Healing is not automatic

Healing does not "fall" on you. Although it is yours, you must do something about it. You can either accept it or reject it. You are not a robot. God will not shower His blessings on you. God and the Holy Spirit are perfect gentlemen. They will not barge in on you, but the devil is not a gentleman. Leave the door open an inch and he will stick his foot in.

I did not know that. So I was an invalid for sixteen long months until I found in the Word of God what was mine. And when I saw what the Bible said about healing, the thought that I might not be healed never entered my mind. I never had any doubt about it. You see, when you abide in the Word of God, doubts disappear.

If you have doubts, it is because you are not entrenched in the Word. Let the Word of God be the final authority, the Supreme Court, so to speak, to which you appeal.

So you see, healing does not fall to people automatically, nor does salvation fall to people automatically. You need to know what the Word says about your situation! “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).

Many of us who were brought up in the church were stuffed with religion instead of being taught the New Testament. Sometimes I find myself going back to what I was taught in the church in my “prayer practice.” After praying and praying for something day after day and night after night, I suddenly realize: Stop! I know how to pray better! This is wrong! It won’t work. It’s not biblical. It’s just a religious gimmick!

Let’s own what belongs to us.

The best way you can be healed is to know from the text of Scripture (Isa. 53:4,5; Matt. 8:17; 1 Pet. 2:24) that healing is part of God’s plan of salvation; it belongs to you; by the stripes of Jesus you are healed. We know that the pains, sicknesses, or infirmities that seem to afflict our bodies were laid upon Jesus. He bore them. We do not need to bear them. All we need to do is agree with God and His Word that “He took our griefs and carried our sorrows” and “by His stripes we are healed.”

We simply know this, and so we thank God. We do not necessarily need someone to lay hands on us. We do not necessarily need the gifts of the Spirit to be manifested. We simply thank the Father for our miraculous salvation, our healing.

All believers should clearly understand that their healing is accomplished in Christ.

Healing is not always instantaneous. Sometimes recovery is gradual.

The Bible says of the ten lepers that they were healed “as they walked” (Luke 17:14).

An example is a woman who wrote to me a few months after we held a radio meeting in Texas. A victim of arthritis, she too used crutches and did not receive instant healing immediately after prayer.

She wrote, “I picked up my crutches, walked back to the table with the books, then to the car, put the books on top of the car, and was digging in my purse for the keys when the realization came, “I am healed!” The manifestation came as I stood by the car. Two months have passed and I no longer need crutches. I am healed!”

The Ten Lepers Were Healed As They Walked. The Bible also says that when Jesus ministered, the nobleman's son got better from the hour Jesus prayed for him (John 4). What does this mean? It means that he got better from the hour he was ministered to the hour he was healed.

Kenneth Hagin

(post by Kim Jolly)