How To Keep Your Healing Series

May, 2007

How to Keep Your Healing

I Timothy 6:12-21

INTRODUCTION: Many times people are prayed for over and over for the same need and do not seem to be able to come into complete healing. What is happening? Symptoms will often come back, and we need to know what to do about this counterattack of the enemy. After you have been prayed for, now what?

Scripture teaches we must “fight the good fight of faith.” Some people in all honesty say, “I’m fighting the devil,” but this is not what scriptures require us to do. We are to “fight the good fight of faith.” This is not as easy as it sounds, for if we are not wise to the devil’s tactics, we can give in to defeat. “Fighting the good fight of faith” is a phrase taken from the field of athletics to describe the struggles of the Christian life and the effort it takes to win. Sometimes it takes every ounce of energy to win. This applies to maintaining our healing as well, because Satan does not want us to win at anything. We must deliberately and consistently maintain this fight of faith in order to receive what we need.

Here are some thoughts on how to keep your healing after you have been prayed for:

1. Close the Case for Victory: You have come to God and your faith has received healing when you were prayed for. Do not say, “I wonder have I been healed or not?” This indicates doubt and keeps a door open for the enemy to enter. Remember you have received by faith whether or not the symptoms are still there. Symptoms may not disappear immediately in a gradual healing. You may still have pain after prayer. You may still be taking medication, but God has entered your situation through the prayer of faith. Can you believe that? God is working. Close the case for victory.

Proverbs 23:23 says it in a little different way. “Buy the truth and sell it not.” This verse speaks of a steadfastness. You buy the truth and you hang on to it. You put up a “Not for Sale” sign. What this means in relationship to your healing is that you have received the truth--I am healed. Case closed. You don’t discuss it by saying, “I wonder if…” You are holding on steadfastly to the truth, “I am healed. I have received my healing by faith.”

Story: An evangelist went to pray for a man who was sick in bed. After he prayed he asked, “Sam, what are you going to do tomorrow?”

The man seemed surprised at the question and replied, “I’m going to be right here sick in this bed!”

Make plans to do something you couldn’t do before,

If you can’t walk--try to walk

If you can’t talk, try to say something

If you can’t get out of bed, try to get out of bed.

How would you know you were healed? Try to do something you couldn’t do before.

Story: One time I didn’t have any grip in my hands. The kids in my Sunday school class prayed for my hands. I tried to make a tight fist but couldn’t. They prayed again the next week, and I would keep trying to make a tight fist. One day I could. I still have grip in my hands today. How would I have known I was healed? I could do something I couldn’t do before.

Story: One of the girls who was shot at a school was in a wheelchair. Doctors told her she would never walk again. She said, “I will walk again. Refused to believe she wouldn’t. Determination to try to get out of the wheelchair. She tried a little every day. Consistently. Refusing to believe she can’t. She has so far made more progress than the doctors thought she would.

There is a scripture that says, “Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

We must quit being so unstable in our beliefs when unsettling circumstances try to sway us. James 1:6-8 talks about being unsettled wavering back and forth in our faith. He says, “But let him ask in faith nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a way of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

Story: We had a friend several years ago who got her faith up to believing for healing. She would say, “Yes, I’m going to get well. I am healed. I’m doing better.”

We would go back to visit her and she would say, “I’m depressed. I’m worse, I’m not being healed. Things are terrible.”