Weapons for the Believer 5.2
– The Gifts of the Holy Spirit – Gifts of Healing
According to Paul, there are
weapons of warfare.
2
Corinthians 10:3-4 (ESV)
For
though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For
the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to
destroy strongholds.
We are considering ten
weapons that the Believer has at their disposal. We looked at the first four in
previous posts. If you haven’t read them I encourage you to do so.
The next weapons are
referred to as The Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Word of Wisdom, Word of
Knowledge, Faith, Gifts of Healing, Working of Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning
of Spirits,
Different Kinds of Tongues,
and Interpretation of Tongues.
When our faith intersects
with the Spirit’s power, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished in those
moments. I do not believe these are given permanently as some teach. I do not
believe that some “posses” these gifts, but instead are given in the moment
when needed. Consequently any or all of these may manifest in each Believer as
the Spirit chooses.
There are nine gifts list by
Paul in 1 Corinthians 12. Traditionally these have been divided into three
groups: The Power Gifts, The Revelation Gifts, and The Speaking Gifts.
The Power Gifts: Faith
(or special faith, as some have described it)
Gifts of
Healing (the only plural gift)
Working
of Miracles
The Revelation Gifts: Word
of Wisdom
Word of
Knowledge
Discerning
of Spirits
The Speaking Gifts: Prophecy
Tongues
Interpretation
of Tongues
Today we will look at the second
of these in more detail: Gifts of Healing. This is the only one of the nine
gifts named in the plural. It implies there are more than one Gift that Heals.
Some have described it as gifts particular to a disease or malady. There are
biographies of those who were used to minister healing to particular diseases
such as rheumatoid arthritis, polio, etc. It could be that the Gifts of Healing
come more than once in the life of the Believer.
Like the other Gifts, I do
not subscribe to the notion that a person “has” a Gift, be it healing or any of
the others. Gifts of Healing seems to indicate that God will bring healing to
us through various means and at various times. Most imply that when one of the
Gifts of Healing is encountered the result will be instantaneous. My main
question for those is this, “Whose version of instantaneous are we making
reference?” God’s perspective is clearly different than our human experience.
Here are a few passages from
the New Testament that speak about healing in the life of the Believer.
James
5:14-16 (ESV) Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the
church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will
raise him up. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one
another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great
power as it is working.
1
Peter 2:24 (ESV) He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we
might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
It took me a while to
complete this post. I had to look at some things that troubled me about some of
the past teaching I received, and wanted to be sure that what I presented here
accurately reflected what the Bible actually teaches about healing,
specifically the Gifts of Healing. After researching for myself, and getting
counsel from scholarly people, I have come to this conclusion. Jesus is the
focus of all scripture.
All of the Old Testament is
the history of how we came into existence, fell from God’s grace, and how God
put in motion a plan to redeem man back to Himself. The New Testament is the
introduction of Jesus into man’s world and what He did to accomplish God’s plan
of redemption. With this understanding it makes perfect sense that the Holy
Spirit, sent to us by Jesus after He ascended to the Father, would bring with
Him Gifts of Healing. Everything the Holy Spirit does points us to Jesus. Jesus
ministered healing throughout His earthly ministry. I would expect nothing less
from the ministry of the Holy Spirit that now lives in us as Believers.
As is the case with most of
the Weapons of the Believer that we have considered in this study, Gifts of
Healing for the most part is a “defensive” weapon. It keeps the Believers whole
as we spend our lives sharing the love of God to our world. However, these
Gifts of Healing could certainly be seen as “offensive” when used to bring
healing to an unbeliever for the sake of demonstrating God’s love to them, even
before they have heard the Good News of the Gospel, and have responded to
Christ by identifying with Him and being Born Again.
It is the responsibility of
the Believer to be a vessel to carry the Holy Spirit, and His Gifts, to those
with whom we have contact, and then be available to be used as the instrument
to communicate His grace and love to them. Let’s be the Church as we live our
lives in communion with the Father, through Jesus, and empowered by the Holy
Spirit.
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