How Much Do You Desire Healing?
You need to settle in your heart whether you really want to be healed or not! Do you really want to be healed, or do you want to have some reason to remain the object of sympathy and have people dote over you, at least until they get tired of hearing you only talk about your pains and sufferings? Do you really want to be healed, or would you rather continue to lie in bed, hang around the house watching TV and collect disability payments? Do you really want to be healed, or do you want to die? Do you really want to be healed, or do you fear losing your social acceptance among others who have your condition? Do you really want to be healed, or do you want an excuse to complain and act ornery all the time? Do you really want to be healed, or is it less important to you than watching game shows and soap operas until the undertaker takes you under? Do you really want to be healed, or do you only want healing if you can still devote the same amount of time you’re used to spending on video games, watching TV shows, reading and writing social media posts, and so on, leaving no time to meditate on Scriptures?
If you have decided in your heart that you can live with it, and it really isn’t important to you one way or another if you get healed or not, you do not desire healing. Do not attempt to apply Mark 11:24 if that is so. Right after you pray, the devil will lean on you to give up, and you will. If you are not determined to receive your healing, you won’t receive it – or else you’ll forfeit it soon after you receive it. You can’t be wishy-washy about it, because you will get negative pressure. You will get it from your body, you will get it from unenlightened Christians, and you will get it from the devil. Sometimes you’ll get it from the doctor, too. If you don’t really care, you are sure to cave in and you won’t be able to stay in faith.
(By the way, a trip to concordance will establish that the word desire in the King James Version of Mark 11:24, could better be translated ask. So I deliberately didn’t use that verse as a theme text for this topic, because that would make the common mistake of preaching something that is true but basing it on the wrong Scripture.)
In John 15:7, Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” If you don’t really want healing, don’t ask for it until you do. Also, notice the condition that you must abide in Jesus and let His words abide in you. If you don’t meet the condition, you don’t qualify for the promise.
You must spend time meditating on healing Scriptures. It doesn’t have to be every waking minute, but you need to plant and water the seed of God’s Word in your heart so that it can spring up and produce a harvest of healing. If you are unwilling to do this, just call the doctor and let medicine do all it can for you, because you won’t be healed supernaturally.
Some people don’t see the need to pay this price because they know someone who was healed by a manifestation of the Spirit without exercising faith. Maybe they were healed of a prior illness that way. Thank God for signs and wonders and people who get instant miracles, but they are the exception, not the rule. In general, people must receive healing by planting healing Scriptures in their hearts until it is more natural to act on them than to act contrary to them. You must be willing to mortify your flesh by the Spirit so that you act on what God says and not based on seemingly overwhelming pains and feelings. No Christian has a guarantee of being healed through the gifts of the Spirit, but every Christian has the right to receive healing by acting on God’s Word. It takes work. You must labor to enter into rest, as contradictory as that seems at first. If you do the “labor” of feeding on the Word, the Word will work in you and change you without further labor on your part.
Maybe you don’t want to aim your faith at a minor physical condition that doesn’t matter much or could be solved by a couple of aspirin pills. Just make sure that you know where you stand. Don’t try to use your faith for things that you don’t really desire, because you’ll back off at the first circumstance or report that says that you aren’t healed. However, I recommend that you DO aim your faith at EVERY condition, no matter how minor. It’s good practice. Then if anything really serious comes along, you’re already used to believing God and not your flesh.
Don’t have Queen Esther’s awful attitude:
Esther 7:4:
For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”
She might have gotten some things right, but this wasn’t one of them. If all the Jews were going to be sold as slaves, she wouldn’t have intervened – it took a threat of complete annihilation! She was willing to settle for Jewish slavery. Too many Christians have that same, “Oh, I could live with that” attitude toward conditions that God calls a curse that He wants us to live without.
Now let’s assume that you really do desire your healing. You are willing to face the inevitable pressure and contrary circumstances and stand your ground. You must believe that you receive your healing “when you pray” and you shall have it (Mark 11:24). Those are your instructions from your Creator and Father. Obey them!
God would be unjust to command you to do something that you cannot really do. If Jesus said that you can believe you receive something when you pray, you can do it. That’s right, YOU. You, the person with your name, reading this screen, can believe you receive the healing you desire when you pray. Jesus said you can do it. So you can. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it and don’t talk yourself out of it.
Consider the tenacity of some of those whom Jesus healed. Blind Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus all the louder when men around him told him to shut up (Mark 10:46-52). The woman with the issue of blood could have been stoned for being out in public, but went out and touched Jesus anyway (Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:43-48). No wonder she feared and trembled when she told Jesus all the truth! The Syrophoenician lady persisted in asking for deliverance for her daughter after the disciples kept trying to get rid of her and even after Jesus told her (correctly) that she had no right to healing because she wasn’t a Jew. The ten lepers weren’t supposed to be anywhere near Jesus, but came anyway to be healed. These people wanted healing and put their lives where their mouths were. What a difference from those who blab a few “Healing Scriptures” because they think that’s all they need to do. Friend, you will need some tenacity if you want to be healed and stay healed! Many men today will try to talk you right out of your healing, just as they tried to do to Bartimaeus. You will need some patience and Holy Ghost boldness if you expect to be walk in divine health.
You may not feel like you can do it. You probably feel like you can’t do it. Big deal. Walking by faith has nothing to do with how you feel about it. You can’t let your emotions rule you. One of the biggest lessons you need to learn in life is that you can act on God’s Word without feeling like it will work, and it will still work! As long as you believe in your heart, you can even have doubt in your head! Did you realize that? Doubt only chokes your faith when you act on it instead of acting on what God said. As long as you act on what God said, you will get God’s results. Acting on what God said includes speaking what God says about your situation.
Get ready to experience great freedom in your life when you realize that you can believe that you receive when you pray. (You already did that to get saved.) This is not some special advanced topic for faith giants. This is easy and you can do it. Nothing is so bad that you can’t overcome it with faith in God and His Word. Knowing this destroys fear in your life. You will no longer be afraid of some awful thing that Satan might bring you next. You will know that no matter what comes along, you will be able to overcome it with your faith. You will be able to believe that you receive when you pray and your answer will manifest and your problem will be over. You will speak and you will “have whatsoever you say.”