Recovery

 Mark 16:17-18 (NRSV) And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

 Notice the word “recover.” When we lay hands on people, they often get well very quickly, immediately or in just a few minutes. But there are also times when they get better from that point on, or as they go, like the lepers mentioned in Luke 17:14.

 The important thing is that we keep looking to the Lord with eyes of faith, not just seeing with natural eyes. Sometimes we start out in faith and God’s power is already working in a person’s body although we cannot yet see it by natural means. Yet we get discouraged and start to get our eyes on the natural thing. What we need is to be in a position of continuing to release the Lord’s goodness on the sick person. See the person as a sponge. Keep releasing God’s goodness until it soaks into them and they are fully saturated, with no place for sickness or pain left. Stand firm, and having done everything, stand. Keep your eyes on the heavenly reality that is found in God’s presence, and not on natural things.

 Ephesians 6:13 (NRSV) Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

 We cut off the bark around the base of a tree to kill it. It can take quite a while until the leaves actually fall off and it looks dead. Yet the flow of sap has been cut off. Sometimes healing is like that—although we don’t yet see it naturally, the life of the disease has been cut off, and the disease will soon wither away and its symptoms will go, just like the tree will die and its leaves will fall off.

  Here are two recent stories from our lives in Brazil, of people who had remarkable recoveries. I thought they would be very encouraging for readers because both of them were very serious life-and-death situations. I hope that when you encounter situations like this, you will remember these stories and also take heart and declare life.

 In both of these cases, I was unable to visit the person at the hospital, but I began to declare life and command sickness to leave from where I was. Neither of them was an instant healing. Both had recoveries that seemed pretty amazing to me. I believe the hand of the Lord was at work in both of these cases. I don’t think such recoveries were very probable from a purely natural perspective.

  Leaving A Coma

 Several months ago our daughter’s caretaker unexpectedly didn’t show up for work. We found out that her husband had been sick the previous day, and on Monday he collapsed on the ground. She was at the hospital with him.

It was a public hospital. Here in Brazil, everybody has a right to socialized health care. But the public hospitals are so notorious for malpractice and poor service that the “Dumb Ways To Die In Rio” video includes “wait in a hospital line.” (Almost anybody who is able to afford it gets private health insurance so that they can go to a private hospital.) After waiting almost all day to be seen, they did a quick examination and said that he was fine and there was nothing wrong with him.

Soon after being discharged, he collapsed again. This time he went into a coma. The hospital still hadn’t given a diagnosis (as far as I know), but it seemed like a stroke. Not only was the situation distressful for his wife, but it was very difficult for us. She took off of work because of her husband. However, because of Brazilian laws, we had to pay her as well as pay another person to care for our daughter Rebekah while she was away. This was a large and unexpected expense.

He was in the coma for a few days. My wife thought he was going to die. I tried to work out going to the hospital to visit him, but wasn’t able to. It was complicated with my work schedule, and I would need someone to help me get there. I didn’t know where it was. But even though I couldn’t visit him personally, I began to command “In Jesus’ name, brain be completely restored, as if this incident never happened. Everything be whole now.” I decided to stand firm, as Ephesians 6:13 says.

Soon we heard that he had woken up out of the coma, but he would not be able to drive and his wife would still need to be off of work, caring for him. She took off of work for a month total, starting at the beginning of the incident. We didn’t know if she would be forced to quit since she didn’t drive and her husband took her to work. It was complicated taking the bus all the time. But she did come back, and after a short time, her husband was driving her. I have talked with him since then, and it was just as if nothing had ever happened. To the best of my knowledge, it was a full recovery. I don’t know his age, but he is probably over 60 years old.

A Child With Leukemia

We are very close with a neighbor across the street. She is the daughter of one of my wife’s three godmothers. A few months ago, she told us of a little boy she knew who was sick. He started bleeding from his gums and rectum and was diagnosed with leukemia.

 They needed many people to donate blood to give him a transfusion, and they were looking for donors. My wife asked me if I would be willing to donate blood. I said I would, but I also asked if I could visit him in the hospital. They were not allowing visitors because of his weakened immune system.

 Again, although I couldn’t visit him, when I was alone I spoke “In Jesus’ name, cancer leave this boy’s body. In Jesus’ name, health be restored.” I did this several times.

I had the thought “Wouldn’t it be a cool way for him to be healed by receiving my blood transfusion?” If the Spirit of God lives in us, our blood can become infused with the life of God. However, I was never able to donate blood. I needed to know the time and place to do so, and nobody let me know. Maybe they got enough donors before they needed me.

Healed From Leukemia After Blood Transfusion

Just a little while ago, about a month or two after I first heard about the little boy, our neighbor told us that he was healed! After getting the transfusion, his white blood cell count suddenly went up and the tumor disappeared. She didn’t know all the details, but she had listened to an audio recording on WhatsApp of the doctor pronouncing that he was healed.

  I thought that was interesting that even the doctor said he was healed, because I have heard of people completely recovering from cancer, yet the doctor only said the cancer was “in remission.” Of course, I’m no expert on medical things. I’m just sharing my perspective on what I heard.

I thought that it was interesting that the white blood cell count suddenly went up and the cancer disappeared after the blood transfusion. Even though I wasn’t able to donate blood, I wonder if his healing on receiving the donation had anything to do with my thoughts. We have sometimes experienced very supernatural events that seemed to be triggered by just thoughts, such as supernatural rain in my house.

 Faith

In the last two weeks I posted parts one and two on dealing with the statement “The Whole Church Prayed And We Believed, But He Died”. We looked at the promises of Jesus and the things which are possible if we believe. I thought it was good to follow up on that by sharing these two recent stories of people who looked like they were going to die, but whose lives were saved!

The next post is about the difference between the “faith in God” that Jesus spoke of, and the impersonal “power of faith.” I feel like it will help to understand what faith in God is, and what it isn’t.

Meanwhile, here is a great quote from Dan Mohler that has helped me to learn to walk in faith. It fits perfectly with these two stories of remarkable recoveries. “We have to not make faith hit-or-miss, win-or-lose, or a point in time. Faith is the position of your heart to believe what He accomplished.” This is from the video of Dan “Knowing Your Authority And Staying In Faith.” It’s really worth a listen!