Hi all,
Last week we looked in the gospels at people who demonstrated personal faith for healing. Faith forms when you have a personal revelation for you and for your situation. Noah received revelation a flood was coming, his response to that revelation and grace, is faith. Moses was told he was deliverer for Israel, his response to that revelation and grace, is faith. Revelation comes first, faith is our response to the revelation of grace.
Visitation about chronic conditions
I was on senior staff at a mega-church and as such was given front row seats to the Tuesday evening service during a week long set of services with a new guest minister each night. Towards the end of the service the guest minister invited people who said they were healed that night come on stage and tell about it.
I noticed many of the testimonies were from injuries, and thought, “Father, did Jesus heal injuries in the gospels? Is healing from injury even in the atonement? I can’t think of any specific reference to healing injuries in the gospels” as I quickly mentally scanned my memory of the 23 individual cases for any that might have been injury.
Suddenly to my far right, standing by the end of the platform I saw my angel, and he looked right at me and said, “Much of what Jesus and others healed were injuries.” And disappeared. I had a personal interest in that question because our oldest son Chris, was brain damaged at birth with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and over the years I’d tried everything to get him healed, but the healing of injuries being possible was not something I had even considered.
On Saturday night I had no official duties and Barb needed a break from caring for Chris all week long, so I took Chris to the concert that was held at the close of the conference on Saturday night. At the time Chris was 19 years old, in a wheelchair, and I rolled him to the main floor to the side of the platform and took my seat next to him in a folding chair. So he could see just a bit better I had rolled him slightly in front of me on my right side just a bit.
As the singer sang and accompanying videos played on the big screens placed around the arena, my mind noticed what was in my spirit – I suddenly felt the presence of Jesus in my spirit. Let me explain: I feel the presence of the Lord in my spirit 24/7, but when Jesus Himself is in the Spirit nearby, my spirit recognizes Him and the intensity in the spirit man increases and His presence causes my mind to notice. You’ve probably experienced that too but maybe not known Who was near. When I noticed that, then the Father suddenly opened my eyes to His realm, and with eyes wide open I could see both the natural realm and His realm, as Elisha saw the natural army and the angelic army at the same time in II Kings 6: 13-17.
I looked around thinking I might see Him walking among the thousands of people as the concert had transitioned from ‘hip hop’ to more vertical and true praise & worship. But all I saw was angels. I said, “Lord, I know you’re here, I can’t see you. But I know you’re here.” Suddenly I felt His presence behind me, and turned to look over my left shoulder to see Him walking up to me, pausing to stand at my left shoulder.
Without a greeting the Lord just started talking where the angel had left off on Tuesday night: “Much of what I healed in the gospels was injury, but I’d like to teach you some things about long term and chronic conditions.”
“But what about the healing of injuries? I need chapter and verse on that Lord.” He graciously included the references to the maimed in Matthew 15: 30-31, said the man with the withered (what we call atrophied) right hand of Mark 3: 1-5 & Luke 6:6 was in that condition from an accident (which was clear He pointed out because the hand had ‘withered’, having been normal before), and included Paul raising from the dead the man who accidentally fell out the window to his death in Acts 20:9, and the man crippled at birth but healed in Acts 14: 8-10.
We think in pictures
Satisfied I had my questions answered, He switched to why He had appeared to me, to teach me about people with chronic or long-term conditions. Keep in mind during this time my wheelchair bound and brain injured son was sitting to my right, Jesus standing on my left. Yes, I desperately wanted Him to lay His hand on Chris. But He had been many times in our home visiting me to teach me over the years, with Chris asleep right down the hall, and He never did. In fact Chris’ faith is to this day centered around something the Lord said to him a few months before that evening.
A few months earlier Chris came crawling down the hall (pulling himself on his stomach with his arms as he can’t walk) – “Dad! Dad! Know what Jesus said to me?! Jesus said He’s going to walk through the mountains with me! Yep, that’s what He said alright. Isn’t that great! He’s going to walk through the mountains with me. Yahoo! (laugh, chuckle), Yep, He’s going to walk through the mountains with me!”
He has seen kids on TV running and said, “When I get to heaven I’m going to run like that” and many more comments that demonstrate his faith is not on healing for today, but for when he gets to heaven. To him, much to our (Barb and I) disappointment, ‘walking through the mountains with me’ meant in the age to come or heaven, not the mountains a day’s drive away in Colorado in this lifetime. But that’s where he is and I cannot override that because he is an adult and in that area has understanding (though I’ve tried). But lines of authority and how He works in families was another visitation…
Pictures
The Lord started: “People think in pictures.” I asked what He meant and He responded: “If I say ‘cat’, what do you think of?” I said, “I think of and picture Clipper, the little cat my brother saved as a tar covered kitten after they had resurfaced the road in front of our house.” He said, “Right. But others may think of and picture their own cat, or even a lion or tiger. People think in pictures.”
“So when a person has been a long time in a condition, or even since birth, they have little or no knowledge in their mind of what they look like whole, of what life would be like if they were whole. They have no image that naturally comes into their mind, no memory of themselves whole. When you have an injury or something you can easily receive healing in part because you know what it is like to be whole. Whole is normal for you, needing healing is unusual. But for them the opposite is true: Their condition is normal, and they have little or no memory or image of what health and wholeness means.”
“This is why it says when Bartimaeus heard it was ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, he called out. When he had heard of the healings and miracles and what people were saying, revelation began to work in him as he gave himself to it (revelation and therefore faith that sprung up as a result) first knowing who I AM and then he started thinking about seeing. The same of the woman with the hemorrhaging condition who it says ‘had heard of Jesus’, and therefore of other healings and miracles. She received revelation she too could be healed: “She said within herself, if I but touch His clothes I will be healed.”
He continued: “Faith for healing generally requires personal revelation.” I asked for other examples and He continued: “I already mentioned Paul in Acts 14 and the man crippled at birth had faith to be healed. Paul didn’t do anything but perceive in his spirit the man had faith. The man’s faith made him whole. Revelation comes from the Father, and most people you’ve dealt with haven’t or don’t take the time before the Father to receive revelation concerning the situation, or they receive it but ignore it and continue ‘believing’ as they had because what He reveals isn’t what they want.”
I asked for examples and He shared about people I knew. One was a young man who received a diagnosis that would be terminal if left untreated, but was curable if treated. He was a young evangelist with a wife and young children, but he refused medical treatment which was the Father’s provision for Him, because he wanted to ‘stand in faith’. He died a few months later, leaving many confused as to why God didn’t heal him when he was ‘standing in faith’. He wasn’t, for he had revelation from the Father on the course of action to take but ignored it and suffered the consequences. He’s in heaven of course, but he could have lived longer.
He spoke of Chris’ Special Education teacher who was a Christian and had a brain tumor. I talked to her about healing and faith, and left with her a (cassette tape) of nothing but the reading of healing scriptures. She spent a week listening to it, reading example of healings in the gospels, and ended up being instantly and totally healed when I laid hands on her a week or so later. He shared of Barb who had crushed the right side of her face in a horrible fall, but received complete healing of the nerves and muscles of her face – something the reconstructive surgeon said could not happen due to severe nerve damage/severing nerves – because she spent her whole time listening to healing scriptures and from the moment I laid hands on her, worshiped and gave thanks to the Father – all based on revelation and singleness of heart and focus.
There were several other examples of where people received healing and where they did not. Where some had realized it was their time or their loved one’s time ‘to go’, and where people fought against that revelation. And He concluded by giving me more understanding of Chris, His love for him, His delight in him, and other things more personal. And then He was gone.
And though the subject of healing and aging, faith and hope, is vast and thousands of books have been written on the subject, I must speak through the grace given me, though I perhaps raised as many questions as I answered, I hope it has provided food for thought though. If anyone has specific questions you can always email me directly at the email below. But I must conclude this series for now….next week:
Why we don’t pray to the Holy Spirit. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
