If you have wanted to receive healing but you haven't yet been able to make the faith connection, this article is especially for you. Maybe you've gotten discouraged and begun to wonder if you even have the capacity for the kind of faith it takes to be healed. Maybe you've been tempted to give up and say, "I guess it's just not going to work for me."

If so, I want to assure you today that you can have that kind of faith—and it will work for you just like it worked for the people in the Bible. It will work for you just like it worked for Abraham. It will work for you just like it worked for blind Bartimaeus. It will work for you just like it's worked over and over in my life and in Ken's life.

Now I can't say for sure about Abraham and Bartimaeus, but I can tell you that Ken and I are just ordinary people. We're not some kind of spiritual super heroes. We don't have some special quality that makes us automatically believe God. On the contrary, the first five years after we were born again we had as much doubt and unbelief (and therefore as much failure and defeat) in our lives as anybody I know. Ken often says about himself that before God got hold of him, he was compromise looking for a place to happen.

What changed us? The Word of God.

We're living proof that Romans 10:17 is true. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Notice that verse doesn't just say, "Faith comes by hearing." It says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing!" That's the truth. Most of the time, real and lasting faith doesn't spring up the first or second time you hear what the Bible says about a certain subject. It grows as you continue to hear it.

Jesus said it this way, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).

I can assure you that the scriptural truth is that as a believer, you can be free of all sickness and disease because God has promised to be your Healer (Exodus 15:26). The truth is that when Jesus went to the cross, He bore our sicknesses, carried our diseases, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5). The truth is that the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up (James 5:15).

And if you continue in that truth, Jesus said it will make you free!

17 Times Was Not Enough

Some time ago, I was listening to a tape by one of my favorite faith preachers and he told a story that wonderfully demonstrated that truth. It was about a man who attended a series of his meetings many years ago and came forward to have hands laid on him for healing again and again—17 times in fact—and he still hadn't gotten healed.

This preacher had done everything he knew to do to help him. He'd talked personally to him in the prayer line. He'd prayed with him. But nothing changed. The preacher explained that laying hands on him was about like laying hands on a doorknob. There was no power connection because in his heart this man didn't release faith to receive.

But this dear fellow just kept coming to the services and listening to the Word. The eighteenth time he came up to have hands laid on him for healing, the preacher himself didn't even expect the man to receive anything.

But that time was different. When the preacher lifted his hand to pray for the man the fire of God leaped from his hand, lifted the fellow up, turned him over and rolled him under the front pew. Obviously, he received his healing in a powerful way!

Some people might look at that incident and say, "Well, that just goes to show you that you never know what God's going to do. Sometimes He gives healing and sometimes He doesn't." But they'd be mistaken. The change was not in the giving part. God was giving healing to that man every time. The change was in the receiving part. It wasn't until the eighteenth time that the man released faith to receive.

The pastor of the church where the meetings were held verified that. He said when he went to open the church that evening it was dark, and he stumbled over this man sitting on the front steps of the church. He was praying. He looked up at the pastor and said, "Pastor, you watch, tonight the minute that preacher touches me, I'll have my healing! It's mine!"

I've seen that happen in healing school over the years. People have come in the door already full of God's Word and ready to receive. They'd say, "I know the moment you lay hands on me, I'll be healed." And they were!

"But God hasn't given me that kind of faith," you might say.

He didn't give it to them either. He sent them the Word and because they continued in it, faith came.

Your Attention Please!

Remember this: it's not up to God whether you get faith or not, it is up to you. He has provided the means whereby faith can be received. Whether or not you continue to avail yourself of those means is entirely your choice!

Proverbs 4:20-23 tells exactly how to do it:

 

My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh. Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life (The Amplified Bible).

Notice the first thing you must do is to give attention to the Word of God. If you want to live a free life, if you want to live a life of blessing, health and increase, you will have to give attention to the Word. How do you do that? The King James translation says, "incline thine ears" unto it and "let it not depart from thine eyes." In other words, you make it a priority in your life to hear the Word of God taught, as well as to read it and study it for yourself.

You keep meditating on it until it comes alive in your heart. Jesus called the Word that's alive in you theabiding Word. He said, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you." When God's Word is abiding in your heart about something, you can ask for it and get it because you have the faith to receive.

How do you know if the Word is abiding in your heart?

It comes up when you need it. It talks to you. When you encounter a situation where you need help, the Word abiding in you comes to your mind and tells you what to do. If you're standing for your healing, the minute symptoms hit your body, the Word of God starts speaking to you from the inside. It springs up out of your heart and causes you to open your mouth and say things like, "I command these symptoms to go from me. I declare I'm healed by the stripes of Jesus!"

Say What?

 

That's the way the Word of God works to produce faith. It goes in your eyes and ears and gets down in your heart. Then it comes out of your mouth in faith and goes to work to change your circumstances. A lot of people seem to have trouble with that last part. They don't want to speak words of faith. But real Bible faith is saying faith. It causes us to "believe, and therefore speak" (2 Corinthians 4:13).

Mark 11:23 confirms that. Jesus said, "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith." According to that verse, faith has to be in two places—in your heart and in your mouth.

When you're under pressure and your body is hurting, it's easy to start talking about how you feel instead of talking about what the Word says. You're tempted to give voice to the problem instead of the answer. But if you do, you'll undermine your own faith. So resist that temptation. Go get your Bible and just start reading the healing scriptures out loud.

Use your mouth to build your faith instead of using it to tear it down!

If you'll do that, God's Word will work in you like medicine. It will be life to you and bring healing and health to your flesh. One friend of mine says it this way, "The Word is God's medicine. Take it two or three times a day. If symptoms persist, double the dose!"

Although it's always good to do an overall study of God's Word, when you're tackling a specific problem, it's best to focus on the scriptures that speak particularly about that area. When Ken and I first learned to walk by faith, that's what I had to do in the area of prosperity. Money was the biggest problem we had back then. We didn't have cancer or any other critical problem to deal with physically but we had a serious lack attack.

So I looked up all the scriptures in the Bible I could find that promised prosperity. I wrote them down and put them beside my bed. Every night, before I went to sleep I would go over those scriptures. Just like you would take medicine if you were sick, I'd take those scriptures for the healing of my finances. And it worked, glory to God!

Don't Forget the Benefits

There are many wonderful scriptures in the Bible you can use to build your faith for healing. You can find them in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament because God has always been a Healer. Even under the Old Covenant, before Jesus came, God made a way for Israel to be healed and protected from the curse of sickness that was on the world because of sin. He gave them commandments, laws and statutes that, if obeyed, would keep them physically well. If they did get sick, He told them exactly what to do when they came before the priests so that they could receive their healing.

From the very beginning, God has said to His people, "I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). That fact alone should help build your faith. It lets us know that God is a good God Who wants us well and whole. The God Who changes not (Malachi 3:6) is still the "Lord that healeth" us today!

Psalm 103 reaffirms that truth. It says:

 

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's (verses 1-5).

Healing, just like forgiveness of sins, is one of the benefits God provides for us as His covenant people. According to that Psalm, we need to make sure we don't forget that! We need to make sure we don't just hear the Word about healing in a service on Sunday, then walk out the door and never think of it again. We need to rehearse that benefit over and over in our minds so that we remember it.

Why? Because the benefits we remember are the benefits we will enjoy day-to-day. It's the benefits we're continually thanking the Lord for that manifest regularly in our lives.

Some people are not sure that the benefits listed in the Old Testament are meant for us today. But the life of Jesus lets us know they are! He is our Savior. And Acts 10:38 clearly tells us, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."

Doesn't that bless you? Jesus proved that the God Who healed diseases in the Old Testament is still healing them all in the New!

For me, that word all is a faith-building word. Matthew 12:15 says that "great multitudes followed [Jesus], and he healed them all." Luke 6:19 says that "the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all."

Since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), you can be assured that if He healed all that came to Him 2,000 years ago, He will still heal all who come to Him today. And all certainly includes you!

Stay in the Game

Even in Jesus' ministry, faith played a vital role in the people's ability to receive. In the 19 individuals who are mentioned in the Gospel accounts of healing, faith is specifically mentioned in 12 and implied in others. In one instance, when Jesus ministered in Nazareth, we're told clearly that He could do there no mighty works because of the people's unbelief (Matthew 13:58).

There is only one thing that limits God's giving and that is our capacity to receive. So it all comes down to this: to experience the fullness of God's healing power in your life, you need to develop your faith and become a good receiver.

That's true for all of us. God has given us His Word. He has given us His Spirit. Now it's our job to put that Word in our eyes and in our ears until it gets in our heart and starts coming out of our mouth in faith. It's our job to become expert receivers.

Biblical receiving is an active thing. It means to take God's truth to yourself; to pursue, to seek and go after it. It means to put time and effort into your relationship with the Lord, to pay close attention to Him and His Word.

We become expert receivers of God's blessings when we focus on His Word with every fiber of our being and we expect it to come to pass. We reach out with the hand of faith, grab hold of it and refuse to let go.

Make up your mind right now that's what you're going to do. Determine to be as tenacious as that gentleman in the story I told you about earlier who went forward for healing 18 times. Determine you're going to stay in the game until you win. With the Word in your heart and faith in your mouth, you can be sure that in the end, you will be standing in your victory!