It Isn’t YOUR Sickness
It makes me want to throw something at the TV when those stupid ads come on that say, “I manage my depression with Happium” or, “When my allergies flare up, I take Declogital” or, “I manage my moderate-to-severe Crohn’s Disease with Crohnaway.”
It is a mistake to go around talking about “your” cold, “your” allergies, “your” cancer, “your” trouble breathing, and so on. Don’t take ownership of diseases. They do not rightfully belong to you. As a child of God, healing is your possession and sickness is not your possession. Sickness belongs to its originator, Satan. It is trespassing in your body!
It will help you if you keep this perspective. As long as you consider it “your” flu, you’ve got it! It’s yours. Don’t consider it yours – God doesn’t. God declares you healed. It’s the devil’s flu trespassing illegally in your blood-bought body. The devil’s flu is working in a member of Christ on the earth, where it does not belong.
The Bible tells us exactly what happened to your sicknesses. Surely He (Jesus Christ) has borne our sicknesses, and carried our pains (Isaiah 53:4). Jesus Christ bore your sicknesses in your place when He paid for your sins. Our sicknesses most certainly include your sicknesses. Peter agrees when he says that by Jesus’ stripes you were (physically) healed (1 Peter 2:24). Therefore, you have a right to say, as God does, that all of your sicknesses were laid upon Jesus. Any sickness that attempts to attach itself to you does not belong to you legally. It is trespassing on God’s property. It can’t be yours in the sense that God wants you to have it, because Jesus Christ took care of your sicknesses – on the day that they became HIS sicknesses as punishment for YOUR sins.
So literally, you can think of and speak of things as the depression that Jesus took, the cancer that Jesus took, the high blood pressure that Jesus took, the allergies that Jesus took, and so on. HE took ownership of what were YOUR sicknesses when He bore YOUR sickness Himself. Just as He “bore away” your sins so that they would not be considered yours anymore, He “bore away” your sicknesses so that they would not be considered yours anymore. You know that the Bible forbids stealing. So don’t steal back sickness by claiming something as yours that Scripture says belonged to Jesus when He suffered in your place and took your diseases!
It would be interesting to see the look on someone’s face when someone asks you what’s wrong and you say that it’s the allergies that Jesus took. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend really saying to most people because they would have no idea what you’re talking about. But you should at least think that way.
Remember also that technically, you are not sick! In general usage (including some Bible verses), people are said to be sick, but if you think about it, only your body is sick. Your spirit isn’t sick! The real you on the inside is not sick! Only your earthly tabernacle has the problem. (This is a good truth to remember if you are preaching and you feel rotten. The rivers of the anointing will flow from your spirit, and since your spirit isn’t sick, it won’t be hindered. I have sensed a marvelous anointing and had the Holy Spirit use me in services where I felt awful, at least when I started!)
You are a spirit being and you have a physical body. Your body is not you. It can’t be you, because after your body rots in the ground or is cremated, you will still be around. Paul talked about his body as such – his body. He said that he kept his body under (1 Corinthians 9:27). He didn’t say that he kept himself under because his body was not his real self. Whether you realize it or not, you have control over your body through the power of God’s Word. You can stop it from sinning, and you can stop it from staying sick, too.
This may seem like a subtle point, but when you grasp it, it will help you immensely: You can have something in the spirit before you have it in the physical, and you can not have something in the spirit that you have in the natural. You have the growth inasmuch as it is in your body, but you can refuse to own it in the spirit realm. You can declare that the growth is not yours, because it legally isn’t. It does not belong to a child of God, who was healed by the stripes of Jesus. It may be in your body illegally, but you can declare boldly that it is not yours and that you refuse to have it in your body. You declare that you have healing, not sickness, because healing is legally yours. You can believe that you receive healing when you pray and take possession of it. If you “have” the healing, spiritually speaking, you do not “have” the sickness any more.
I like to put it this way: I do not own this illness. It is not mine. It is the devil’s and it has no right to exist in my body. I refuse to accept it as mine. I am healed by the stripes of Jesus. I am redeemed from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13), which includes every sickness and every disease (Deuteronomy 28:61). Jesus bore all my sicknesses for me (Isaiah 53:4), so no sickness belongs to me today. I am redeemed from this curse that is trying to attach itself to me. I take authority over it in the name of Jesus and I command it to leave my body now. I believe that I receive complete healing for my body now as I pray (Mark 11:24), and I thank God that it is accomplished. From now on, I will thank God for delivering me from the devil’s attack of sickness and stop worrying or praying about it, other than to thank God for the healing that I already have.