The last two posts laid out a foundation for an individual path to healing. To recap, they looked at healing as a lifestyle and the desirability of storing up the Word relating to God’s promises in this area on a daily basis. The next step was to take practical steps of wisdom to find out what the ailment truly is and make lifestyle adjustments if needed.
If these actions don’t fix the problem, then it is time to begin ministry proper. It is still not quite time to go hammer and tongs at the physical or emotional ailment but to address a set of common obstacles to healing or even causes of sickness. In ministering over the years, I’ve found a major obstacle to healing to be unforgiveness. I’ve discussed this in another post (here), so I won’t spend too much time on it in this post.
I will say though, that it never ceases to amaze me how the most gentle, refined Christians can often have such pure hatred for certain people in their lives. There is often a real reason why –a woman who broke up the seeker’s marriage, an uncle who abused an individual years ago. You must seek God’s grace to enter the healing ministry because of what you will invariably hear.
Unforgiveness blocks healing, there’s no two ways about it. You must forgive all who have sinned against you, individually and by name if you can remember. You must then pray for these individuals, release them and thus remove the barrier to the flow of God’s grace into your life. Jesus Himself mentioned this obstacle to healing in Mark 11,
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
After dealing with unforgiveness, I typically seek to discern whether there is an ancestral element to this disease, especially if we are dealing with substance abuse. “My mother and father were alcoholics, and their parents before them,” is usually a clue that the cause here may be a curse or curses over that family lineage that needs to be broken. It may also be the case with a physical or mental disease that has run rampant in a family through many generations.
If you discern this is the case, then ask the Lord to provide you with the information needed to break the curse(s) in the Name of Jesus or deal with one or more familiar spirits that have grown comfortable in a family tree. They only continue through ignorance. Once you understand your authority in Jesus Christ, it is straightforward to cast these spirits out in Jesus Name. You may also have a trained Healing Rooms worker do this for you.
The next step is to find out whether the seeker has had involvement with the occult. You will find a connection often between occultic involvement and a host of physical and mental illnesses. It may not be direct worship of wooden idols; in the Western world, it is a lot more subtle. It can involve astrology, palmistry, tarot cards, Dungeons and Dragons (and similar games), ouija boards, horoscopes, séances, certain types of music and so on.
An interview with a seeker will often unearth this gateway through which the enemy has access to their lives, if it exists. Once identified, repentance and renouncing of these activities are necessary and then their power and influence can be broken in Jesus Name. To be continued in my next post…
