by Oral Roberts
1. Know that God’s Will is to Heal You
Practically everyone recognizes the fact of God’s healing power. Mental acceptance is not enough. We must have personal, active faith in God for our own healing.
It is my sincere belief that Christ’s death on the cross includes all people everywhere and in all generations. The apostle Peter writes of Jesus, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose “stripes ye were healed.” (I Peter 2:24).
The prophet Isaiah had known that Christ would be the Savior and healer over seven hundred years before the crucifixion. Said he, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Both Isaiah and Peter declare that there is healing in His stripes. Someone recently pointed out to me that in Pilate’s Hall of Judgment the Roman scourger of Jesus inflicted thirty-eight stripes on His back. Also, the medical world says there are thirty-eight major diseases. If this is true, then for every disease there is a healing stripe on the flesh of Jesus’ back.
We must have personal, active faith in God for our own healing.
The apostle Matthew tells the story of Jesus as the Great Physician and at the end of the day’s labor of deliverance he says that Jesus’ healing power is a fulfillment of scripture. Matthew writes, “… they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils; and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esias the prophet saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:16, 17 is referring to Isaiah 53:4).
2. Remember that Healing Begins Within
You reach God and He reaches you through your soul. When God breathed the breath of life into man he became a living soul. Jesus declares that: “God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:14).
Why is a man dominated by fear? Because he is not using his faith. Why is he not using his faith? Because he is out of tune and harmony with his God. There is only one thing that can separate a man from God, “… your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).
Man’s most severe struggle is within himself for be is condemned by his own sins. As long as this is true, faith will not work. “If our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence (faith) toward God” (I John 8:21).
I imagine this question presents itself, “Does a Person have faith whether he is right with God or not?” The answer is, “Yes, he does.” Everybody has faith for God gives a measure of faith to every man. The difference is that faith will not work as long as there is sin in the person’s life.
Sin is a dominating thing and it produces a division in the soul. Faith lies dormant and inactive (James 2:17). Without the power of active faith the soul is no match for the grueling grind of life. The body and mind, keenly responsible to the soul, feel the impact of the soul’s fears and weaknesses and are easy prey for mental and physical ills.
It adds up to this; You cannot serve the devil with your life without losing out in the battle of life.
“Ye must be born again,” says Jesus (John 3:3). The now birth is a transforming spiritual experience (2 Corinthians 5:17). Condemnation is lifted. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit” (Romans 8.1).
3. Use a Point of Contact for the Release of Your Faith.
God is the only healer. Doctors perform a good work but they only assist nature while God can actually bring deliverance. The authority of Satan’s oppression over human life is in God and in His children. But God is a spirit and sometimes we are confused because He is not directly before us in a human body. He does not come into your room as your family physician with medical potions and instruments, you cannot see Him with the human eye, nor can you take a trip to heaven and present your case as you would go to your doctor’s office. How then can we reach Him? By establishing a point of contact.
Faith is the meeting ground between your limited self and your limitless God. A point of contact is given as a means of steadying and helping you to release your faith. Establishing a point of contact is like stepping on the starter of your car – you expect something to happen. The Roman centurion said. “I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.” Speak the word! He went on to say, “For I (also) am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, go, and he goes; and to another, come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this and he does it.” (Matthew 8:5- 13).
Remember that the woman with the issue of blood used a point of contact, which helped her set the time for healing. She said, “If I may touch but His clothes I shall be whole.”
There was no healing in His clothes, but touching the clothes helped her release her faith and her faith made her whole. That is why God gives us a point of contact. The book of Acts tells how that handkerchiefs or aprons were sent from the body of the apostle Paul to the sick and demon-possessed and how that through these little faith-cloths deliverance was wrought.
Faith is the meeting ground between your limited self and your limitless God.
These cloths became points of contact and when placed upon the body of the sick and afflicted, the captives turned their faith loose and were set free. I, too, have been impressed and directed of the Lord to carry on the ministry of healing through cloths so that we are sending out over 10,000 a month.
4. Turn your faith loose Now!
So many times I have seen the need of saying, “Believe now and you may have deliverance.” On the other hand, many captives, when asked when they expect to get healed, will reply, “Oh, when God gets ready, I am.” God has been ready all the time. It’s your move next. Others reply, “I’m expecting God to heal me anytime.” On the face of that statement is a certain amount of reasonable value, but I remind you that it in not scriptural. There is a definite time when faith works and unless you set a time, it in doubtful if you will ever be delivered. God says, “Today is the day of salvation” (deliverance).
When you expect healing at no certain time, you are putting it into the dim, vague and distant future. God wants to heal you now. The best time is when God is ready; He is ready now!
The woman with the issue of blood set a time: when she touched His garment. The centurion set a time for deliverance; when Jesus spoke the word. The ruler of the synagogue set a time: Come and Lay hands on my child. They expected deliverance at the moment the Lord did what they asked Him to do. God will respond and work in our behalf when we believe and set a time.
If faith has risen in your heart, turn it loose, don’t even finish reading this, Believe God now!
This is a glorious privilege and matchless opportunity. “This very hour” is what the Lord is saying. The longer you wait to believe, the weaker your faith will grow; the more quickly you believe, the stronger your faith will develop. Strike a blow for deliverance this very minute. If faith has risen in your heart, turn it loose, don’t even finish reading this, Believe God now! The time for deliverance is when you can believe. The secret of deliverance is in instant obedience.
5. Close the case for victory.
When Bible conditions have been met and you feel the power of healing surging through your body in answer to the faith prayer, then close the case: take up the old road you have been traveling and believe God every step of the way. Burn every bridge between you and the old affliction. Don’t talk about the affliction except when God especially impresses you to give your testimony, then dwell more on His mighty power of deliverance than on what the devil afflicted you with and how you suffered. Change your outlook and live on the sunny side of life.
6. Join yourself to companions of faith.
I know how important it is to have encouragement and an atmosphere of faith to live in after being healed.
A few days after I had been healed I was feeling extremely weak in my body. My mother, a devout woman of faith, sensed my discouragement and said, “Son, you were sick a long time and you were bedfast when God healed you. You will have to exercise and do some work to get your strength back.” She saved my healing.
I have often wondered what would have happened to me had not my mother and father provided an atmosphere of faith for me during those early stressful days of my healing.
I have asked myself this question: What if I had been a member of a church whose minister and people were unfriendly toward healing and to people who had been healed? What would I have done in a moment of weakness and despondency if these people failed to encourage me or if they ridiculed me? How can I who have been healed by a miracle receive help from a church that denies the possibility and reality of the miracle of healing wrought in me by faith in God? How would I feel if the minister ridiculed the people who had prayed the “prayer of faith” for my healing.”
There is only one answer to this problem: those receiving deliverance by faith in God should by all means, join themselves with the church that believes in Bible deliverance and that will provide for them an abundance of faith and hope.
THE VOICE OF HEALING Dec 1950, Page 12