God Wants You Well
A head-on collision, the jaws of life, a helicopter flight to the hospital, and thirty-one days in the ICU. The injuries were so extensive that Ken should have died.
But his wife, Virginia, believed God, and a healing journey began.
Had Carol sunk into an earthly pit so deep and dark that even Jesus’ arms could not rescue her? At 290 pounds with a history of drugs, multiple abortions, and abuse, if Jesus couldn’t—or wouldn’t—save her, she knew she would die.
After years of severe headaches, twelve-year-old Scott was healed and then diagnosed with a rare disease. He had Barrett’s esophagus, a life-threatening condition unheard of in children. The story of a little girl’s miracle opened the door to his healing.
Merci’s multiple sclerosis progressively worsened. Unable to work, drive, or even walk, she had come to the end. “What am I doing wrong, Lord? Why am I not healed?” The answer would change her life.
The ultrasound showed fluid on the brain, flattened facial features, calcium deposits in the heart, and more—all symptoms of Down’s syndrome. The doctor recommended abortion, but the parents believed God!
These five stories have been documented and recorded on a new DVD called Healing Journeys, Volume 2. They are all stories of the power of God’s Word working in the lives of people who gained a revelation of what God had already done for them through Jesus. Every one of them is a Healing Journey that will touch your life.
Jesus used miracles like these as a dinner bell. He used them to prove He could forgive sin (Mark 2:10-12). God used them to authenticate Jesus and His message (Heb. 2:3-4). Jesus told His followers that they would do the same works He had done (John 14:12). He said that the preaching of His Word would be confirmed by signs and wonders (Mark 16:20).
So why aren’t we seeing greater manifestations of His healing? Aren’t people still suffering from sickness? Doesn’t Jesus love people today just as much as He did when He walked the earth? Don’t believers still need to see demonstrations of His power?
YES! Not only do we need the healing power of God today, but God wants to release that power. Hallelujah! However, healing isn’t up to God alone. It isn’t God who decides who gets healed and who doesn’t. That’s a radical statement, but it’s true. And herein lies some of the greatest obstacles to receiving God’s healing power.
One of the worst doctrines in the body of Christ is the belief that God controls everything that happens. Fundamentalists/Evangelical Christians believe that God either controls or allows everything, and that Satan has to get His permission before he can do anything.
That’s a convenient theology because it absolves the individual of any personal responsibility. That’s also the reason for its popularity. I know this may shock some people, but it’s true: That belief will kill you. God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. We have to believe and cooperate with God to receive what He has provided for us, including our own salvation.
Second Peter 3:9 says it isn’t God’s will for anyone to perish:
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
That’s as plain as the Scripture can make it. It is not God’s WILL for anyone to perish, but they do. In fact, Jesus said more people would enter through the broad gate unto destruction than enter through the narrow gate unto life (Matt. 7:13-14). God doesn’t force salvation on people.
People don’t have to ask Jesus to save them; they just need to believe the nearly-too-good-to-be-true news that their sins are already forgiven and receive their salvation (Acts 16:31). The same thing is true of healing: God has already healed everyone, just as He has already paid for the forgiveness of everyone’s sins.
Healing is already an accomplished work. First Peter 2:24 says,
“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.”
Jesus isn’t healing people today—healing was given 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem when He took those stripes on His back. He hasn’t, and won’t, receive any more stripes. People today only receive through faith what has already been accomplished by Jesus thousands of years ago.
The Scriptures don’t tell us to pray for the sick, in the sense that we are powerless to minister healing to them. It’s just the opposite: Jesus told US to HEAL the sick (Matt. 10:1, 8; Luke 9:1, and 10:9). There’s a big difference between asking the Lord to heal people and healing them.
Most Christians today are appalled at what I’ve just said. They think, Who do you think you are? Well, without Jesus, I am nothing (John 15:5), but the good news is that I’m not without Jesus! He will never leave me nor forsake me (Heb. 13:5). Hallelujah! Therefore, I can say with the Apostle Peter, “Such as I have give I thee” (Acts 3:6).
This is what Peter said when he ministered to the lame man in Acts 3. Peter didn’t pray for this man. He didn’t say, “O God, we can do nothing without You. Please heal this man if it is Your will.” It’s always God’s will to heal (3 John 2). We don’t ask and then wait and see. That’s not believing His Word. Instead of beggars, we need to become believers who, knowing God’s will, use our authority to heal.
Talking and acting like that today will get us kicked out of most churches. After all, who do we think we are? That’s not the way many Christians believe it’s done. And that’s one of the main reasons we don’t see more of the healing power manifest that Jesus provided.
I have prayed for thousands of people in my meetings across the country, and I have yet to see every person healed. It might be a problem in the heart of the one receiving prayer, or it might be something I don’t understand in regards to that particular person. But one thing I know for sure—it’s not God.
Healing is such an important issue that I’m beginning a six-week series on it on television in April. You won’t want to miss it. I have also put together a special package to help you. I call it A Better Health-Care Package.
2020
Sickness Is Strange
If you are following after Christ, the number one challenge you will encounter is not sickness and disease. It’s persecution:
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
2 Timothy 3:12
How should you respond when you’re persecuted? Probably not how you might think. The Apostle Peter gives the answer:
If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
1 Peter 4:16
What?! Shouldn’t we pray to God to excuse us from persecution? No. According to Scripture, if we’re following Christ, persecution is an inevitability. That doesn’t mean we should thank God for it, and that’s not what Peter was saying. But we shouldn’t think it’s strange when we’re persecuted either:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice.
1 Peter 4:12-13a
What we should think is strange is being attacked with sickness. But unfortunately, we as Christians have had a lot of help accepting sickness as normal. When we think of something as normal, we put our guards down. We submit and become passive. Worse, we make provision for and accommodate it.
So, what should you do if you’re dealing with sickness? Fight! You have the victory over sickness and disease. You can win! Look at what Andrew said on the Gospel Truth:
“[God] has not redeemed us from persecution, but He has redeemed us from sickness.”
Even though God wants us well, we have a part to play. We have to act on our faith. Andrew really gives a powerful exhortation to help us:
“There are some of you that are believing God for healing, but you aren’t acting healed. Get up out of your wheelchair. If you can’t stand, if you’re a quadriplegic, well then move something. Do something. Believe God to move your big toe, your little finger, and once that starts moving, well then move the next one and start doing something. You resist the devil, and he’ll flee from you. You resist sickness and that sickness will flee from you, but start doing something. Do what you can do. If you can’t do it all, do part of it. The Lord will meet you where your faith is, but faith without works is dead. You’ve got to start acting well.”
If I knew I had the power to prevent someone from stealing from me, I wouldn’t idly sit back. I suspect you wouldn’t either. How much more would you act if what was being stolen was something valuable, like your health?
You might need to be convinced that sickness is not something you should just tolerate. I think Andrew would say, “As long as you can live with sickness, you will.” Some Christians would say, “Well, the devil has attacked me with these symptoms. I must be doing something right.” That’s what Satan wants you to think. But never use the Enemy’s activity as an indication that something is of God. The Enemy attacks just because he’s evil. But he defaults to persecution to stop you from advancing. Of course, he attacks also with sickness, but he attacks everybody with sickness, whether they’re Christians or not.
In Andrew’s teaching, God Wants You Well, he clearly shares that Paul’s thorn was not some physical ailment. It was, in fact, persecution. To hear more about this topic, tune into the Gospel Truth this week: check your local listings to tune in Monday through Friday, or watch him online anytime at https://www.awmi.net/video/this-weeks-tv/.
2020
Is Covid 19 From God?
Is the virus from God?
It is concerning how many Christians want to jump to the “day of wrath” (Rom. 2:5), and assume that God is behind a virus.
Just because plagues and viruses are predicted in Scripture does not mean they are from God, nor does it mean that we are in the last days of the last days. Jesus called such things “the beginning of sorrows.”
The gospel is not about afflicting humanity with judgments and sicknesses. God is not judging regions and nations. He told us to go into all the world and preach the Good News. He is not trying to kill everyone before we get there.
The heart of God for humanity has not changed. Consider the following:
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
For the Father judges no one . . . (John 5:22)
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:19)
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)
The list of verses about the heart of God toward mankind could go on and on. God is not the thief! He does not come to steal, kill and destroy. Those who say so are preaching a false gospel. God is not imputing sin in this “acceptable year of the Lord.” He is not judging.
When the “day of wrath” begins at His return, you will know it. He will take vengeance on His enemies. But we are not in that time. As the church, we should be about the ministry of Jesus.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8b)
A virus is not the work of God.
There is a devil, he has works, they are worthy of destruction, and Jesus came to destroy them. We are His body on this earth, and we should have the same focus and purpose as Jesus did when He healed all who came to Him.