Divine Healing Made Simple: Simplifying the supernatural to make healing & miracles a part of your everyday life (The Kingdom of God Made Simple Book 1) (21 page)

If you’re trying to resurrect a friend or relative, you can simply sit beside the body and pray as you are led the Holy Spirit. The process might take hours or possibly even days. Heidi Baker’s team might pray for 24 hours before they re-evaluate whether or not to continue. Sometimes when the person comes back to life there is little that would cause you to take notice that they are alive. Some of the signs of life can be hard to detect. Look for signs of breathing like the rise and fall of the chest. If the person does in fact come back from death, you should notice small muscle movements. As time goes by you will probably notice more of them. Dead bodies don’t normally move except in a few extremely rare situations where physiologic changes occur as the body decomposes. If you notice movement, it is probably a sign that the person has come back to life. The resurrection of a dead body can happen slowly or quickly. Some people come back to life and appear just as active as they were before they died, but some take more time to regain normal activity.

If you want to raise someone from the dead after a day or more has passed you may have to explain to morgue attendants and funeral home employees what your intentions are. You will probably need to obtain permission from the family and the facility before proceeding. Once you have permission from everyone involved, you can sit near the body and pray as God leads. How long you pray is up to you and the facility. They will probably not allow you to stay after the close of business at the end of the day, but there’s no reason why you can’t continue praying at home.

A well-known resurrection testimony came out of Nigeria where a pastor named Daniel Ekechukwu was raised from the dead three days after he died. After being pronounced dead by a doctor from injuries he sustained in a car crash, his body was taken to a morgue and embalmed. His wife received permission to place his coffin in the basement of a church where Reinhard Bonnke was preaching. During Bonnke’s message, two men who volunteered at the church noticed movement coming from inside the coffin. They removed Daniel from the coffin, alive and well. While this testimony might sound hard to believe, all the people involved have been interviewed and their stories support this testimony. Two doctors, the ambulance driver, the morgue attendant and the church volunteers all reported that Daniel died, was embalmed and was raised from the dead after three days.

If you work in a hospital you may encounter deceased bodies regularly. Your approach may be as simple as speaking to the body or the dead person’s spirit and commanding them to come back to life. At times you may need to ask a family member if they’ll allow you to pray for a resurrection. In a testimony that came from St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, Washington, an emergency department doctor and nurses prayed for the resurrection of a deceased patient. After being without a pulse for 45 minutes, the patient came back from death with normal brain function.

On occasion you may find yourself attempting to resurrect a complete stranger. Depending on the setting, the person who is raised from the dead may have no clothing, no food and no place to stay. It might be wise to plan for these problems in advance and find a safe place for them to stay and if needed, someone to care for them. The person who comes back from death may need extensive care for a period of time. I’ve read testimonies from people who were healed of the injuries or illness they died from. But I’ve also read testimonies where they were not. After returning from death, the person may require months of hospitalization to recover from illness or injury. These people usually need emotional support and they may incur expenses that they’ll need help with. Consider ways in which your friends or your church might help them.

We’ll close this chapter with a quote from my Facebook friend, Terry Mengle:

Thirteen years ago my wife and I met a young man from Africa who explained that in his country anyone who wanted to graduate from Bible college must raise someone from the dead. They would go to where the dead awaited burial and command the dead to rise. They made attempts until the dead were resurrected and then they graduated and were ordained to go and minister for Jesus.

B
EFORE BEGINNING THIS CHAPTER, I
would like to clarify one point. The four gospels use two similar terms: the “kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven.” While there may appear to be a difference between these two terms, the gospels use them interchangeably and I will use them to refer to the same concept.

As Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead and cast out demons, it was His custom to proclaim the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. The healing power of God has a message attached to it: “The kingdom of God has come near you.”

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him.
LK. 8:1

Divine healing is not primarily about physical health and wellness. The main objective of healing is to confirm a message from God. The message is that God wants to re-establish a vital and living relationship with mankind. The relationship we might have with Him was broken by the effect of Adam’s sin as noted by the apostle Paul:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
ROM. 5:12

The sin of Adam not only caused separation from God, it was also the reason death entered the world. Atonement for sin was made through the shedding of blood by animal sacrifice. But the blood of bulls and goats could not provide a sacrifice for all mankind and for all time. So at the appointed time, Christ came and the shedding of His blood on the cross made possible the reconciliation of all mankind.

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation.

Even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
ROM. 5: 18-19

This message of reconciliation to God and eternal life is good news to those who don’t know it yet. This message is known as the
gospel.
Although reconciliation to God and redemption from sin are at the heart of the gospel, there is another aspect that we should be aware of. The gospel is the revelation of God’s kingdom.

The kingdom of God is perhaps the most elusive subject in all of Scripture. Views on the kingdom are many and varied. Some people see the kingdom as something that is entirely future. Some believe the kingdom is at hand today. Some see it as purely allegorical and others see it as literal. Some see the kingdom as a fulfillment of the promises God made the Jews, while others believe it has nothing to do with Jews. Some believe it pertains only to the heavens themselves, while others believe the kingdom has an earthly presence.

Although there is disagreement over the totality of the kingdom and its fullest expression, it seems that at least part of the kingdom must be a present reality on earth. Jesus indicated that the kingdom was something we should seek to enter (see Jn. 3:5). He also taught His disciples to pray that God’s kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth in the same way it is in heaven (see Mt. 6:10). Therefore it seems that it must have at least some fulfillment in the present age. And it is this aspect – the
present
manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth that I would like to discuss in this chapter.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus recognized that we all have needs, such as what we will eat and what we will wear. He noted that we often worry about God’s willingness and ability to provide for our needs. He illustrated the Father’s willingness to meet our needs by drawing attention to how the birds are fed and lilies of the field are clothed according to God’s goodness and abundance. He then told the crowd to trust in the Father’s ability and desire to meet their needs because they were more valuable than the birds or lilies. Finally, He revealed how our needs can be met, saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” The way in which we receive the abundance of the Father is by seeking and entering the kingdom of God (see Mt. 6:25-34).

On October 12, 2010, I had a dream about the kingdom of God that illustrates this reality. In the dream, I watched as different people experienced the kingdom. The first man lived as a drug addict and petty criminal. He lived in a perpetual state of fear, always keeping an eye out for the police who might catch him doing something wrong. He lived to have his own personal desires met. It was a life of fear, selfishness and using others. Then I saw him enter the kingdom of God.

I saw him dressed in a uniform as he sat on a stool at the opening in a wall. The wall stood as a divider between a prison cell and the kingdom of God. The opening in the wall was a gate about four feet wide. He was a guard at this gate. He got up and walked around in the kingdom, which seemed to be an endless expanse as far as the eye could see. As he explored this new place, he looked for familiar things but found nothing like what he experienced in the world. There were no crimes or drugs and no police. Everywhere he went he experienced freedom. He could walk anywhere without nagging feelings of fear or guilt. He was never afraid of getting caught doing something wrong, because nothing wrong ever happened in the kingdom. All his needs were met and he was filled with peace.

He met God the Father who had only good things to say about him. The Father provided everything he needed in the kingdom. He went back to the stool and sat at the gate. His new calling was to tell those who asked how they could enter the kingdom. His life was profoundly changed by his experience. Although the daily problems of his life didn’t immediately disappear, he began living from the reality he had experienced in the kingdom. The freedom he felt there allowed him to live free in the world. In the dream, he never lived in fear again.

I was also in the dream. In the world, I was looking for acceptance and to be understood by others. I sought popularity and wanted people to like me. That was, until I entered the kingdom. In the kingdom, I found immediate acceptance. Everyone I met seemed to instantly understand me. Even more amazing was the fact that they liked me. I had no enemies and made friends everywhere I went. When I met the Father, I encountered absolute acceptance and love. He had many wonderful things to say about me. I was the apple of His eye. Everything I did was perfect in His sight. He could not be more proud of me. In the dream, this experience profoundly changed how I lived in the world. I no longer went around seeking acceptance from others. I lived from the reality I had experienced in the kingdom and never again wondered if I was good enough.

A third person appeared in the dream. This person lived with the fear of never having enough money. Although he had a good job and invested his money wisely, he lived with a nagging fear of poverty. Thoughts about earning and saving money plagued him continually. This man also entered the kingdom of God.

In the kingdom, he traveled from place to place. Wherever he went, he noticed that no one worried about money. In fact, there were no worries of any kind in the kingdom. Citizens of the kingdom had piles of money. He found that he could easily get as much money as he wanted from any stranger on the street. Nobody hoarded money. No one cared about how much they had or how much they gave away. There was abundance for everyone. This experience in the kingdom profoundly changed the way he lived. Experiencing the provision of heaven and knowing that God’s economy never lacked resources, gave him a freedom with money he never thought possible. In the dream, his fear of poverty instantly vanished. He began living in the world from the reality he had experienced in the kingdom and began to give abundantly and with gladness.

A major theme in this dream was God’s abundant love and acceptance. The second was His abundant provision. The third was His righteousness, where no crime was allowed. The kingdom is a place of perfection. Those who experience the perfect realities of the kingdom are able to live in this world from those realities, instead of the ones the rest of the world lives from.

Jon Sellers is a Facebook friend and gifted teacher on the kingdom. I like the way in which he explains the kingdom of God and how it is to be proclaimed. He has graciously allowed me to share some of his observations:

Historically one of the problems in understanding the kingdom has been a focus on spatial concepts in thinking about God. This has led to confusion about where heaven is, where God is, where Christ is, and it’s led to a failure to grasp the reality of our lives in the kingdom of God, now.

The kingdom of God is perhaps best understood as a new relationship under the rule of Christ the King, rather than a realm that we journey to or a period of time during which Jesus will reign over the earth.

Jesus lived as a supernatural man. Although He is God, He divested himself of His own power and authority and operated under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, just as we do. Our goal is to become like Him. It is the relationship we have with Christ in the Spirit that opens us up to the revelation and experiences of the supernatural. It is only the transforming presence and power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to walk like Jesus did. To walk in the Spirit is to have a relationship with Him. This is why I believe relationship is preferable to realm in thinking about the kingdom of God.

The scriptures draw us continually into relationship. Even the kingdom of darkness is not so much a realm as it is the absence of proper relationship under the rule of God. The enemy is in rebellion to God and therefore is not in His kingdom. He has been cast out. Does this speak of realm or relationship?

The whole world is under the power of the enemy. Is God absent? No. He is present always and everywhere. But the whole world is in rebellion and is not in the kingdom. God is not without power and influence in the world now; the entire universe is upheld by Him. But He has allowed rebellion and so the call to come into the kingdom is primarily a call to turn from that rebellion and to turn to Him in faith and obedience. This enables us to receive all the riches of Christ. We are seated with Him in heavenly places. Do these things speak of realm or a relationship?