“This is crazy! This is crazy! This is crazy! There’s no pain at all!” Those were the exact words of an excited young man in a juvenile detention center in Utah, after he and four other guys prayed for each other for healing for the first time in their lives. And every one of them was 100% healed from back pain instantly. Seeing someone instantly healed by the power of the blood of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit is probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done on this planet. Over the last three years of being part of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California I’ve seen more healing than perhaps the rest of my life put together. Here I want to share a few points I’ve discovered along the way. They are kind of like the floor planks nailed to the joists, to create a a sturdy platform for this dance with the Holy Spirit we call supernatural healing.
The topic of healing is tricky, and quite large. I’m not going to go into the vast depths of the theology around this topic.
I simply want to share a few things I have personally discovered that helped me grow in this area.

• Get impartation.  And get as much as you can.  

I had heard teaching about impartation of anointings, and giftings, but I have to admit, I was never sure it actually made any difference. The first time I personally experienced this phenomena in a very obvious immediate way, was during the Healing School, Randy Clark and Bill Johnson taught in Redding, during my first year at BSSM.
During the conference, Randy brought up a guy named Chris Gore to testify about the power of impartation not only in the bible, but in our time. Chris Gore is now the overseer of the Healing Rooms at Bethel.  A healing ministry that sees hundreds of miracles every week when they pray for more than 600 people every Saturday.  The problem is, Chris Gore was a pastor who pursued seeing miracles for several decades with no success whatsoever.  He read all the books, went to all kinds of conferences.  He was discouraged and desperate.  Only after being prayed for by Randy Clark for impartation, everthing changed.  Now Chris Gore is one of the leading voices in the ministry of healing.  Following Randy’s brilliant teaching on impartation, all of us students were released that same day to pray for the sick. Up until this point, other than a few headaches being healed, I would be hard pressed to come up with many healing testimonies. Well it was different that day.  During the ministry time, one man I prayed for with a neck problem received instant healing and all the pain went away.  Also, I witnessed God miraculously grow out a girl’s leg that was shorter than the other.  Something happened when Randy prayed for us, and released impartation. I am more a believer in impartation now than ever before.   If you’re not so sure about this somewhat ambiguous topic of impartation, I recommend reading some of what Randy Clark teaches on this subject:

You can check out his books by clicking here.

• Stop praying for the sick

Chuck Parry, the associate leader of the healing rooms at Bethel has seen some of the most bizarre and phenomenal miracles I’ve ever heard about. Here’s what he once said in a class I attended:
“Typically, praying for the sick is highly unsuccessful in churches. So we’ve decided not to pray for the sick.” Then he paused. And the pause was just long enough for my insides to start twisting. “What are you talking about, Chuck?” I thought. Finally he continued and said “We just heal the sick.”
It’s very simple. When Jesus sent out his disciples, he told them to HEAL the sick. Not PRAY FOR THE SICK. For me this was an important shift in the process of the renewal of my mind. I am called to heal the sick. Yes, of course only God heals, and it’s His power, and all the glory goes to him! But it would be foolish if I was teaching my kid to drive, and every time it was time to shift gears, he started begging me to do it for him.
Don’t ask God to do what he told you to do.

• Take uncomfortable risk

Put yourself on the spot. If you watch anyone who’s moving in a great level of anointing for miracles, they can seem a bit audacious in how much faith they have. They’ll say things like “I can fix that for you” or “I can make it so your pain will go away.”
When I was in that juvenile detention center I kind of put myself on the spot when I told them God was going to heal some people that day. Allow me to be honest with you. When I told them that, I was very nervous. It might have been the first time I put myself in a situation like that where if God didn’t show up I would look like an idiot, because the whole plan depended on His presence showing up. Faith is spelled R.I.S.K. and risk attracts God’s power. He likes showing up and showing off.

• It doesn’t matter if you have faith

I don’t really mean that. But i kind of do actually. I don’t know about you, but the “Faith measuring sensor” that I have installed must have fallen off the conveyor belt when it was being made. It never seems to be very accurate. Often when I think I’m all fueled up with faith, nothing happens. Then other times when I feel scared, insecure, not sure, or tired, healing happens.
What I have found, however is that my ability in measuring my hope level is far more accurate. So always be monitoring your hope level. And doing everything you can to create an atmosphere of hope is key. For example when you’re praying for someone, don’t talk about how sometimes people don’t get healed, or “sometimes it takes time…” Give the person hope!
Bill Johnson once said “the more I focus on how much faith I have, the little faith I do have seems to evaporate into nothing.” From my personal experience, and the experience of others, I would say keep your focus off how much faith you have, and how much faith the recipient has. Yes, it’s important, but in the moment, it’s irrelevant.

My last thought would be this. No matter how many tips you have, and knowledge of scripture, there’s no substitute, or shortcut to get around simply stepping out, and healing people however Holy Spirit leads you to do it.

Stay tuned for part two, and be sure to comment below.

Image courtesy of Patrick Emerson on Flickr