I find the ministry of Jesus incredibly fascinating. There are 26 instances in the gospels where Jesus healed sick individuals (there were other mass healings). In all of the 26 instances, He never refused anyone, everyone was healed. Some may ask, “what about the Canaanite woman’s daughter in Matthew 15?”, but you know what, he healed her too. It just took a clarification of His mission and her persistence to receive her daughter’s healing. I love it when Jesus reaches forward into one dispensation to give us a gift in another dispensation, but that’s just how He is.
I’d like to continue along the lines however, of the the 12th and 13th ways by which God heals, namely: through a response to a Prophetic Word and through a Word of Wisdom. In Matthew 8:5-13, a centurion approached Jesus for the healing of his servant who was suffering greatly at home. Jesus volunteered to go and heal him, but the centurion demurred, asking Jesus just to say the word and his servant would be healed. This is what follows:
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
There are so many aspects here we could talk about, such as the centurion’s faith and how he understood authority, but my focus here is on how God heals. Notice what Jesus said:
“Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.”
This is an example of a Prophetic Word. God often heals through this means. It differs from a Word of Wisdom in that it has no instructions for the supplicant to perform. Notice he was not sent to dip himself or his servant into the river seven times as was Namaan the Syrian. It was simply a declaration of what would take place. Thank God for the Prophetic Word. Do you have to be a prophet to minister healing in this way? No you don’t. You simply have to have the prophetic gift in operation in your life. In the next post, I’ll look at the other related way God heals—through a Word of Wisdom. Have you seen or experienced healing through a Prophetic Word?
