Prayer is Your Place of Safety (Part 8)

Praying and Standing in Faith for Healing

3.8.2020

Introduction

I’m taking a side excursion from my planned teaching today to talk about praying and standing in faith for healing.

The corona virus has dominated world and national news for a number of weeks now, and I have noticed the fear that is spreading about it.

As a pastor, my top priority is ministering to the spiritual needs of our congregation and those who join us online.

I want to address how to deal with the fear and apprehension that is everywhere, and give you some encouragement that God will protect and heal you!

1. Health and healing are a part of our in Christ!

Exodus 15:26 (NLT)

He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”

Lord

The self-existent one who reveals Himself. Also translated as Jehovah.

Strongs # 6519 – LORD 6510, GOD 4, JEHOVAH 4, variant 1; Jehovah = “the existing One”

Heals

Strongs # 7495 raphah;

(figuratively) to cure: — cure, (cause to) heal, physician, repair, x thoroughly, make whole.

God’s covenant name here is – I am the Lord your healer (physician)

John 3:14-15 (NKJV)

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus became both our sin and sickness on the cross. Here is a type of Jesus becoming our sickness and giving us His health from the Old Testament.

Numbers 21:7-9 (NLT)

Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people. (8) Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” (9) So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!

Numbers 21:9 (AMPC)

And Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole, and if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked to the serpent of bronze [attentively, expectantly, with a steady and absorbing gaze], he lived.

What are you looking at and listening to today? Faith or doubt? God’s Word or news media?

 

2. Be careful as to what you to and how long you to it.

Mark 4:24-25 (NIV)

Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. 25 Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

We have faith for what we hear a lot! The more we hear, the more conviction grows, and the more something affects us!

If you listen to more of the news about the corona virus from all the sources you use than you listen to the word, then you will have more faith for sickness and you will operate in fear.

Most of the people around you have no antidote for the negative news they are hearing!

But you DO!! You have the Word of God!

Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

 

3. Take time to build your up in God’s Word. It’s like taking !

Proverbs 4:20-23 (TPT)

Listen carefully, my dear child, to everything that I teach you, and pay attention to all that I have to say. (21) Fill your thoughts with my words until they penetrate deep into your spirit. (22) Then, as you unwrap my words, they will impart true life and radiant health to the very core of your being. (23) So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.

Instead of listening to everything everyone says about this virus, spend time building your faith up in God’s word for health and healing.

I have done this now for many decades.

Healing comes from the inside out. Everything you receive from God starts on the inside.

 

4. It takes to receive from God.

Jesus gave His disciples a visual lesson on how to exercise faith that we can learn from..

Mark 11:11-14 (NLT)

So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon. Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples. (12) The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. (13) He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. (14) Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it.

Mark 11:15-21 (NLT)

When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, (16) and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace. (17) He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” (18) When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching. (19) That evening Jesus and the disciples left the city. (20) The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. (21) Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!”

Jesus gave His disciples an illustration of faith by speaking (to a tree) and believing what He said to it would happen.

Mark 11:22-24 (NKJV)

So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. (23) For assuredly, I say to you, whoever to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he will be done, he will have whatever he . (24) Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

How many times is the word believes in the above scripture?

How many times is the word say or says in the above scripture?

It is three times as important to watch your words as to believe something. Words can create what you believe, and words carry what you believe.

 

5. produce life or death.

Words register on your heart, and carry your faith to God.

When doubt thoughts come, speak out loud what you believe. That will counteract the doubt and create around you an atmosphere of faith.

Proverbs 18:21 (NKJV)

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 18:21 (MSG)

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.

Proverbs 18:21 (TPT)

Your words are so powerful that they will kill or give life, and the talkative person will reap the consequences.

Refuse to speak the doubts that you hear, or that come to your mind. Firmly speak what you believe!

 

Action Points:

1. Spend MORE time building your faith for healing than reinforcing doubts through the media.

2. Pray and command the sickness to go, and then believe you receive your healing.

3. Speak often out loud what you believe!

Take some time daily to read these scriptures and let them revolve over and over in your thinking:

Exodus 15:26 (NKJV): If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.

 

Exodus 23:25-26 (NKJV): So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. (26) No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

 

Deuteronomy 7:15 (NKJV): And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

Psalms 103:1-3 (NKJV): Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!

(2) Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: (3) Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,

 

Psalm 105:37 (NKJV) He also brought them out with silver and gold, And there was none feeble among His tribes.

 

Psalm 107:20 (NKJV): He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

 

Proverbs 4:20-22 (NKJV): My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. (21) Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; (22) For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.

 

Proverbs 4:20-22 (NIV): My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. (21) Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; (22) for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body.

 

Isaiah 53:3-6 (BBE – Bible in Basic English): Men made sport of him, turning away from him; he was a man of sorrows, marked by disease; and like one from whom men’s faces are turned away, he was looked down on, and we put no value on him. (4) But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God’s punishment had come. (5) But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are made well. (6) We all went wandering like sheep; going every one of us after his desire; and the Lord put on him the punishment of us all.

 

Matthew 8:17 (NIV): This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.”

 

Acts 10:38 (NIV): How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

 

1 Peter 2:24-25 (NIV): He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Faith-in-Answered-Prayer Scriptures (NKJV)

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

 

Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

Psalm 89:34 My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.

Psalm 119:89 Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.

 

Psalm 138:2 I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name.

 

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Jeremiah 1:12 Then the LORD said to me, You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.

 

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Matthew 21:22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.

Mark 11:24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

 

John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

John 16:23-24 And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. (24) Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

 

1 John 3:22-23 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

1 John 5:14-15 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (15) And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.