Receive Your Healing: Power Generation +and The Vessel

16 Jul Receive Your Healing: Power Generation +and The Vessel

POWER GENERATION AND THE VESSEL

The covenant that God had with his people is powerful. The question is how do we translate a provision of the covenant to become an experiential reality? There is a lot in our new covenant that still needs to be translated into experiential realities in the lives of people. Jesus prepared for His ministry by fasting and praying before going out to preach, teach and heal the sick. He said that the basis of the healing he released over the woman in Luke 13:16, was the Abrahamic covenant.

Exodus 15:26 “And he said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and do what is right in his eyes, and incline thine ears to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the complaints upon thee that I have put upon the Egyptians; for I am Jehovah who healeth thee.” (Darby’s new translation)

The provision for healing in the old covenant is based on this scripture in the book of Exodus. God’s Word is loaded with God’s power because every word from God has the inherent power in itself to come to pass. The conditions are sometimes stated as we see here. At other times we need to fulfil the condition of believing. All things are possible to him who believes.

Mark 9:19-23 “And He answered them, O unbelieving generation [without any faith]! How long shall I [have to do] with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to Me. So they brought [the boy] to Him, and when the spirit saw Him, at once it completely convulsed the boy, and he fell to the ground and kept rolling about, foaming [at the mouth]. And [Jesus] asked his father, How long has he had this? And he answered, From the time he was a little boy. And it has often thrown him both into fire and into water, intending to kill him. But if You can do anything, do have pity on us and help us. And Jesus said, [You say to Me], If You can do anything? [Why,] all things can be (are possible) to him who believes!”

Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfilment.”

Luke 1:45 “And blessed (happy, to be envied) is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of the things that were spoken to her from the Lord.”

We can see that the power rests in the Word of God and that faith is necessary to see the demonstration of the power.

If Jesus fasted and prayed before He preached or healed anyone, we might learn some things from what He taught us to do in the book of Matthew, chapter 6. He taught us about the right motive, focus and manner we should have in our giving, praying and fasting. If we do these activities rightly, we get the promise that the Father-God will reward us! Church history and contemporary history are filled with stories of people who engaged in prayer and fasting extensively and as a result, they experienced God’s power mightily. There seems to be a price to pay for a covenant provision to become an experiential reality in people’s lives. Perhaps a lack of these disciplines, amongst other things, may be a contributing factor to the seeming lack of power amongst many of God’s people. In Acts 10, we read about a non-Jew who was interested in developing a relationship with the God of Abraham, through his giving, praying and fasting. He eventually had a visitation from heaven and things were set into motion for his entire household to experience the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fell on them as in the upper room when He fell on the first Apostles of Jesus along with others. So we see an example of one who practiced what Jesus taught us in the book of Mathew and he received God’s rewards.

Acts 10:2 “A devout man who venerated God and treated Him with reverential obedience, as did all his household; and he gave much alms to the people and prayed continually to God.”

Acts 10:3-8 “About the ninth hour (about 3:00 pm) of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God entering and saying to him, Cornelius! And he, gazing intently at him, became frightened and said, What is it, Lord? And the angel said to him, Your prayers and your [generous] gifts to the poor have come up [as a sacrifice] to God and have been remembered by Him. And now send men to Joppa and have them call for and invite here a certain Simon whose surname is Peter; He is lodging with Simon a tanner, whose house is by the seaside. When the angel who spoke to him had left, Cornelius called two of his servants and a Godfearing soldier from among his own personal attendants. And having rehearsed everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.”

Acts 10:30-31 “And Cornelius said, This is now the fourth day since about this time I was observing the ninth hour (three o’clock in the afternoon) of prayer in my lodging place; [suddenly] a man stood before me in dazzling apparel, And he said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and harkened to, and your donations to the poor have been known and preserved before God [so that He heeds and is about to help you].”

Acts 10:44-48 “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to the message. And the believers from among the circumcised [the Jews] who came with Peter were surprised and amazed, because the free gift of the Holy Spirit had been bestowed and poured out largely even on the Gentiles. For they heard them talking in [unknown] tongues (languages) and extolling and magnifying God. Then Peter asked, Can anyone forbid or refuse water for baptizing these people, seeing that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (the Messiah). Then they begged him to stay on there for some days.”

We can see all our factors played out in this story. God’s power had been made available through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The climate at that time in Jerusalem was that salvation was for the Jews not the Gentiles. So nobody believed or expected God to move amongst the Gentiles like He did in Cornelius’s house. Cornelius became God’s vessel as he gave himself to prayer, fasting and giving. Peter was instructed by God to respond to the request of Cornelius’s servants by going with them. An angel appeared to Cornelius saying “your prayers and giving have ascended to God” and a fresh development began. Angels are not responsible to preach to human beings; we are the ones to preach to others, as labourers in the field. So the angel gave instructions as to how Peter could be invited to preach to them. Faith was the process behind Cornelius’s giving, fasting and prayers.