Scripture: Acts 9:32-35. Renewalists believe miracles of healing do and should happen everywhere because 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 opens the doors for every believer to do them, as the Spirit distributes the gifts to meet the needs of people.

This brief section of Scripture holds some key lessons for those of us who believe in healing today, and we believe in it because Scriptures says so, and we have seen them. It’s that simple.

The translations are mine, but if you would like to see many other translations, please go to biblegateway.com. I include the Greek text to bring out the nuances, but readers may ignore the left column, if they wish.

Let’s begin.

Comments:

Signs and wonders are designed to help the sick down here on earth, but also to give glory to God in heaven. He has broken into the world and is putting things right, slowly, one person at a time, until everything will be put right instantly at the Second Coming of his Son. Signs and wonders bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

Peter saw Jesus heal a paralytic (Mark 2:3-5). Jesus also simply pronounced his healing, though in that case, sin got in the man’s way. Here, however, sin was not mentioned. We have to be careful about working out an unbendable system for causes of disease. They are not always sin-caused (most are not), but natural—the physical world is messed up, including the human body.

In Matthew 8:3-15, a centurion had a servant who was paralyzed and suffering terribly, but the centurion said that Jesus only had to issue a command where he stood at a distance, and the healing would happen. Jesus commended the centurion in the highest terms. And why wouldn’t he? It was a marvelous and faith-filled declaration.

Jesus also commanded a disabled man at the pool of Bethesda to “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!” “And at once the was cured. He picked up his mat and walked” (John 5:8-9).

Application for Ministry Today

I believe we can learn how to minister as the apostles did, because of the nine gifts of the Spirit are available to all believers (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Three gifts are discernings of spirits, the workings of miracles and gifts of healings, as the Spirit distributes them. All Bible-based leaders should pray for and welcome these gifts and the seven others in that passage, when people needs healings and deliverances. Let me number my points in this section for clarity and order.

1.. Jesus also commanded a disabled man at the pool of Bethesda to “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!” “And at once the was cured. He picked up his mat and walked” (John 5:8-9).

2.. When you pray, speak a declaration over the diseased. Don’t pray some flowery prayer: “O thou God, if it be thy will, heal this man.” No. “Aeneas, get up!”

3.. However, Jesus never presumed as much power as the faith teachers claim for themselves. Instead, God the Father through his Son who was anointed by the Spirit performed miracles of healing. Even Jesus himself did not arrogate this much power to himself. He clarified that he does only what he sees his Father doing (John 5:19). He lives because of the Father (John 6:57). He speaks only what the Father taught him (John 8:28). He does what he sees the Father do (John 10:37).  What Jesus says is just what the Father told him to say (John 12:49-50, John 12:57). Perhaps the most important verse about miracles: “Many good works I have shown you from My Father” (John 10:32 NIV). (In John’s Gospel, “good works” = miracles, at a minimum.)

4.. “Jesus Christ heals you”: This is in the present tense: “Jesus Christ is in the process of healing you!” Sometimes healing is a process. However, it has an aorist (past) sense to it. “At this moment, Jesus Christ healed you!”

5.. In this passage and the next one, Peter used their names. It makes me wonder whether we should incorporate this into our healing ministries. It makes things personal. However, Jesus did not often call on names, because there were large crowds around, so this became impossible.

6.. In Peter’s small setting here and in Joppa, it is intimate. If your setting is small, learn the sick person’s name. It shows you care.

7.. As I write in all the healing posts:

Let it be noted that the disciples never went in for or “decree and declare.” (Name one time they used such verbiage during their prayer for the sick. Thus even the first-generation of disciples never arrogated this much power to themselves.

Instead, while Jesus was alive, God the Father through his Son who was anointed by the Spirit performed miracles of healing and deliverance (Acts 10:38). And it is easy to believe that the disciples followed Jesus, in Acts.

8..We too should develop life in the Spirit (Gal. 5), so we can hear from the Father through the Spirit, in Jesus’s name and authority granted to us. We will never heal as Jesus did, because he is the Anointed One without limits (John 3:34). But after the cross and the Son’s ascension, the Spirit can distribute the gifts of healings (plural) as he determines (1 Cor. 12:11), not as we “name and claim” or “decree and declare.” Let the Spirit work, and you listen and obey, and then rebuke a disease (not the person) or pray for healing.

4. Gifts of the Spirit: Gifts of Healings

Kenneth Copeland Gets a Pacemaker

Is ‘Decreeing’ Biblical for Christians?

What Is Biblical Confession?

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Acts 9