Divine Healing Made Simple: Simplifying the supernatural to make healing & miracles a part of your everyday life (The Kingdom of God Made Simple Book 1) (6 page)

I had been looking in the Word of God to see where Jesus ever said He lacked authority to heal someone, where He said He lacked the authority to do a miracle or stop a storm. Instead we see Him even “cursing” a fig tree and it dried up from the roots. So did Father God tell Jesus to curse the tree, thus giving Him specific authority? I think not. Same as with Elijah when the captain and his 50 men showed up on three occasions and he called fire down on them and burned them up. On the third time an angel was sent to tell Elijah not to fear them and go with them. So if God had to give specific authority to the prophet or nothing would happen, the angel would not have needed to be sent, to stop him from burning them up too. Authority means just that; pre-permission to do what had already been spoken for you to do. Jesus said heal the sick, cast out devils, raise the dead, etc.

Anyway, in the dream I had, I was sitting in an empty room on a chair and was praying and asking Jesus about this teaching. In the room there were couches and other chairs around a table. I had my head slightly down and facing straight ahead, as I was praying and asking for clarity, Jesus walked in the room off to my side. I felt His presence; I heard His voice and the atmosphere shifted. He physically walked in, not some spiritualized visitation. He said: “I hereby give you specific authority to heal all the sick, infirm and hurting. That clears that up! I want all of them healed, but you will never be able to reach all of them, so whoever YOU choose to minister to, I not only want them healed, I expect them to be healed. I will be there and watching what you do and how determined you are to see them made well. Once you decide to minister to this one or that one, you have a responsibility to their healing, unless they choose to walk away from it.” (What came to my mind in the dream was similar to what John G. Lake had his Divine Healing Technicians do for graduation from his training. He gave them a name of someone in the community – typically terminal or incurable and told them to go and heal them and come back. If you don’t heal them, don’t come back.) Jesus then said, “You now have specific authority right from me and you never have to wonder or question that again. But with it comes responsibility as well. If you give up, if you try and fail I want you to come back here and we’ll talk. I want all of them healed, remember that.” Then the dream ended.

Ken goes on to say that rather than trying to find certain people to heal, he was left with a sense of the extreme love that Jesus has for all people and His desire to see all of them healed.

W
HEN
J
ESUS WALKED THE STREETS
of Galilee, His acts of healing created division among those who watched Him. Some rejoiced at the miracles they witnessed, while others criticized Him. The same attitudes exist today. Healing, deliverance and miracles are ways in which the kingdom of God is made manifest through us. When we bring the kingdom of God to earth, we invite criticism, because wherever the kingdom goes, it destroys belief systems that are opposed it.

The greatest criticism of healing during the first century came from religious leaders. They had followers who admired their shallow spirituality. The miracles of Jesus drew people away from them and turned their hearts back to God. The kingdoms these men had built were beginning to crumble. Their response was to criticize the new thing God was doing. Little has changed today. Most of the criticism of healing today comes from religious leaders who are building their own kingdoms.

When you begin to heal the sick, and you do it in a setting where healing is not widely accepted, don’t be surprised if church leaders oppose you. I know a few pastors who embrace healing, but many do not. For example, when I was new to healing, my pastor Dennis Teague encouraged me to pursue it. He set aside a time for healing every Sunday during church services. In contrast, I have received reports from many Facebook friends who were asked not to come back to their churches after they began healing the sick. I believe some of this is due to attitudes of stubbornness and fear. Leaders can be intimidated when their followers are doing things they aren’t doing.

To have success in healing, you must deal with the issue of what people think of you. If you have fear of what others think of you, it may prevent you from realizing your full potential. You must learn to put aside the criticism of co-workers, church leaders, family and friends. Jesus wasn’t popular with religious leaders or his family. He was despised by many people, but the sick loved Him like crazy because to them, He was the “fragrance of life.” And I believe that kind of life is worth pursuing.

When I became interested in healing, I noticed something in the gospels that I’d never spent much time thinking about. Jesus healed a lot of people. If you don’t think healing is for today or you don’t think it’s your calling, it’s easy to overlook just how many people He healed. As I studied His life, I realized that there wasn’t much else He did that could be called “ministry.” He taught in the synagogues and preached the kingdom as people followed Him. But He spent an enormous amount of time healing the sick. The more I studied His life, the more I knew there was something missing from mine.

The Bible reveals many things about us. When we read it we tend to identify with someone. I might see the heart of King David and identify with him. You might see yourself in Deborah or Ruth. Some identify with the apostle Paul. We all see someone whose life is similar to our own. But almost no one looks at Jesus and says, “I can see myself in Him.”

The people we strongly identify with become our role models. Ironically, we aren’t called to become like the apostles or prophets. God’s plan is for each of us to be conformed into the image of Christ. If we never identify with Jesus, we have a big problem. God wants us to become like Him and that means He must become our role model. But many of us have used a pastor or one of the disciples as a role model instead. If we are to be transformed into His image, we must begin to identify ourselves with Him. He must become our model in everything we do. We must allow Him to live His life through us.

The first message Jesus preached was, “Repent! For the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (see Matt. 4:17).

The message of repentance has become well-known, even among those who are not religious. But its true meaning has become distorted over the years. The word repent, which is used in most English bible translations, comes from the Latin translation of scripture. It implies a change of action in an attempt to gain favor with someone.

The Greek word used in this passage is the word
metanoia,
which comes from two words; one refers to a change; the other refers to the mind. The instruction of Jesus was not for people to change their behavior to gain favor with God. He wanted them to change their way of thinking, because the kingdom of God had arrived.

For centuries, people tried in vain to please God by following religious laws. Their idea of repentance was to conform their outward behavior to the law, in order to please God. Jesus was approached by many people who believed they had kept the law perfectly. He said that no matter what they did, they could not keep the law, because the law dealt not only with external behavior, but with the thoughts of the heart, which are harder to control.

Jesus changed the emphasis and tone of the spiritual conversation. Rather than focus on keeping the law by our own strength of will, He emphasized the love that the Father has for us. He taught and demonstrated through His life and death that the Father loves us more than we can ever comprehend. The good news of the gospel is that God is in love with you. It is only when the heart is gripped by the affection of the Father that our outward behavior begins to change in a real way.

When I became a Christian, I listened to preachers who drilled into my head the idea that God saw me as a worthless sinner. I was taught that He really didn’t like me very much, but He decided to save me, despite my wretchedness. I accepted this view of myself and after a while the word “sinner” became my identity. After years of living a powerless, defeated life, God said He didn’t see me that way. He said that my true identity was a beloved and cherished son – not a worthless sinner.

On June 25, 2012, I had a dream that revealed something important about identities.

In the dream, I was walking along a street and kept finding people who were lost and emotionally disturbed. They’d lost all sense of their identity. As I talked with them, it was revealed to me what their true identity was. I reminded them of who they were and their identities were restored.

The more you accept God’s love for you personally – the more your identity as His child will be established. And the more your identity as His child is established, (and your false identity is removed) the greater the power of His kingdom will become manifest through you. Manifesting the miraculous power of God is a matter of understanding and accepting your identity in Christ.

Through many different dreams, God began to show me things that I would do which seemed impossible. He showed me how I would affect people’s lives around the globe. His plans for me were so much greater than the ones I had for myself. Rather than a life of mediocrity, He showed me the inheritance we have as heirs of His kingdom. As sons of God, we have truly been given exceedingly great promises.

Many of us are afraid of becoming prideful. In an attempt to remain humble, we prefer to see ourselves as less than how God sees us. When we see ourselves this way, we destroy the work He wants to do in and through us. True humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself exactly the way God thinks of you; not more and not less.

The key to operating in the power of God is in knowing your identity in Christ and knowing how He wants to work in you. You must shed the false identities you’ve accepted from man and receive the identity given to you by God.

T
HIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT FROM
other books on healing. Most authors rely solely on the Bible and their personal experiences to teach on the subject of healing. God has taught me many things about healing through dreams and visions, so I will teach from the Bible and my experiences, but I’ll
also
share some of the dreams I’ve had. I’ll include an overview of dreams and visions from a biblical perspective in order to give you a better understanding of their relevance.

Even thousands of years ago, men understood how God uses dreams. Job’s friend Elihu reminded him that because we often fail to perceive God’s voice while we’re awake, He reveals secrets to us while we sleep:

“For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. ”
JOB 33:14-18

Daniel and Joseph were skilled in dream interpretation. Because of it, they were promoted to positions of great power under the rulers of their respective lands. They both said that dreams and their interpretations came from God (see Gen. 40:8 and Dan. 2:28).

The Bible says, “It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search a matter out.” (See Prov. 25:2.) God conceals His plans in symbolic language to draw us into a closer relationship with Him. The Bible is full of accounts where God revealed important things through dreams. Here are a few examples:

In Genesis 31, Jacob had a dream in which an angel told him that God knew how Laban had cheated him over the years. The angel told him to leave Laban’s land secretly. Laban was also warned by God in a dream not to speak harshly to Jacob about it.

Abimelech was warned in a dream not to sleep with Abraham’s wife or he would die (see Gen. 20:3).

Joseph’s cell-mates had divine dreams; one of them was promised freedom; the other was warned of his impending death (see Gen. 40:5).

Pharaoh was warned in a dream about a coming famine that would last seven years (see Gen. 41).

When Joseph learned that his wife Mary was pregnant, he considered leaving her, but an angel came to him in a dream and revealed that her pregnancy was a divine miracle and that he was to fulfill his marriage commitment. He was also warned in a dream of Herod’s plan to kill Jesus and he was told to flee to Egypt. The accounts are recorded in Matthew chapters 1 & 2.

In Genesis 28, Jacob fell asleep by a river. God came to him in a dream and gave him several covenant promises: to bless him all of his days, to make a great family for him, to give him the land promised to Isaac and Abraham, and that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him.

God appeared to Solomon in a dream while he slept, telling him to ask for anything he wanted. In the conversation, Solomon asked for wisdom to rule over God’s people. God gave him wisdom greater than anyone who ever lived. He also received great honor, riches and a promise of long life if he would be obedient. When Solomon woke up he realized all these things happened while he was sleeping (see 1 Kgs. 3:5-15).

Gideon was told to spy on his enemies before a battle. He discovered that one of them had been given a dream of a loaf of bread rolling down a hill, which smashed their tents. The enemies interpreted the dream as a sure sign of defeat. Gideon went back to his camp and confidently led his troops to victory (see Jud. 7:13-15).

King Nebuchadnezzar was given a dream concerning his own kingdom and all the kingdoms to follow. It was revealed that his kingdom was the greatest of the kingdoms of man. He was greatly encouraged by this dream (see Dan. 2:36-45).

God also uses visions to reveal His plans to us. He spoke to Aaron and Miriam about the way in which He would communicate to His prophets: