Living Boldly for Christ: Daily Reflections on Faith, Prayer & Spiritual Life by David Hathaway
Isaiah 53:5 says Jesus was wounded for our sin, bruised for our iniquity and with His stripes we are healed. Matthew 8:16-17 says Jesus healed all that were sick to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. So healing is to fulfil Bible prophecy! I talk about Bible prophecy, I write about it in Prophetic Vision magazine, but part of Bible prophecy is healing the sick
God said to me, ‘David, you’ve got a mountain in your life that you’ve got to move, and that mountain is to get that cancer out from your lung. I didn’t go to a healing evangelist, I went to the Word of God and God completely healed me – no operation, no treatment – I only had God and the Bible, and that’s all I needed to confound the doctors. They were shocked, they didn’t believe God. But I do, I believe in a God of power, of miracles.
I love to see God heal people that the doctors cannot help! To me, the real miracles of healing are when doctors have tried to heal and failed, then God takes over and by a miracle does what the most expert of doctors cannot do. I have seen many people healed of broken bones and the effects of accidents, especially young people, and many other young ones born blind, deaf, crippled, where medical science can do nothing.
I believe that with God, prevention is better than cure and we should not abuse our bodies, which can cause sickness. Often when people come to me for healing I can recognise, without being a doctor, that their problem is due to a wrong lifestyle. If you smoke, you are likely to get lung cancer; if you put on very excessive weight, you run the risk of diabetes and heart problems. These are facts. Yes, God can heal you, but I recommend that a healthy diet can mean prevention rather than cure.
The disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, ‘Why couldn’t we heal him?’ Jesus did not compromise, He said, ‘Lack of faith!’ – not on the part of the child, but the disciples. It does not take enormous faith, but the child-like, seed-like faith of a simple believer to move mountains. I know, because I have commanded ‘mountains’ and seen them move many times! Jesus preached the Gospel – so I do; Jesus healed the sick – so I do. In the Bible Jesus said simply, ‘Preach the Gospel, heal the sick.’
If you think like that, you will not be healed. No, just as God forgives sin, instantly, He wants to heal you, NOW! God loves you! When Jesus healed the blind man the religious leaders asked, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents?’ Jesus said neither! If God were to punish us now for every sin or mistake, then every one of us would be dead, including me!
Isn’t sickness part of the cross we must carry? The cross that Jesus carried was not sickness but rejection, torture and death. The cross He asked us to carry is not sickness, but the persecution, hardship, rejection and even death that follow being His disciples and preaching His Gospel (Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27).
How do you recognise God? How do you find Him? What is the evidence of God’s existence in the Bible? It’s the fact that He’s a God of miracles, who answers prayer, when it takes a miracle! This is the reality! This is the God we’re looking for: a God who answers all who call on Him, by miracles, by signs, by wonders. This is the evidence! Take the miraculous out and you destroy the reality of who God is. You make Him no different to men!
We’ve got to search for God and find Him right where we are! If you think my life as an evangelist is easy, I can disillusion you! Some people say they want to be like me, but if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t want to! When I had the lung cancer I had a very busy schedule – don’t ask me how much I fasted, how much I prayed. When you know you have only a short time to live, you learn how to pray!
If you want to meet with God, you don’t have to wait until you have done this or that. I would never have become an evangelist, never seen a miracle of healing if God had waited until I was perfect before He answered my prayers. I call on God, He deals with me where I am. That’s why I was healed, not because I was ‘holy’. What God looks at is the deep desire of your heart.
If you want forgiveness, we have to forgive those who have sinned against us; amongst the 20,000 in the stadium, there were the former members of the secret police who persecuted you and your family. God is speaking, and this is what He says, ‘If you want forgiveness, you must forgive, even the police.’ Suddenly, there was a stillness, and the power of God came down.
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