Friday, November 29, 2013

Healing Isn't Always Instant Even For Jesus

by Donna L. Watkins

Donna at Brookgreen Gardens
Murrells Inlet, SC
"Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.” Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. Then He sent him away to his house, saying,“Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.

In Mark 8:22-25 above, the story is told that in Bethsaida some people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged Him to touch him. I find it interesting that Jesus took the man by the hand and led him out of the village.  Bethsaida was a Hellenistic-Roman city and is most known for Jesus' healing a blind man that wasn't healed the first time He put His hands on him.
Why did He want to take this blind man out of the village and out of the range of verbal disbelief for the man to be hearing?  Matthew 11:21 included Bethsaida in Jesus' "woe to you" pronouncements about unbelief.  This indicates that faith on the part of the person being healed is essential for complete healing.  The gift of healing can bring a miracle healing about, but if unbelief resides within that person, it can be temporary.  We had a friend many years ago with Parkinson's disease where this occurred.

In Matthew 9 Jesus cleared the mourners away from the little girl that had died.  Although He told them that she is simply asleep they laughed at Him.  Another instance of too much unbelief?  Who's unbelief would've been involved?  The girl was dead, but father who was a synagogue leader came to Jesus to tell Him his daughter had died but if He would put His hand on her, she would live.  That was faith enough to search out Jesus, but what about when you're in the middle of a crowd laughing and mocking?  That could certainly sway the father's heart.

We know that our thoughts can create or kill. [Read: How Thoughts Create Our Lives] We know that God created the entire universe with words and gave humans made in His image the ability to speak with the results of building ourselves and others up, or tearing ourselves and others down with negative words and condemnation.

After Jesus had spit on the man’s eyes and laid hands on him , He asked him if he could see, and the man replied that people looked like trees walking, so Jesus put His hands on the man's eyes again. The man's eyes were opened and sight was fully restored. Even though He had taken him out of the town, the man had a bit of the "town" in him. Kinda like the saying, 'You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy." This is the only example in the New Testament where Jesus had to minister to any need more than once to affect a total healing.

It's obvious that we have a part to play in our healing. It certainly wasn't that Jesus' power was just off that day and that's why He needed to do something twice before the man was healed. Notice the instructions to the man from Jesus: “Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.” How often have you heard a testimony of somebody being healed at a meeting or church service and then only a day later it seems the healing was "lost?" It's a very common thing. Why does it happen? How could we be healed in one moment or hours and then not be healed shortly thereafter? Does it link in any way to the words that the healed person hears and the thoughts he has?

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I remember how shocked I was at all the symptoms that were being healed as I had believed they would be when I struggled with the heart battle last year. When the physical symptoms were gone I was so amazed which would indicate that I must have had some disbelief. At the time there were many praying and all their was added to my faith, so my portion of unbelief didn't counter-balance the amount of faith in the situation.

Often people pray for healing and then look at their symptoms to see if God answered their prayer. That is walking by sight, not faith in the Word. But we are so used to relying on our five senses to survive that it's a very human thing to do so. We have to get The Word that God gives to us personally and stand on it believing it above all else. If we can't see the healing, we don't keep praying for the same thing since God tells us in His Word that we are already healed. [Read: Don't Give Up, It's Already Yours]

I've had a longer battle due to having numerous long-term diseases which actually become part of your DNA and part of who you are, so it takes time to renew your mind and reshape your thinking about yourself and be able to visualize yourself without the disease.  I found I had an easy time picturing all the things I would be doing that I wasn't able to do now, but I noticed after some time that I never saw my current face on those images.  It was more like a slideshow of what I wished could be.

That in itself was a revelation of how I viewed myself.  These discoveries could be considered negative, but in reality, you can't change something until you know about it, so it's a blessing to be informed, even though when these things come forward, the devil is right there with them to tell you to "give up, it ain't gonna happen."  Do NOT listen to him.

It takes time to renew your mind, but I was blessed when I found Dr. Caroline Leaf's program, 21-Day Brain Detox.  All  of this builds unbelief in your mind that you can't be somebody else.  When you begin you may not even know what it looks like to be well.  I had some of the diseases for 25 and 35 years before discovering the Truth that God always wants me well.  It's not easy but it is simple and it's the works-oriented mentality the Western world possesses that only makes it harder.  I had to choose to hang in there and let the grace of God do it through revelation to me from Holy Spirit.

In the story of this blind man, we can see that Jesus knew in His spirit that unbelief was hindering an instant manifestation of God's power and He simply gave him another dose of the power of God that was within Him. Don't let the devil pull you out of the victory. We don't fight to get victory, we stand to enforce the victory already won by Jesus through the Cross. Ephesians 6:13 tells us to put on the whole armor of God, but did you notice it doesn't tell us to battle or fight, it tells us to stand our ground. That's the healing ground already won and provided for by Christ.

We have to believe when it looks like there's nothing to believe in. But the key word there is "looks." The circumstances will often get worse after we have been prayed for and healed because the devil wants to steal away that healing as fast as he can by consuming you with doubt and unbelief. WE get to choose whether we agree with him or not. Keep these thoughts in mind. The Bible says the devil is a thief and comes to steal. If there were a thief in your neighborhood robbing homes and he comes to your home and looks through the windows to find it totally empty, do you think he would bother to break in? No, of course not, there's nothing there of value to steal.

So .. the very fact that he is oppressing you with more symptoms or pain is a visual confirmation that you were healed or he wouldn't be bothering to steal something from you. What I have done in these situations is to laugh and say, "Thank you, devil! Now I know that I was healed since you are here to steal it from me. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus and you must flee."

The devil only responds to faith, so if you say this and nothing happens, don't wear yourself silly doing it over and over. Get into the word or some teaching on healing and build your faith in it. I suggest this free conference series, "God Wants You Well."

If you'd rather have a book in hand, "God Wants You Well" is the book that began my healing journey. May your healing journey be blessed with faith and assurance of the fact that God does want you well.


Author Bio
Donna lives in Central Virginia with a wonderful husband and a cat named Squeek. She is a lover of God, nature, wildlife, birds, gardening, photography, travel, simple living, natural health, pets and seeking a peaceful, healing lifestyle. Life has many hurts and sorrows but within "the [divine] nature in us" we CAN overcome. You can also find her posts on Google+ and Twitter.


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