+THE SPIRIT OF HEALING
by Pam Clark (pamclark@prophetic.net)

I have had some conversations with different people about healings and I know there are some who really believe that all healing should come from prayer. And then I know there are others on the other side of that who believe that is just "hocus pocus" and that the medical route is the only way to go. They believe that mostly because that is all they know.

Some will make you feel less than adequate if you "give in" to medical help but I really don't think medical help is wrong at all. God's Spirit is health and healing. He is Jehovah Rapha: the God who heals you.

Now if God is a Spirit then His Healing is a Spirit. We get our word "hospital" from the gift of ministering which is "hospitality" - to meet needs. If medical help had been wrong, then I do not believe that Jesus would have given us the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think instead that He would have expressed that the ideal way would have been to stay there and pray for the man until he was healed, but that is not the point of His parable.

The point of the parable was that the victim had needs and this man - who was not fully in the household of faith as a Samaritan (usually a half breed in race)- was righteous because he ministered to the injured man and brought healing. It was obviously a progressive healing. The religious didn't even stop and pray! Jesus was saying here that practical ministry was Godly and right. That was God's Spirit.

The Scriptures talk about the times when "the power of God was present to heal" in Jesus' ministry and it states that a number of times He healed all that came to Him in those times. He was able to carry that kind of anointing. We are not sinless as He was, but we can carry the anointing for healings.

We do have some limitations and some of it is that we just have to grow up into many understandings. Years ago I did not know I could pray for healings and see some, but today I know I can do that. A manifestation doesn't happen every time but I know that I have agreed with the Spirit of God for His Spirit of health and healing and that has a good effect. And so sometimes it is progressive! That is okay! It is still God.

Many times people want baby prophets to be perfectly right all the time but sometimes they are not. They should take their gifting seriously and learn well from their mistakes, but every human will make mistakes, even the most religious. With Spiritual things we deal with life and death issues. Even the gift of prosperity should be used as ministry from the Spirit of God and not as a status symbol of accomplishment. That is walking by the Spirit.

The difference is that we can walk in human rules and understandings or we can walk by the Spirit. When we walk by the Spirit we will deny many of the carnal appetites and that will confuse and bother many other people. But our goal is not bothering people (that is the sinful flesh that would take pride in that), but showing them and displaying to them the benefits of the loving Spirit of God!

Some have such strongholds in their lives that they would seek to kill the righteous. That is the persecution that we must learn how to handle. And in that we even have to not love our own lives even to the death. No one said it would be always easy! But when we develop strongholds of faith, things are much easier! It is why we have had a blessed nation in our past because we did have strongholds of faith.

We must learn how to be bold for God. It takes the understanding of knowing Him. When we know Who He is, then it is easier and a great blessing to walk in Him, or to walk "in the Spirit." God is good. He is faithful, He is gentle, He is Love. He is all of the Fruit of the Spirit and He commands the worlds by His powers. It is hard for our finite minds to comprehend it all but it is not wrong to seek healing.

Because there is a right healing, there also can be a counterfeit healing spirit. This would be something that would work in the short term but have a long term negative effect. This is why it is good to learn from past mistakes and follow the wisdom in the Scriptures and even through the gifts of the Spirit properly developed.

It is possible to make our human understandings idols before God's Spirit. Sometimes we don't even realize that is happening. Those would be the things that would hinder God's good will in our lives. We need to know His definition of good.

I believe that God's Spirit can do way more than medical science has ever dreamed about. There are many testimonies of incredible healings - both through prayers and faith and medical science. Sometimes there is a process in us that God wants to work out and it will go through the route of a physical battle. But if we know that God is for our health and well being, we can find peace in the process.

We need to be careful that we do not limit God in our lives, but that we give Him every opportunity to work. Sometimes He may want us to understand that we need the value of the wisdom that He has given to another man or woman. But supernaturally He is capable of creating the worlds and maintaining them and fixing them too! Let us continue to do all we can to walk "in the Spirit."