The Healing Anointing
Any believer can lay hands on a sick person in faith and expect him to get well. Any believer can receive healing by faith without anyone else’s assistance simply by exercising Mark 11:24 along with Hebrews 10:35-36. However, there are times when healing is ministered through the tangible “healing anointing.” This is not some abstract concept for theological eggheads to debate in ivy-covered halls. The healing anointing is just as much a real force as gravity or electricity. It can be felt, it affects those it touches, and it can flow from one person to another.
Let’s look at some places in the Bible where the healing anointing is discussed:
Acts 10:38: God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. He ministered to the sick with this power.
Mark 5:25-34: A sick woman touched Jesus’ clothes and power flowed out of Jesus into her and healed her. Jesus didn’t even know who had touched Him. This woman simply believed that Jesus was anointed, touched Him, and received from the anointing that was on Him. Jesus said that her faith had made her whole. This is an important lesson for those attending healing crusades. Your faith will draw the anointing out of the minister and into your body. Of course, your faith is not in the man himself, but in the Holy Spirit who has anointed him for his ministry.
Matthew 14:35-36: People thronged Jesus just to touch His clothes, and all who touched his clothes were healed. The anointing was on Jesus and when people touched Him, it flowed into them and healed them.
Mark 3:10-12: Again, many crowded in on Jesus to touch Him. Jesus was not going around looking for sick people; they were coming to Him, believing that He was anointed, and the anointing flowed into them and healed them when they touched Him.
Mark 6:54-56: They laid the sick in the streets so that they could touch Jesus, and everyone who touched Him got healed. Notice that Jesus didn’t touch them; they touched Him. They came to Him in faith and received.
Luke 6:17-19: Everyone in the crowd tried to touch Jesus because power went out of Him and healed them all.
Acts 5:12-16: People from all over brought the sick into the streets so that they could get healed if even Peter’s shadow passed over them. Peter was anointed, the people believed it, and they received healing through his ministry.
Acts 19:11-12: Cloth items that had been in physical contact with Paul were taken to the sick and demonized, and they were healed and delivered. This shows that the anointing is a real force that can be stored and transferred.
Clearly, God anoints some ministers to bring healing to the sick. All believers have an anointing to lay hands on the sick, but God anoints certain ministers with a special grace for this. This is referred to in 1 Corinthians 12:28-30.
People will receive from the anointing at healing services if they (1) believe that God wants them to be well, and (2) believe that the minister is anointed. This second condition may shock you or seem fleshly, but it is the truth. The people at Nazareth got no miracles because they did not believe that Jesus was anointed. They were offended at Him and saw Him as only a natural tradesman. Jesus was just as anointed to preach there as He was everywhere else, but most people there did not believe that He was anointed by God. Very little happened. You need to respect God and God’s servant at such meetings. It is important to maintain a reverent attitude. Remember Nazareth, where they didn’t do that. If you want to sit in your chair and criticize everything the minister says and does and then get up for healing, you may be disappointed when the anointing does not flow into you!
With so many cases in Scripture where people were healed because they came and touched Jesus’ clothes, it is unreasonable to expect that if the minister just prays long and hard enough, he’ll be really anointed, even if you don’t expect anything. Did Jesus pray a lot? Yes. But that couldn’t break through the ice of unbelief at Nazareth where the people were not in the mood to receive. Yes, the minister should be a person of prayer, but you should be, too!
The healing anointing is a real force, not a religious fabrication. It is possible for people to fall over or otherwise react when they come in contact with it. Some people get scared and you have to reassure them that it’s God’s power and that it won’t hurt them. Many people have never sensed the anointing and they’re unfamiliar with it! Many times, it feels like electricity or heat. Do not “freak out” if you are prayed over and you feel something like this.
One more thing: Get up and receive when the altar call is given and the anointing is flowing. Do not go up to the minister after the service to request private prayer for your healing. The tangible healing anointing may not be flowing at that point, and you will miss out. You need to follow the Holy Spirit. If you need healing, go up when the preacher gives the altar call for healing! Even Peter and Paul did not always minister with a tangible healing anointing. For example, the man at Lystra was healed by his own faith after hearing the gospel (Acts 14:7-10). Do not phone the minister or pound on his door in the middle of the night! That is not being importune like the man Jesus talked about who wanted bread at midnight; it is just plain rude, and it hinders the minister from getting the sleep that he needs.
It is never any fun when you get a word of knowledge by the Holy Spirit about a certain condition that God wants to heal on the spot, only to have no one respond, which certainly makes things awkward, and gets people (possibly including you) wondering if you just missed God. Then after the service is over, a person comes and says, “You know, that was me, but I just didn’t want to get up in front of everyone and be a spectacle.” You can still pray in faith for such a person, but I always explain that there was a special anointing earlier whereby they could have been healed, but that window of opportunity is now closed. People need to be taught to respond when the Holy Spirit is moving. If they wait until later, it will be harder to get healed because it will have to be a strict faith transaction on their part when they could have gotten a “freebie” from the Lord if they had been obedient to the Holy Spirit earlier.
Preachers sometimes overdo humility by saying over and over that they can’t heal anyone. While we recognize that the power comes from God, and the preachers are trying to give Jesus His rightful credit, if you keep telling people you can’t heal anyone, what will they expect when they come up? The Bible says repeatedly that believers healed people. If this shocks you, read the discussion YOU Can Do Miracles. We aren’t forgetting that without Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5). But we’re not without Christ, and He gave us delegated authority to heal the sick. That is what we should be preaching. Rather than saying, “I can’t do anything,” we should be saying, “I have authority from the Lord Jesus to lay hands on you for your recovery.” Our attitude should be the same as Peter’s in the case of the healing of the crippled beggar in Acts 3:1-16: “Such as I have give I thee.” Peter did not ask God to heal the crippled man; He just gave him what he had, and he wasn’t shy about saying what he had – the right to invoke the name of Jesus in faith.
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