Month: October 2019

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The Prayer of Faith

Is anyone of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven (James 5:14-15).

But when Jesus healed the sick, he didn’t pray to the Father. He didn’t tell us to either.

In the book of Acts, the disciples heal many, but they didn’t pray. Peter commanded the crippled beggar to “Walk.” He commanded Aeneas, “Get up and take care of your mat.” He told the dead Dorcas, “Tabitha, get up.” Paul told the crippled man in Lystra, “Stand up on your feet.”

So what is the prayer of faith James is referring to?

The fig tree clue

In Mark 11, Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died. Peter was amazed, “Look Rabbi!”

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered.  “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:22-23).

Jesus goes on to describe the prayer of faith: “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Reading this verse in isolation, I always assumed the prayer of faith was petition or intercession. But the context of this passage was a curse. Jesus said to speak TO the mountain, not pray ABOUT it. Therefore the prayer of faith is a command.

That is the pattern of the Lord’s ministry, and of the disciples too. We should follow their example. Using our God-given authority.

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Don’t do what Jesus didn’t!

It came as a shock to realize Jesus didn’t pray. I don’t mean he didn’t pray to the Father―of course he did. I mean he didn’t pray when healing the sick. Really?

At the Last Supper, Jesus took a towel and bowl, knelt before his disciples and washed their feet, the job of the lowest slave. They were horrified. Peter argued, but finally agreed. Afterwards, Jesus said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15).

Washing feet symbolizes both servanthood and forgiveness. But the principle of example applies to his whole ministry, for Jesus also said (Luke 6:40), “Everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

To be like Jesus, we should do what he did and not what he didn’t!

Five things Jesus didn’t do

  • He didn’t pray when he healed the sick – he just healed them.
  • He never told us to pray for them. He told us to heal them: “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you’” (Luke 10:9).
  • He never told anyone they were too sinful to be healed. There must have been some ratbags in the crowds, but he healed those who needed healing (Luke 9:11).
  • He never said any disease was too hard. He cleansed lepers and raised the dead.
  • He never set conditions before healing.

 Therefore we shouldn’t expect people to become Christians before they’re healed. We should be willing to minister healing to the cases we consider hard. They’re not hard for God! We should welcome the ruffians, the outcasts and the ratbags.

And when we minister healing, we shouldn’t pray to the Father. The disciples didn’t. But aren’t we told to pray in James 5? True, but that’s a special case, and the subject of a future blog.

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The Power of the Son

He healed the sick, stilled the storm, walked on water, and fed thousands with a boy’s lunch. The disciples shook their heads in wonder. How did he do it?

What is supernatural to us is natural to God; he made the whole thing in the first place!

God’s not hiding in heaven with his arms folded. Like a potter with a stubborn lump of clay, his earnest fingers penetrate every corner of creation, working his masterpiece with a vision in his heart. Miracles are merely a window into his world.

The Greater Things Problem

But then Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things…” (John 14:12). Ridiculous? I used to think so, convinced Jesus performed his miracles because he’s the Son: of course he could walk on water and multiply lunch. He’s God.

Jesus also said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself,” and “By myself I can do nothing.” (John 5:19, 30). Why not? Because “He stripped himself of all privilege.” (Philippians 2:7, PHILLIPS). While he never surrendered his divinity, he became a man with no more or less power than a man, though without sin.

So how did he do it?

Jesus didn’t begin ministry until he was baptised in the Holy Spirit. After the temptations, he returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14), saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me…” (Luke 4:18a). Anointed. That’s how he could do the miracles.

When Jesus walked on the earth, he laid aside his divine power to demonstrate how we, filled with the Holy Spirit, can do even greater things. Anointed by the same Spirit.

For more, get my latest book, The Seven Seals of the Holy Spirit.

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How set is your mind?

I stood surrounded by thirty thousand others, watching the impossible. The biggest tent in the world soared seventy feet above me. Outside, Soweto, South Africa. Inside, holy chaos. People danced. People jumped and sang and praised God, their faces alight. No one praises God like Africans. Too reserved to join in, I merely grinned.

Then I heard these words. “Now put your hand in the air.” In the row in front of me, a girl of about twelve raised her right arm. An older African man stood facing her, smiling. “No, not that one, the other one,” he told her.

The girl’s left arm was twisted and withered. She turned to look at it. A frown clouded her face. She held her breath and her mouth tightened. Her left arm quivered, the fingers straightened and the arm grew. Her eyes opened in astonishment. Within ten seconds the arm appeared normal.

The tears that changed my life

I was a scientist. Miracles had explanations. Arms don’t grow. She must have a real arm underneath, and the crippled one is a toy. She must have a balloon in the shape of an arm. She must have, she must have . . . my set mind scavenged for plausible solutions.

Standing beside the girl, a lady stared at her, a picture of radiant joy. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. She wrapped the girl in a wild hug.

Those tears nailed me.

How hard it is to change our minds! “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds,” the Lord tells us. “Set your minds on things above,” he says. God is bigger than our imaginations. He created the universe. He knows how to grow an arm―and recast the concrete of our minds.