Dear Doctor Gift...

Good morning.

We continue with the series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit as per 1 Corinthians 12:7-10.

If we look at the history of men of God, illness has often been the weapon Satan used to persecute those who made serious business with the Lord. If he cannot manage to get earnest disciples to sin or to be lukewarm to prevent them from being effective in Kingdom pursuits, he hits their bodies with illness. If we read biographies, we’ll see testimonies to the effect.

Once again the Lord, the faithful head of the body, has made provision for His servants to be able to continue with the work of the ministry. He provided gifts of healing. Note it mentions ‘gifts’ in the plural form, which could mean that it is given in a variety of forms, i.e. representing the variety of diseases, or to many people who can use it to meet the healing needs of others, or both. This healing is sometimes miraculous and sometimes the Lord simply maintains the health of His servants so they can keep going. We do get individual ministers that major on healing in their ministry, but that does not mean they own a gift of healing. The Holy Spirit gives gifts of healing wherever and whenever they are needed to whoever has the faith and interest to use it. These ministers are simply available and the Holy Spirit uses them.

Jesus was used in the gifts of healing more than anything else in His ministry. We would also notice that He used a variety of methods to make the healing work. He e.g. spit on the ground, made mud of it, and put it on the blind man’s eyes telling him to wash himself at the pool of Siloam (John 9:6, 7). On some He laid hand, others He simply told to take up their beds and walk, some only touched Him and others He didn’t even see. The key here again is walking in the Spirit. Jesus spent hours at night praying, preparing for the day ahead. It was during those hours that He connected with His Father and heard from the Holy Spirit what He was supposed to do and how to do it. The ‘how’ I believe was often revealed to Him just before He had to do it. This I know from personal experience of walking in the Spirit. The same applies to us if we would like to see healings.

If we would make it more our business to walk in the Spirit, prepare in intense prayer before we get together in the name of the Lord, expecting Him to lead us through His Spirit to heal people during the meeting, we’ll see more healings. The Holy Spirit is once again always ready with His gifts, but some healings takes more faith than others. When the man brought his son with apparent epilepsy to Jesus as recorded in Matthew 17:14-21, the disciples tried to heal him. After Jesus healed him the disciples asked Jesus: “’Why could we not cast him out?’ And Jesus said to them: ‘Because of your unbelief. For truly I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, move from here to there. And it shall move. And nothing shall be impossible to you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.’”

Walking closely with the Lord brings faith, since then He would give us rhema words, which create faith, to hold onto.

Lord, help me to believe and use me to help others!

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