The Physiology Of Faith - Class 4 Series

CLASS 4

IX. The Physiology of Faith

A. The God Who Heals You

Trusting-Faith is the essential element of living in health and prosperity. When we live our life trusting God, He takes care of healing our spirit, mind, and body.

The subject of Divine Healing has been hotly contested and debated for years.

Whether one believes that God has guaranteed spiritual and physical healing in the Atonement does not negate the fact that God is “the LORD, who heals you" (Ex 15:26 NIV).

There are hundreds of references throughout the Bible that substantiate this fundamental truth. In my book, Living Forgiven, I detail the challenge faced when my wife was first diagnosed with a terminal disease. Coming from a healing ministry background where I had personally experienced supernatural manifestations of God’s healing power, I didn’t think it was a big deal or would take very long until the Lord healed her. However, her health didn't improve, and despite the fasting and prayers offered in faith and the many healing crusades we attended, she wasn't healed. I wrote the following:

I was confident that God could heal her, but He had not. I read and reread every Scripture that spoke of healing, looking for something I may have missed, trying to find answers, but no easy answer came.

During this whole ordeal, my faith was severely challenged. Everything I had learned about faith and healing before this time had proved insufficient to provide answers and solutions. Instead of providing answers, it caused anger, resentment, feelings of abandonment, bitterness, and guilt. Yet, at the same time, my understanding of God’s grace and sovereignty was significantly increased.

Throughout my years in ministry, I have found that I am not the only one who has experienced this frustration. The unspoken and hidden truth is the staggering reality that most Christians are not healed of their sicknesses and diseases. Even those who receive a supernatural “touch” from God often see their symptoms return shortly. Though we speak of “faith” as the answer, we don’t live it. It’s always easy to pray for the sick and believe for their healing when you have never been personally confronted with it.

Yet, God has promised that He forgives all our sins and heals ALL our diseases (Ps 103:3). Because this is true, why do so many people struggle with sickness and disease? After decades of confronting this issue, I believe the following may give some insight and understanding into answering this question of the ages.

B. The Homotrophic Approach To Health

God‘s prescription for walking in divine health is found in the Bible. Just as proper nutrition is contingent upon eating a healthy diet and taking vitamins and minerals daily, good spiritual nutrition is based upon reading the Bible and following God’s plan daily. The word “homo” relates to the human species, and “trophic” refers to nutrition.

The biblical Homotrophic approach is learning to apply God’s word as nutrition for your spirit, mind, and body.

The Bible contains almost 9,000 promises. There are nearly 7,500 promises from God to man (about 85 percent of all the Bible’s promises).

Because of God’s great love, we will never face any life situation for which He has not supplied specific promises that give us mercy and grace to help in times of fear and uncertainty. His great promise to us in times of sickness and disease, trial and testing, is that He “will never leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). We must learn to cast all our fears upon God because He “cares for you” (1 Pet 5: 7).

"I sought the Lord and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. The angel of the Lord encamps around about us and saves us out of all our troubles and delivers us- because we fear him" (Psalm 34:3-9 NIV)

The real issue that needs to be addressed is not Divine Healing but rather Divine Health.

Throughout my years in ministry, I have seen God touch people with incredibly amazing physical healing, myself included. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He heals today and will heal tomorrow. His promises have never ceased.

The problem in the modern church has been that healing prayer ministry is allopathic in its approach and focused on the symptom and not the root cause.

More often than not, I have seen people genuinely healed, only to learn that the sickness or disease later returned.

Healing ministry has become just spiritual “weed whacking,” cutting at the stem of the weed rather than pulling out the root.

When the “Weed Whacker” garden tool was invented, it quickly replaced old-fashioned digging and pulling up weeds by hand because it was fast and easy. It neatly trims and manicures the unwanted weed giving the appearance that all is well, but give the ground a little water and up come the weeds, and off you go with the “Weed Whacker” again.