Martha Pope Gorris

Seems like a silly question, doesn’t it? Do I want to be healed? Well, duh. Of course I do. Then why did Jesus ask the crippled man who laid by the pool that very question?

The answer came while I was attending a writer’s conference. One of the attendees in my week-long workshop was a single woman, never married. She was rather mousy in appearance and timid in manner. The second day of the workshop, right in the middle of the teaching, this woman became ill. With much fanfare, several people helped her back to her room. I remember thinking the next time I see her I’ll  offer to pray for her.

The next day, we were in another teaching session and again, this woman disrupted the class with much fanfare over her “ailment.”

As I watched the drama unfold, the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to me. He indicated that this woman was not interested in prayer for healing. Rather, she preferred the attention she received from being sick. In fact, she created opportunities of sickness so that others would pay attention to her.

The reason Jesus asked the question is simple. Some aren’t interested in healing because for them, there is a pay off to being sick. There’s additional attention, care, and concern. Being ill gives permission to “taking it easy.” It also provides engagement with others–conversation and even drama … the discussion of the latest test results or doctor’s visit. The sad thing is that many who fall into this category can actually create sickness, the more they think and talk about it.

When I encounter these kinds of incidents, I don’t pray for physical healing. Instead, I pray for emotional healing.  I pray for friends for that person, for the support of the Body of Christ, and for healthy ways to gain the nurturing they need. It’s all healing, just of a different sort.

In this amazing video of Bill Johnson from Bethel Church in Redding, CA, he talks about how healing and miracles can be a natural outflow of our relationship with God.

“We carry the fragrance of the world we are most aware of.” Bill said this with regard to faith or unbelief.

“A yielded life is central to a life of miracles.”

He asks if we are interested in developing a ministry of healing out of intimacy with the Holy Spirit, or whether we are going to be professionals at intimacy.

As always, Bill challenges me to a deeper walk with the Lord. Jesus had an intimate connection with His Father and His life flowed in the miraculous. Jesus is my model. Just as he often separated himself to be alone and pray, that is what I need to do also.

http://youtu.be/9KfSz1Razks

John Bevere is a renowned author and teacher. I was surprised to come across this YouTube video of his testimony about being healed from pornography, which is an insidious affliction polluting the church of Christ.

A few years ago, I heard that Anne Graham Lotz would be speaking at a pastors conference here in town. It was a chore making the time, finding parking but I managed to slip into the noisy conference center just before she was announced. I had no idea what her topic would be but that didn’t matter. She is a Godly woman who would preach and teach God’s Word.

Was I surprised when a few sentences into her message, Anne, usually so soft spoken, adamantly condemned pornography. The huge room full of men committed to preaching the gospel became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Obviously, she had hit a nerve. I continued to be shocked when she gave statistics about hotels reporting that during pastors’ conferences, adult movie orders soared. Not only is pornography epidemic in our culture, it is epidemic in our churches, and in our pastors’ homes.

The good news is there is always hope in Jesus. Victory is available, as John Bevere testifies to. Another excellent resource is Jonathan Welton’s book, Eyes of Honor, detailing his struggle with sexual sin and what helped him.

Funny how a simple lunch date and conversation with a friend can open your eyes to something you hadn’t realized.

Thirteen years since Bonnie and I had been together. We lived at opposite ends of the county and the hour+ ride and our busy lives kept us apart. And yet, our friendship is one whether it’s 13 days or 13 years, we picked up right where we left off.

When Bonnie asked what writing projects I was working on, I started to describe my novel, War of Whispers. It’s coming out in a month or two, and as I described the plot and theme, Bonnie’s eyes lit up. She said, “that’s what you wrote about back in 2000!” It’s true, I’d written a nonfiction book, Held Captive by Futile Thoughts? And now, I’d written fiction with the same theme.

“Seems it’s become a life verse for me,” I said. But later, when I pondered the connection, I realized that 2 Corinthians 10:5 is a huge part of every Christian’s life. What we think about rules our time and actions. “As a man thinketh, so is he,” the psalmist said.

I’m passionate about healing in all its forms. But at the very foundation of healing is how we think and what we think. We’ve all heard stories where people diagnosed with cancer or some other disease start meditating, thinking positive thoughts, eating right, often with good results. The shift toward positive makes a huge difference.

The Bible’s wisdom simplifies it for us. It tells us to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” That means to think about the things Christ tells us to think about and forget the other stuff. That is, forget how that checker in the grocery store mouthed off at you, or how your boss cut you down in front of others, or how your husband ignored something you said. Consciously tell yourself to let the offense go, let it fly into the air without landing on your brain, or your heart. Hurt can land in either place.

Taking thoughts captive is the best way to prevent disease. So … what offense or grudge can you let go of today to better improve your health?

Everyone I know has prayed for healing for someone. And everyone I know has experienced disappointment at the outcome. The pain didn’t leave, the fever didn’t break, the surgery wasn’t avoided. The Bible talks about how Jesus healed everyone He came in contact with. It goes on to say if we believe, we’ll do the same things, only bigger and better!

Friend John came to our Wednesday night small group where we’d listen to CDs or watch DVDs of giants of the faith-those who experienced results when they prayed for people. Listening or watching them built our faith. We believed. John had a rare form of cancer. He had lots of tumors in his abdomen, fatty tumors that kept coming back after they were removed. John believed, as did we. Then one day after returning home from a trip a friend sent an email telling that John had died. I cried and cried. The disappointment was huge.

It brought back to me my mother’s death many years earlier. I had big faith then, too. She’d had kidney cancer that went to the bone. The doctor said it wasn’t terminal, and yet she died. The disappointment crashed over me like a tidal wave sucking the air out of me, tumbling me against the rocky bottom.

How could God let this happen? These 2 wonderful people taken much too soon.

I’ve learned that most of our disappointments are rooted in a belief that God has failed us. I agree with that. We had expectations. We believed. And we fell flat on our faces. It was then that seeds of unbelief and doubt entered in. Why should I pray for anyone else when I get no results?

Picture a young child stomping a foot when she doesn’t get her way. So there! I’ll show you.

I admit it. Many years after Mom’s death, I realized that in the secret places of my heart, I had done that very thing. Shut God out, not wanting to put myself out there again and be disappointed. Why risk it? I didn’t believe He would heal through my prayers.

Even the little girl stomping her foot grows up at some point. And I did, too. I realized our enemy wants to immobilize us, to render us ineffective in the kingdom of God. He steals our joy, our passion, our belief. That is, if we let him.

When I recognized the battle I was in, I made a determination to fight back. And so I have. I have studied those with healing success, listened to their wisdom and instruction, and the first time I prayed for someone and saw results, it was better than Christmas morning in Heaven! Early one December, a little Filipino lady helped me to my car with my groceries. She was limping and I asked her if she was in a lot of pain. “Oh yes,” she said. I told her, “Sometimes when I pray for people they get healed. Can I pray for you?” She nodded and I prayed a simple prayer. After that I told her to move her knee. When she did, her face lit up. “It is gone! The pain is gone!”

It doesn’t get any better than that. I told her Jesus loves her and I drove away rejoicing.

So don’t let disappointment keep you down. Get back up and keep praying and declaring healing over those you care about. Stay in faith and the day will come when victory breaks through.

http://youtu.be/z6QWgq1StsQ

I care about healing so much, I am finishing up a trilogy of novels on the subject. There are spiritual forces at work in our lives whether we realize it or not, both good and evil–angels and demons. The whispers we listen to DO make a difference in our heart attitudes. See how Kat Kerrigan, my main character, a TV reporter, reacts when she encounters an unwelcome surprise at work. Will she control her thoughts, or let them run wild? How will this decision affect her down the road?

Go to my “About Writing” page to read the first chapter.

Stay tuned!

Randy Clark from Global Awakening in Mechanicsburg, PA verifies healing miracles. AIDS, blindness, blood disease, kidney disease, pancreas disease, only 2 weeks to live!

Watch this video and receive prayer for healing.

People have asked me many questions about healing and deliverance and I know of no better ministry than that of Be in Health located in Thomaston, Georgia. They offer a week-long seminar called “For My Life” which teaches biblical foundations to health and wholeness. Spiritual roots to disease are a completely different approach to healing–at least they were for me. The scriptures are taught, and slowly it all comes together, like a light bulb getting brighter and brighter as it warms up. Aha! Why isn’t the Christian church teaching all this? I can’t tell you how many people have said that to me. It’s a question I don’t have the answer to.

At Be in Health, there is a lot of repentance going on. You know that little grudge you’re holding against a certain family member? Well, that little grudge is bitterness, or said in a different way, unforgiveness. The Bible says if you hold unforgiveness against someone, your sins won’t be forgiven. Ugh. I certainly don’t want to answer up for stuff like that on Judgment Day. So why not clean house and get rid of all that stuff? You’ll feel so much better, and your body will, too. Healing comes when you slough off all that garbage.

Then there’s envy and jealousy, rejection and abandonment, unloving and let’s not forget fear. Be in Health addresses each of these strongholds and helps attendees to understand how we have allowed them into our lives. Sometimes a trauma in childhood invites fear and we don’t even realize it.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be writing more about these strongholds and how they affect us. So stay tuned!

SOZO is an inner healing & deliverance ministry. The main aim is to get to the root of those things hindering your personal connection with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, with a healed connection with God, you can walk in the destiny in which you were called.

In short, Sozo is an inner healing/deliverance ministry.
Sozo is simple, fast, Spirit-led and effective.
Sozo finds issues in minutes instead of years.

In the short video clips to follow, you will get a taste for the Sozo ministry of inner healing.

And to dramatize what the need is, watch this powerful dramatization.