Evangelist David Hernandez reflects on the Spirit’s ministry of healing and the classic work by Francis MacNutt.

Rob Murdoch with woman healed of deafness.

Recently, I was at a crusade in a certain country where we saw many extraordinary things take place. Through the sound system in those nights, the gospel was preached to thousands. Then we began to pray for the sick and many people would come up to testify. I came to realize one detail. The people that were testifying weren’t Christians, or at least weren’t Christians when they came to the event. The majority were Hindus! People who hadn’t believed in Christ before are now getting healed and giving their lives to Jesus. Especially this one Hindu woman that caught my attention, who testified that God had opened her deaf ears. I thank God for these miracles happening all around us.

The 25^th Anniversary edition of Healing by Francis MacNutt.

However, this sparked my interest in the topic of healing. I came to realize that it was topic I knew little about. So how do you learn about a topic? You read. This book about healing is written by a former Catholic priest who became involved in the Charismatic Renewal through the ministry of Agnes Sanford. He became disheartened by traditional church teaching of sickness and suffering that claims that all pain is part of God’s redemptive plan. After this, he himself became interested in the ministry of healing. Through his years of experience, he came to learn much about this controversial teaching that was spreading like wildfire during the Charismatic Renewal. With the help of others, he learns enough to be able to write about this subject.

He first points out that it seems to be God’s general will to heal the sick. I must say that when the Bible talks about sickness, it has absolutely nothing good to say about it. God’s general concern is for our well-being since he is a loving God. It is not simply God granting wishes every now and then, but him revealing his character towards us as our healer. Since Jesus healed, this is the revelation of God’s character towards sickness and disease.

Francis MacNutt

He talks about the traditional teaching of sickness and suffering and points out that the more traditional teaching (that of the early church to the 3rd century) was actually one of healing. Many Catholics, and even Protestants, have been stuck with the teaching that all sickness and suffering are something from God. Slowly, as we look at the Scriptures and the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit, we see that is not the case.

Not only is healing something of the physical body, but also of our soul, mind and emotions. He separates the different types of healing that he has encountered from inner healing to forgiveness. He also talks a little about the controversial deliverance ministry. These types of healings could all be intertwined or the healing of one could resulting in the healing of another. Basically, God wants to heal all our being, not just our bodies.

Healing is a difficult subject where not every question can be answered, but this take on it is an interesting one from an interesting perspective that we should pay attention too.

A guest review by Evangelist David Hernandez.

Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (InterVarsity Press, 1999 and 2012) 304 pages, ISBN 9780830835690.

Many Christian leaders will agree with the saying that prayer is a two-way conversation with God, yet very few have ever experienced this type of relationship with our Lord. For me, prayer is very important and I actually view it as the most important spiritual discipline. In churches, we worship with the body of Christ, and in reading Scripture, we are reading God’s holy word. But only in prayer do we kneel before the God of the universe, and talk to Him. Every Christian believes we can do that, but what happens when He talks back?

The late Dallas Willard’s take on this is a very impressive perspective in the evangelical outlook. Many times you’ll believe he was a Pentecostal/Charismatic himself. I don’t what his views were on this, but this book makes him sound like it, though I don’t think he was. He writes in the first chapter how we teach the Christian view that God wants a personal relationship with us, yet when we think about it or of people who’ve had these experiences of God speaking to them, we immediately have the UFO syndrome. We are skeptical of the very teachings we teach. He tells how God can communicate to us in many ways like Charles Carrin wrote.[1] One thing I learned throughout the book is that God will not speak to us if we’re always searching our own motives. Our motive is to seek God for himself and his guidance, not just so he can relieve the anxiety of our uncertainty of the future.

One myth that he knocks down is the belief that if God really spoke to you, you would know it for sure. He places the example of Samuel when he was a boy and heard the voice that was calling out to him. He runs to the high priest, and it was the high priest who perceived that God was speaking to the boy, not the boy himself. We must learn in our daily experience how to listen to God and really “practice the presence of God” as Brother Lawrence wrote. This is not to say that we should always go looking for supernatural experiences, but that we should open ourselves to the Holy Spirit more as He speaks to us. One thing I’ve taught others in ministry is that God is a speaking God and we must open ourselves to Him. Unfortunately, humanism and skepticism has crept into the Western church, and many have basically become biblical deists. As Roger Olson wrote, we’ve sought to become a respectable religion, but Christianity by its very nature is a supernatural one.[2]

Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was a philosopher best known for his books on spiritual formation including The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (1998) and Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ (2002).

Willard goes on to present principles that will help us in our walk with God. One main one is to stay very close to the Word of God. We will know for sure that if something or someone speaks contrary to the Word, it is not of God. It can be our own human thoughts or worse, of demonic origin. But even then, this should not scare us from listening to God. He writes about the “still, small voice” that God can use to speak to us with. The thing about this voice is that though it was still and small, the information it carried was still clearly perceived. He makes clear that thoughts which we debate within ourselves are not the voice of God, unless of course those “voices” are trying to deliver you from sin or from a certain evil or from bad decisions. Any voice that promises a life void of pain and suffering is certainly not from God.

Many go to God only for big decisions in life (career, marriage, etc.) but we have people like David inquiring God for certain strategies (1 Chronicles 14). We can have the confidence and faith that God can do so with us. What about when God doesn’t speak to us? There can be various reasons for this. For example, you already know the choice but are seeking more affirmation. Maybe God has laid out various choices for you to decide and each is correct. Or there is a hindrance (like sin) that we need to get rid of so we can listen to God. Listening to God is not a formula taught, but a life experienced. You only know someone when you learn to recognize their voice, before that they were unnoticed in your life and mind. So also with God, we must learn to recognize His voice by experience, sometimes with trial and error, though mercy is always offered. When we believe and have the faith that God can and will speak to us, than we can develop a conversational relationship with God.

Reviewed by David Hernandez

Notes

1. http://pneumareview.com/six-ways-the-holy-spirit-will-communicate-with-you-by-charles-carrin/
2. http://pneumareview.com/roger-olson-embarrassed-by-the-supernatural/