You’ve Been Praying Wrong—The True Path to Supernatural Healing
Few people have realized the close affinity between the natural and the supernatural—between the body and the spirit.
We have erroneously segregated the two, and have put them in realms so far apart that many think of the Lord as being able to meet only our spiritual needs. When that is as far as we go, we inevitably overlook the glorious, Blood-bought privileges which are ours for the physical man.
The great, redemptive work of our Lord covers the COMPLETE MAN—body, soul and spirit! It even reaches into the realm of physical necessities. Jesus said to His disciples, “Take no (anxious) thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:31-34). These are not inferential statements but direct and definite declarations. He not only said that our Heavenly Father knew we had need of these things, but definitely promised that He would supply them.
There is a very close link between the spiritual and the natural. His disciples were not to seek the natural, but instead to seek the spiritual. They were first to find the Kingdom and then, entering the Kingdom, they would find an abundance which would meet every need of their lives. That was the direct promise of our Lord!
Hundreds of years before Jesus came to this earth, one of the Prophets of God found him- self away from any source of human supply—by a brook—and there God vindicated His Word to him by sending the ravens with his food in the gloaming of the morning and the evening. The widow’s barrel of meal could not be emptied, because of her unlimited supply in His treasure store. He did not supply the meal because she sought it—but because she OBEYED HIM!
The order has ever been “SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD!” That is why the emphasis is on the surrender of the natural to the spiritual, and our laying upon the altar the whole of our Adamic natures; that Christ might be to us spiritually, and then physically, all He has promised to be.
The order of the Lord has always been CREATION and then “RE-CREATION.” It has been first that which is NATURAL and, after that, that which is SPIRITUAL. In the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, we read, “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and, there I will cause thee to hear My words. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this.” It has never been the purpose of the Creator to do a “patched-up job”! The vilest of sinners become “NEW CREATIONS” when they put themselves in His hands. The disease may be of the flesh, but THE CURE IS OF THE SPIRIT! The broken clay must once again be put into the hands of the Eternal Potter, that He may make it again another vessel, as seems good to the Potter to make it!
A Complete Work
How many people come for healing, looking for a physical touch, only! They want the Lord to touch the body, whereas the Lord is longing to touch the spirit! The physical manifestation will come; but God is a Spirit, and the flow of the Resurrection Life must come through the Spirit primarily and not merely through the physical flesh. When Jesus said, “I came that ye might have Life and that ye might have it more abundantly,” He spoke not only of spiritual life, but of that life which would literally permeate every atom of our beings, and saturate us with the glory of the Life that knows no end.
There are those who come looking for healing, but not for the Healer! They have anticipated physical thrills. Prayer in instances may have seemed to no avail; but no petition can ever be offered in vain, and unanswered prayer today does not necessarily mean it will go unanswered tomorrow. “Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers” (III John 2). The change externally is frequently superseded by the change internally—transformed by His Spirit in the inner man before the manifestation of the transformation is seen in the outer man! Certainly the scripture quoted, from the pen of the inspired John, throws a Divine Light upon the subject. Here was prosperity for the complete man, but, that he should prosper and be in health was contingent upon the prosperity which was within!
That is why people who say, “If the Lord will heal me, I will serve Him as long as I live,” are “putting the cart before the horse.” They are looking for the manifestation of His power from the outside in, when in reality His power operates from the inside out! Our bodies are not only the shells in which we live; but they are the tabernacles, too, of the Most High! Does He not want them well and strong? The healing rays of His Resurrection Life do not shine upon us from the outside, but shine through us from within.
The law of the Lord is progression! We are changed from glory to glory, but growth toward perfection is never perfection until the ultimate is reached. There is nothing perfect in the human, for perfection is found only in the Divine. We come to Him that we might have Life, and that we might have it more abundantly. His life! The Resurrection Life overflowing until we are inundated in its flow!
It is good when we sing, “Come to Jesus!” It is better when we say, “Jesus has come to me.” It is richer by far, however, when we can declare, “He lives within my heart!” It is scriptural for people who are in need to seek out the elders and to call for prayer from the lips of some consecrated man, but it is not God’s ultimate. In Him we need no priest, for He is indeed our High Priest. In Him we need no intermediary, for He is The One Mediator between God and man.
The veil of the temple has been rent from top to bottom; and the Holy of Holies has been made accessible to all of Adam’s race who, dying with Him in His substitutional death, will also rise with Him in the glory and power of His Resurrection Life!
Then it is we take the whole being to the One who made it! We take it in consecration and sur- render. We take it in yieldedness. Then the vessel which was made of clay is left in the keeping of the Heavenly Potter, who makes it yet another vessel after His pleasure! Though it be broken, He throws it not away. With what tenderness and love does He reshape us, and impart Himself as our healing in body, soul, and spirit.
Eating Within
It is not the evangelist nor yet the preacher who “saves.” God may use an anointed man in the declaration of His truth, but no hands—other than the hands of the Lord Himself—ever bear the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant in its application to the human heart. The elders of the church may anoint with oil and lay on their hands in the name of the Lord Jesus. The minister may give the broken bread, and put to other lips the cup of communion; but that does not necessarily mean that the recipient receives the broken Body and the shed Blood of the Lord Jesus. The communicant must not only “eat the bread” and “drink the cup” of the Lord’s Supper but must actually partake in Spirit of the Sacrifice of His Lord, in order to fulfill the true purpose of this most holy and precious Sacrament.
There is no formula for healing; neither is there any formula or rule by which one can grow in grace. When we at last come to the end of self; when in condemnation of our fleshy natures—in contempt and disgust for the Adamic life which has brought us Spiritual sorrow and Physical pain—we fully yield ourselves, not merely our conduct but ourselves, to the Headship of our glorious Lord; then begins the LIFE SUPERNAL. It is not by imitation but by participation that we become of LIKE NATURE—LIKE SUBSTANCE, “because as He is, so are we in this world.” (I John 4:17).
This transformation so permeates the entire man, that suffering of the body goes in conjunction with the banishment of the pain and anguish of the heart; for “whom the Son sets free, is free indeed!” ( John 8:36). His transforming glory is reflected in us as we, ourselves, are changed from glory to glory, until we shall awake in His blessed likeness!
Did not our Lord say, “Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee”? Over and over again He tied up external disease with the condition of the inward man. He did not say, “How sick are you?” or
“How much does it hurt?” but “Do you believe? Have you living faith within?” He was not concerned with the condition of the exterior, but He always probed beneath the “proud flesh” into the condition of the interior. Instead of struggling and striving to bring about healing by this prescribed process, or by that, it is much more pleasing—and infinitely more effective—to place the vessel back in the hands of the Maker.
The human is ever prone to over-emphasize little things and neglect the greater for the lesser. Where we eat and sleep, as well as other earthly matters, may receive divine guidance, but they are not the ultimate with God. He wants us to know Him, whom to know aright is Life eternal. He wants to lead us into Heavenly realms. So many of us are concerned about the geographical aspect of our obedience. “Shall I go to this town, Lord?” “Shall we live here, or shall we live there?” It may be perfectly true that the Lord has a definite place for us, but it is of far more importance that WE LIVE IN THE SPIRIT! With Jesus, the supreme thing was, not whether He was in Judea or in Samaria, but that He was in the center of His Father’s Will.
