Festus Akinnifesi: Divine Healing

 

Festus Akinnifesi, Divine Healing: A Biblical Solution to Sound Health (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2005), 344 pages.

When it comes to the subject of divine healing, there is too much fear, a lack of knowledge, and a tendency toward extremes, according to Dr. Festus Akinnifesi. But the day is coming, he believes, when the church will not only find balance on the issue, but it will hold its rightful place and the church experience a move of God that is greater than it has ever witnessed before.

Akinnifesi, who holds a Ph.D. in Agronomy, is the author of Divine Healing: A Biblical Solution to Sound Health. When he’s not traveling as a senior scientist for an international research organization (based in Malawi), he serves as a preacher and teacher for various churches and conventions in Africa and Latin America. As a staunch believer in divine healing, he often prays for the sick and frequently teaches on healing and deliverance.

Like many popular teachers on the subject, Akinnifesi believes it is always God’s will for the sick to be healed and that healing will always come to the person who believes and is obedient to the word of God. Even more, he argues, it is God’s will for the believer to reign in life as a conqueror over Satan, sickness, disease, sin and poverty.

In this book, Akinnifesi describes what he calls a divine healthcare insurance system that avails the church a biblical prescription for healing and health. With Scripture and personal experience as the basis of his belief, Akinnifesi contends it is God’s will for Christians to prosper and live in good health, and thereby use the ministry of healing to win the world for Christ. If there are exceptions to this view, he believes they occur when sickness appears in the form of divine judgment, disobedience, old age or poor choices.

 

An Overview

Divine Healing is a passionate work that was written to convince the church that divine healing still exists. It seeks to provide hope for the sick and help for the church and society. In addition to showing the individual believer how to appropriate the promises of God for personal healing, the book challenges Christians to walk in divine health. It also calls on the church to be bold in exercising the ministry of healing to reach the lost.

Akinnifesi’s work is essentially a collection of 18 messages that focus on the fundamentals of divine healing as understood in a Pentecostal/Charismatic context. The work is written in a personal, down-to-earth style that makes it suitable for a wider audience. In addition to Scripture, which is often presented with different modern translations, and his personal experience, Akinnifesi relies on testimonies and the works of other well-known leaders, such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth E. Hagin, John G. Lake and Reinhard Bonnke, among others.

Tags: akinnifesi, divine, festus, healing

Category: Spirit, Spring 2007