The 166 Factor - by Marc Lawson: April 2010

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Healing 101

The Lord’s Heart for Healing

Unless we know and believe the Lord’s heart for us in the realms of healing, we will never beable to truly receive all the Lord desires for us. It’s not good enough for us to only know about what the Lord did in the Bible and for others, but we must each get a revelation of His astounding love, His great mercy and His overwhelming passion to see each of His children whole and well. Some excellent examples of this are found in the scripture:

Psalms 103:11-14

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His loving kindnesstoward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.

Isaiah 30:18

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him.

Isaiah 4:13

Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people, And will have compassion on His afflicted.

Matthew 9:36

And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd;

Matthew 14:14

And when He went ashore, He saw a great multitude, and felt compassion for them, and healed their sick;

Matthew 20:34

And moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him.

John 5:19

Jesus therefore answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

From the scriptures we see the following things:

1) God desires to heal ANY who are sick.

And while the sun was setting, all who had any sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on every one of them, He was healing them.

2) The Lord desires to heal ALL the sick, not just a special few.

And all the multitude were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.

3) God is no respecter of persons. What he’s done for others He can and will do for YOU!

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

4) God NEVER kicks one of His kids when they’re down, but instead picks them up and helps them out of their “ditch”.

And behold, there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. And when Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness."And He laid His hands upon her; and immediately she was made erect again, and began glorifying God. And the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the multitude in response, "There are six days in which work should be done; therefore come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall, and lead him away to water him? "And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

God, the Father is absolutely committed to seeing us freed from our afflictions, addictions, bondages and sicknesses. While the religious spirit asks questions like, “how can God do that?” or “why would God do it that way?” or “ how can God do it to them? ”. Rather than rejoicing at what God is doing, religion questions the how, why and what for. The religious spirit always glorifies what God did in the past while bitterly opposing what God is now doing. While religion wants to analyze how we got in the ditch, the Kindness and mercy of God just wants to pull us out!

Isaiah 42:3

A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.

5) God doesn’t resort to “making someone sick” or keeping someone suffering to “teach them” some kind of lesson.

Four Ways God Uses to Bring Healing

1) Faith of the one sick

2) The Prayer of Faith

3) The Word of Knowledge

“I only do what I see the Father doing”.

4) The Healing Anointing

4 Realms of Healing

There are at least four realms of our life God’s healing power can touch and effect:

1) Physical Body

Mark 4:23-24

- “And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. And the news about Him went out into all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.”

2) Demonic oppression, affliction, sicknesses and diseases

"You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.”

Mark 9:17-29

“And one of the crowd answered Him, "Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and stiffens out. And I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it." And He answered them and said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me! " And they brought the boy to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling about and foaming at the mouth. And He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. "And it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!" And Jesus said to him, "'If You can!' All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, "I do believe; help my unbelief." And when Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again." And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!" But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up. And when He had come into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And He said to them, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer."

A Note on:

II Corinthians 3:1-10

giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.

Galatians 3:13-14:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-- for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"-- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Galatians 4:15-17

Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness, that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth? They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out, in order that you may seek them.

Luke 11:52

Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."

3) Mental and Emotional Bondages

Luke 4:18,19

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."

Psalms 34:17,18

The righteous cry and the LORD hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

4) Relationships

Matthew 24:12

"And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.

Matthew 6:14,15

"For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. "But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

A Meeting Centric Church Culture

"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

— Matt 5:10

What do I mean by meeting-centric?

Here is the definition of “centric”: “located in or at a center; concentrated about or directed to a center.”

So when I say meeting-centric faith (or Christianity or church culture), I mean the cultivation of an entire lifestyle around an event. In this case, I am referring to the typical Sunday church service that takes approximately 2 hours out of that person’s 168 hour week. When a person becomes born-again into a meeting-centered mentality of Christianity, it is as if that person needs to wait till he or she goes to the weekly meeting to hear God’s voice. If an encounter with God is only centered on the Sunday meeting, then there is little to no discipleship. The hard work of mentoring and character development and modeling is left to the Holy Spirit whom new Christians are often never introduced to—or are even taught to ignore. We must teach folks to see that we are the church. We don’t just “go to church,” because we are the church! Yes, we go to those meetings and activities at the buildings the church is using. But we must look beyond meetings to see that being the Church means that we don’t act one way two hours a week and then another way the other 166. We must see that we are to live out our life in a way that fulfills the purpose God has for us as we manifest His presence on the earth.

"From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it”

- (Matt 16: 21-25)

As we read in this passage, even those who love the Lord deeply, like Peter, can assume they need to “help the Lord out,” and, even worse, feel like they know how. Many of the problems the Church has are tied to well-meaning people with good motives who are led by their carnal thinking and reasoning. Double-mindedness is such a regular part of the way of thinking in most churches and ministries that it is considered “normal.” In Matthew 4:17, Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand. This is what Jesus first had to say. He exclusively had one message to preach. Over 160 times in nearly every story and parable this Kingdom is mentioned. He was always talking about and referencing the Kingdom. The Kingdom is not the Church, but the Church is supposed to be an expression of the Kingdom on the earth. Is it? Most places I look, I don’t see it. Jesus said, “God is like this…The kingdom of God is like…” His statements absolutely confronted the religious system of the day.

He said repent (which simply means change the way you think and look at things); he didn’t say cry, sob, or run to the altar. When we equate an emotional response with repentance, we will always get an outcome which doesn’t result in lifestyle change. Repentance moves people to effect a complete turning around and a change of mind, ways, habits, and intentions!

Here’s an honest question: If the church leaders of today have the right message, then why does the response to their message appear to bring little to no change of habits, lifestyle, values, ethics, and morality? And why do all the polls indicate that righteousness, morality and cultural change is not only going the wrong direction in the church but our society as well? Why in the early years of our nation could one preacher like George Whitfield or Jonathan Edwards with the right message be so effective in changing his culture, yet today, even with all technological tools at their disposal, our leaders have such little success making that same difference?

I believe our present compromised system has helped fashion a compromised message. Most pastors, by and large, that I have known over the years of churches small, big, and huge are like anyone else attempting to do God’s will. Most feel like their job is akin to cleaning sand off the beach. Many are in survival mode or caution mode. If things seem great outwardly, “Don’t rock the boat”, if not, then “We need to be careful”. But these are apostolic mindsets! An authentic apostolic message will produce a real life-changing response, a change of mind & rending of the heart.

The Kingdom of Heaven (the regime, rule, and reign of God’s authority and dominion on earth or anywhere without limits) is at hand (which means right here, right now, in the midst of you, as plain as the nose on your face). While this is plain and simple, we seemingly have a hard time having faith for something we can’t see. However, Jesus said the Spirit was like the wind (see John 3:8). You can see its effects and its force, but it is not visible to the eye. He was talking of a real dimension right in front of all of us that could be accessed by faith which He modeled for His followers.

In this world the blind are blind, but in Jesus’s world the blind see! In this world the lame can’t walk, but in Jesus’s world the lame can walk! In this world the deaf need hearing aids, but in Jesus’s world, the deaf can hear! In this world the dead are dead, but in Jesus’s world the dead rise!

Up is down, in is out, rich is poor, poor is rich, last are first, and first last; it is a parallel dimension right alongside our fallen world, but the rules are different there! There are no wheelchair ramps, no handicapped parking, no deaf section! It is wrong that we spend so much of our life accommodating the failure of our faith and our lack of bringing in the Kingdom.

Jesus’ message went so against the flow of the religious establishment that they couldn’t deal with Him! He tweaked all the religious elements in His culture. Maybe we need to use His same approach since ours don’t seem to be helping us.

Today we have even the basic order and structure of the Church backwards. Imagine getting one of those “assemble yourself” kits for a swing set or BBQ grill or bike. You take out the instructions which go A, B, C, D, etc., and are to be done in the “manufacturer’s order of assembly”; you begin with F, then go over to Q, then make your way to D, and on and on. How do you think that would work for you? Not so great.

Paul wrote about how God designated things to be formatted in the Church:

"And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues."

- (1 Cor 12:28)

1) Apostles: senders

2) Prophets: seers

3) Teachers: search the Scriptures

4) Miracles: signs and wonders

5) Gifts of Healings: supernatural

6) Helps: supporters

7) Administrations: solutions

8) Various kinds of tongues-those who receive and speak heavenly mysteries

While most pastors are well-meaning people, they are frequently concerned with only two things: salvation and protection for the sheep. According to C. Peter Wagner, pastors and administrators have done an admirable job in winning a huge section of the world to Christ, but, “What would happen if we could actually function by God’s design and intention?” Pastors, evangelists, and even administrators by and large are leading the American church, which leads to a church focusing primarily on what happens in and around the Sunday meeting, creating an atmosphere that is imbalanced spiritually. With administrators, pastors, teachers, and evangelists at the helm, we have a meeting-centric faith based on an excellently packaged, entertaining Sunday meeting. In this church culture, the only time God does something is “at church.” When does God speak, or when do we feel His presence? At church. By defining “church” as a meeting to attend rather than a lifestyle to be lived, we end up with a lopsided faith based on our definition of God and how He operates. Everything is about “the meeting” and “the service.” We even back off on being too bold or aggressive because we might “run off people.” It is as if the whole fate of the Church is resting on having a good service, a good meeting with excellent fluff.

Government Priorities

Here is what this meeting-centric church culture looks like:

Pastoral: people’s comfort and safety

Administrative: things and money

Teacher: doctrine we teach, often in order to defend our territory

Evangelist: salvation message only

The perception of God in a pastoral government is primarily anxiety and fear. The great concern is losing what we have. There is also a fear that if and when any obstacles or opposition come our way it indicates that the Lord is behind it, so this is “how He directs us.” In addition, in this type of church culture or atmosphere, the supernatural is suspect and thought to be deceptive and unreliable. With everyone protecting their turf, things, and assets, there is no forward-advancing mentality. And in this environment anything supernatural means “you can be and probably already are deceived, so I will protect you from yourself.”. A pastoral government is filled with anxiety and control. Why? By keeping you in line you will continue to need me, your pastor. In my view, the vast majority of people living in this kind of church are taught subliminally to stay powerless and mostly helpless, dependent on leadership. In this atmosphere, many times good reasons are made up for suffering to keep the leader in his job.

In 1994, we pulled a church which I planted out of a church-planting denomination that operated and had an atmosphere like this. While it felt so strange to be leaving the supposed security and “covering” of it, within 10 days our church was caught up in a move of the Spirit that lasted over five years; God used it to send missionaries to nations like Norway, France, Romania, Jordan, and Israel. Also, other churches and ministries were birthed from it. When I pulled out of one thing, I wasn’t exactly sure what we were going into, but I knew God was doing it. I knew we needed to get out of the old to go into the new. While it was a major shift and shock, we have been pursuing it ever since. We had to make a choice to move forward for the Kingdom. I look back on that decision now, and it was absolutely not the safest or most comfortable way to go. But there has to be resoluteness, a determination in us that old ways must give place to the new.

"He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

- (Hebrews 10:9)

The absence of a Kingdom or an overcoming mentality in churches helps create an attitude of “We are only lowly sinners working out our salvation…We’re not fulfilling our calling, for how can we know His will? We are just lowly servants waiting for further instructions.” In 1996, Rick Joyner prophesied a spiritual civil war coming to the American church. Like the Civil War, it too would pit brother against brother, and would be over the issue of spiritual slavery, to end the injustice on these ministry “plantations.”

I think that the timing of the meltdown of American business markets in the last few months was a sign of the beginning of the meltdown of the giant “ministry plantations” where the Body was in slavery to a few. Let’s hope that what is happening in the natural, we also get to see happen in the spiritual. For many of these institutions it was over a long time ago. To relish or adhere to these ways of man versus the ways of God is a dangerous trap and will be a snare to us. Jesus even said, “Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matt. 15:6 NIV). The devil uses these things and the lusts of man to trap us into this world’s system of operation. This causes us to compromise our entire “way of doing business.” We attempt to fight the devil, but he has already us snared in his ways.

One of the reasons people get burned out from going to church is that they were told a number of stories that never came true. And I don’t mean those wonderful testimonies of God’s love and mercy but just an idealistic and unrealistic view of living that revolves around only “going to church” instead of being the Church. This happens as we are reasoning in our hearts, not just our minds.

"And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts?”

(Luke 5:21-22 NKJV)

The main reason for this double-mindedness is our need to resort to reasoning things out rather than hearing and obeying by faith. The problem is made worse by taking that reasoning out of our heads where it belongs and bringing it into our hearts. Because it is with our heart, we are to believe, not with our heads! We’ll never believe using only our logic and brain power.

"For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:10 NKJV)

To resort to reasoning in our minds is simply prideful mental gymnastics to make sure we cover all our bases in case God doesn’t come through. One of the weirdest things is many times we do this especially when God authentically and legitimately speaks to us, when we have been given an authentic word from God about something. But unfortunately then we attempt to bring it to pass, do it in our own strength and with our own abilities!

"This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:2-3 NKJV)

The Greek word for reasoning is dialogizomai, where we get the English word dialogue from which means, “a conversation between two or more persons; an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue.”

Here’s the breakdown of the Greek word:

Dia: through, on account of, because of;

Logizomai: to reckon, consider, regard, suppose.

To give ourselves over to reasoning is to entertain an argument with God in our heart: “How am I gonna do that?” or “Are you kidding me? Do you know what it will mean if I have to do that?” Peace begins to come as we learn to acknowledge and obey truth, but peace is only truly realized when the person (Jesus) who is the Truth is submitted to. When we learn to obey Him and His Word, we can begin to walk in that peace. And as we mentioned earlier, fear rather than peace is the prevailing atmosphere in most churches that are built around the meeting-centric culture.

_{This was an excerpt for “The 166 Lifestyle” by Marc Lawson published by Destiny Image}
_{Reproduced by permission© Copyright 2010 – Marc Lawson}

The 166 Factor - by Marc Lawson