Each of us must understand how to receive healing and keep it. When we understand God’s Word on healing and we act in agreement with it, this releases the manifestation of healing in our physical body. Our goal is to receive the manifestation of healing and to give our Father the glory for what Jesus has done for us.
“He [Jesus] went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him”
The devil afflicts us with diseases, and he doesn’t like it when the Word of God brings healing and destroys his work. The devil will always tries to re-establish his affliction by stealing the truth of the Word that is in us. We see this in Matthew 13:19 where it says: “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.” The enemy wants to steal the Word before it can be firmly rooted in us to produce the healing. The devil knows that the Word of God is more powerful than his work… disease, so he has to try to remove the Word within us before it takes root. Only seed which has taken root can produce a crop.
“The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.”
When we receive the Word on healing, that someone prays for us and healing takes place, we receive it with joy, but it must be firmly rooted in us because the devil will always try to afflict us with the same symptoms so that we change our mind. Verse 21 says that because of the Word, this affliction will come against us to give us an occasion to fall.
The devil will bring the symptoms of the disease on us again to try to convince us that we are not healed. This is a false and really does not help. A false root tries to establish itself in your thoughts so you change your mind about something. If the devil can push us to look at the symptoms, rather than the promise of God, he can convince us to believe his lie. When we focus on the symptoms, on pain or anything else, doubt and unbelief arise in our mind and this gives entry to fear which makes the disease return. We must keep our hearts and our minds fixed on God and his promise.
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
We must stand firm on what is good. We allow the word to take root so that it can complete the manifestation of healing.
Jonah is an example of this. He was swallowed by a whale, and he was in its belly for three days and three nights, yet he persisted in crying out to the Lord, trusting His promise to deliver him from an impossible situation he had actually got himself into.
“But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord. And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”
Jonah decided not to believe in a vain Idol, or a lie, but to trust in God, and God delivered him from all his circumstances. If Jonah had believed the lie, he would have lost his faith, and he would not have received his deliverance.
How can we expect God to deliver us, if we look at what the devil does rather than trust in God?
This is why when the symptoms return, we must place our faith in God and in His Word and say to the enemy, no matter what happens, we will not believe in his lies.
“submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
