed. The severity of the nausea was instantly reduced after my prayer, and the nausea continued to decrease for the next couple hours. I was completely recovered within about 3 hours.

(5) I noticed that 3 sores had appeared in my mouth. I prayed against them, and one of them completely disappeared by the next day. One of the other sores is nearly healed, and the other seems to have made considerable progress

Praise be to Jesus, who accomplished the victory over sin, sickness, and death on our behalf! Praise be to the Spirit, who empowers our works for God's kingdom. And praise be to the Father for His unending love, compassion, and grace! Amen!

Is it Harder to Heal Believers or Non-Believers?

I have been struggling with this question for several months now, especially in light of the results of prayer I've seen. Healing seems to be a long process for believers for whom I've prayed. Is it even possible for a believer to receive an instant-healing miracle through a prayer of faith?

Perhaps God deals with His children differently than He does the world. Jesus said that [instant] healing would be a sign for the world so they would know that the LORD is God (see Mark 16). Since Christians no longer need to be convinced that the LORD is God, perhaps God's main goal isn't to instantly heal them as a sign, but instead to teach them how to be more reflective of His image by understanding His ways more deeply. Notice that James instructs sick believers (perhaps the immature in Christ who do not know the LORD's benefits) to call the elders (who are the mature in Christ) to pray in faith over them (see James 5). This would be a perfect opportunity for the elders to teach sick believers the promises of God and then to display the principles of spiritual warfare through their prayer of faith. Thus, it seems to me that God set it up so that His children would learn His ways through the process of healing.

So what could God want His children to learn through their pursuit of healing? Perhaps it is simply the fact that God is willing to heal us. Or perhaps God wants to teach us that we need to take the spiritual realm seriously, and that it can affect us physically (as well as emotionally and spiritually) for better or for worse. Perhaps God wants us to know that He has granted us access to physical healing--just as to forgiveness of sins--through the atonement, or that healing comes through proper celebration of communion. Perhaps God wants us to realize that we are supposed to be seeking Him above all else and that He will do great things for us if we love Him and obey His commands (see Psalm 91). God desires the best for His children. Certainly, knowledge of His benefits would be nothing but good for us.

My conclusion for the moment is that God may very well heal believers instantly, but if He doesn't, perhaps He is calling those particular people into a higher level of intimacy with Him that requires them to learn something new. Of course, if the person praying the prayer of faith is not acquainted with (or proficient at implementing) God's healing methods, the sick person may not recover simply because the sickness was not defeated. As for me, I am going to be particularly careful not to blame anyone's sickness on anyone but the devil and his minions, and I will continue to seek God so that I can accurately reflect Him to everyone I encounter.

Releasing Fear

This week my sister has been staying with us. I'm very glad that she was able to be here with us this week, as we've had lots of time to connect relationally--sister to sister. It's amazing to me how much my sister has stored up in her heart that she needs to share, and I'm glad that I can be here to listen.

On the very first night of her stay, my sister confessed things from her heart that had been gnawing at her for a long time. She even expressed fear that God didn't love her anymore. I encouraged her by sharing God's Word with her and proving to her that God does love her and that she doesn't need to worry. Then I commanded evil spirits to flee by the authority of Jesus. Since that time, she has reported that her mind has been free of dark, haunting thoughts. She feels free, like a burden has been lifted from her shoulders. Praise Jesus for His victory over the evil one!

I have also been praying for my sister's physical well-being while she's been here. One remarkable difference she's noticed is that she hasn't had a stomach ache since she's been here. This is truly remarkable, as she gets stomach aches all the time. She's even been ingesting dairy, wheat, and coffee... the three major suspects thought to be causing her aches. So, that's cool.

My sister presently has two obvious and observable physical issues that I am praying against: pain in her shins (from an accident awhile back), and an irritating bump on her wrist bone. While I was praying for her shins last night, she said that they felt numb. In the morning, they felt worse, though! I had the distinct thought while I was praying for her shins that the pain is connected to a deeply-ingrained fear... so I am going to continue battling for her shins by first praying for God's perfect love to fill her up and drive out all fear. There's been no noticeable effect on the bump on her wrist yet.

My mission this week is to reveal to my sister how much I and her Heavenly Father love her, no matter what she has done. I will also keep encouraging her to cast all of her fears unto God. When we let go of our fear, we are able to fully appreciate how much God watches out for us. How can we let go of fear? By allowing God's perfect love to touch our hearts (1 John 4:18). God is love. That's why John tells us that he who loves is born of God (1 John 4:7)! Let's all get closer to the heart of God today by loving someone in an extra special way.

Successive Successful Prayers of Healing

Josh and I attended a seminar on Divine Healing (speaker: Pastor Curry Blake) in Elgin, IL this past Thursday. It was both interesting and inspiring. We had listened to the speaker's teaching online and thought it would be good for us to go see him in person, and I'm glad we did. We couldn't go to the sessions Friday or Saturday, but since we had heard the full teaching already, I thought there was no reason not to try out his principles ASAP. (In fact, we had been trying them out already.)

Thursday evening after the healing seminar, my eyes started itching like crazy. I had developed some allergy-like symptoms a few days before (itchy eyes, stuffy nose, headache), but this was by far the worst it had been. I had to rub my eyes non-stop to get relief, and even then they still itched! It was the perfect opportunity to test out our newly learned techniques. So, I forcefully and boldly commanded the allergies to go in Jesus' name. I commanded the itchiness in my eyes to go away right now in Jesus' name. Amazingly, right as I said those words, I found instant relief! The itchiness in my eyes had diminished to about 5% of what it had been. I prayed against it a few more times, and soon I forgot all about the allergies because the symptoms were completely gone!

The interesting thing, though, is that within a few minutes or hours after the allergies were defeated by prayer, they would gradually start coming back. It reminds me of how your headache will sneak back after the Tylenol you took 4 hours ago wears off. Anyway, every time I felt the allergies returning, I took another dose of spiritual medicine by praying against it. This happened the next couple days, but it seemed as though the allergy attacks started tapering off in frequency and intensity. Each time, they were defeated (either fully or partially) by a single command to go in Jesus' name. I am happy to report that I am symptom-free today. I will continue to battle against any other allergy-like symptoms that pop up in the future so that maybe someday I can say that I have completely defeated allergies in my body through the power and authority of Jesus.