The No.1 danger in healing ministry ? Harry McKenzie tells a wonderful story about John Wimber and Randy Clark. They were doing a conference together. John, who had a hugely successful healing ministry, invited people to come forward for healing prayer. Three hundred came forward and were prayed for. But not one single person got healed. Not one. In the car on the way home Randy said to John “What happened there ? That’s never happened before that no-one got healed. John simply replied “I don’t know.” Then Randy asked “What are you going to do about it ?” John’s answer was “I’m going to go back and do the same thing tomorrow night.” And that is what John did. He asked people to come forward for healing prayer. Three hundred people responded and this time most of them got healed. Lessons we can learn from this : 1. Arguably the number one danger in healing ministry is allowing disappointment to turn into discouragement, with the result that we quit praying for the sick. If we pray for a few people who show no signs of improvement it is inevitable that we will be disappointed. Thats natural and to be expected. The problem comes when disappointment then dis-courages us, that is to say if the experience robs us of our courage, and we stop actively offering to pray for the sick. In this instance Wimber demonstrated great resilience. He was a man who had a real track record of seeing healing occur when he prayed. He had an international reputation. The teams of people he brought with him to conferences were used to seeing people regularly being healed. He must therefore have been very disappointed when not one person was healed. But for him healing had become a matter of obedience. He considered himself bound to obey the command of Jesus to proclaim the Kingdom, heal the sick and cast out demons. In Proverbs 4;23 we are warned to guard our heart with all vigilance for from it flow the streams of life. Guarding our hearts from dis-couragment is one of the most important things we do. 2. If you prayed for 50 people for healing and they all got healed, would you pray for more people ? Of course you would ! If you prayed for 50 people and 25 of them got healed, would you pray for more people ? Almost certainly yes. If you prayed for 50 people and 5 of them got healed, would you pray for more people ? Probably - youre still hitting a 10% success rate. What about 1 healed out of 50 ? The problem is, of course, at what point might we quit and throw the towel in ? A fundamental question is whether we pray because God in His mercy grants us effectiveness, or whether we pray for people to be healed because Jesus commanded us to go and heal the sick. Are we results-orientated or obedience-orientated ? The story about John Wimber is told in the talk entitled “Healing” and is available at northridgevcf.org.au/podcasts/13_09_01_Evening.mp3
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 07:00:04 +0000
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