But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering (James 1:6). Wavering between doubt and belief about an answer to your prayer will never bring the results you are looking for. Ask in faith believing and then close the door by praising God for answering your prayer. The born-again Christian belongs to the family of God. Decide who you are and what you can have from God. Faith is hurt when the same petition is put forth again and again, and the answer, lying within reach, remains unclaimed. Living in a large family, I learned my place: what I could have and what was forbidden. When Mom baked pies, I knew just how big my piece would be; when the chicken was served, I knew which piece was mine, no one else would bother it. I knew whose turn it was to get a new pair of shoes. When I came into the kingdom of the Lord, I was accustomed to that pattern of certain things belonging to me and I followed it: I wanted to know what was mine, what rights I had. Who was I in the kingdom of God? Did I get part of the loaf or the whole loaf? Could I have as much as I needed and all that I wanted; was I limited? (Some ministers claim you are.) Do you know for sure whether or not you are saved or can you be shaken about your experience? Some of you waver about your born-again experience: one morning you know you have salvation and on the next are sure you’re heading straight to hell. Do you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit; do you really know it’s the Holy Spirit speaking through you? When the Holy Spirit speaks, He gives an unction that always edifies and blesses; I marvel at Him. My faith does not waver when He speaks because I know His touch.

Recognize the Healer

How is healing received? First you must be brought into contact with Christ. If you want healing you must recognize the healer, Jesus Christ, regardless of how you feel about me personally. I am but an instrument the Lord uses. Criticizing an instrument of the Lord makes as much sense as a patient on the operating table finding fault with the way the doctor’s scalpel curves. When it comes to the things of God, all too often people tend to size up the instrument rather than the operator of that instrument. Keep your eyes on Jesus; decide whether or not He is the one using the instrument. If He isn’t, then move away fast.

People were drawn to Jesus from different walks of life because they had heard about His marvelous works. The sick were being healed. How? By accepting exactly what they came in contact with: they accepted the Lord as He was. The centurion sent word for Jesus to come and to heal his servant. Jesus started, but before He arrived the centurion changed his mind: “I’m not worthy to have such a holy man come under my roof.” The centurion knew Jesus had power. “I have servants under me,” he told Jesus. “I don’t have to be where they are, I just tell them what to do and they do it.” What a beautiful picture the centurion painted of the authority of Christ over sicknesses, diseases and demon spirits! Just as the centurion had authority over his servants, he knew Jesus had authority over disease. He knew all Jesus needed do was speak the words and his servant would be healed. Jesus marveled at that faith, it excited Him. That’s the kind of faith that reaches all the way to Heaven and brings the blessings of God down to you. The servant was miraculously healed, how marvelous!

The centurion recognized the power of Jesus. That very thing is what each of you must do in order to be healed: recognize the power of Jesus. Is He the miracle worker; does He have power; is He the same yesterday, today and forever? By wavering about the ability of Jesus to heal YOU, then that healing is blocked.

Study, in the Scriptures, those who have received from God and how they did it. Look closely at Paul and Simon and people like the centurion. How did they feel, what kind of faith did they have? What caused Jesus to react the way He did to different people? Everything in the Bible is for your upbuilding and edification, to bring you to the place where you can receive from God all you need. Everything in the Bible is essential. Study it again and again, let the Holy Spirit turn Scriptures around in your mind and make their meaning a reality to your heart.

Accept the Authority of Jesus over Disease

The centurion recognized the authority of Christ, but some of you forget to take that authority into account; even you who are God’s children forget. Yet we read in the Bible where those, not of the household of faith who held on to Christ, received what they needed. Don’t allow the deceit of Satan to convince you that you do not have hold of Christ when you really have. Don’t let go and fail to receive when the Lord would have moved for you. “You’re not going to be healed,” the devil whispers, “you didn’t really receive a thing! You didn’t feel the way you thought you would when you were prayed for—you don’t have a miracle!” Just remember, the devil is a liar and a thief. Many people really had a miracle but failed to hold on to it. You must accept the authority of Jesus over the devil and his demons of sickness, depression, oppression and mental illness. Jesus Himself said, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they SHALL recover (Luke 16:18). Jesus is talking about the hands of believers being laid on the sick. Some have had the hands of a believer laid on them, but they refuse to close their cases. They wait for several weeks or months to see if they are going to live or not before committing themselves one way or the other about the results of the prayer. That’s not what the Bible teaches. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord (James 1:6,7). If your faith wavers, you’re counted out.

Nail It Down!

Some who come into my prayer line believe for a moment, but will not continue to believe. They lose their miracle. The things that God gives you must be held fast, nailed down and treasured. The Lord promised salvation; when you give yourself completely to Him, are cleansed in His blood, forgiven of your sins and made a new creature in Him, you are saved. No matter what doubts the devil brings, you are saved because God said so. God said if you confess your sins He would forgive you. If you do your part, God will never fail to do His. When I knelt down at the altar for salvation, confessed my sins, I knew God would be true to His Word. Then when I was stricken with ulcers, the Lord came to me, making me whole. After His visitation, I still had pain—they were false symptoms. So far as my feelings went, I felt as though I still had my ulcers. At that point, had I allowed my feelings to take the place of the Word of God, had I allowed the pain in my stomach to defy the promises of healing found in the Bible, I would have lost my miracle.

All the might and power of Pharaoh’s army were unable to defeat the Word of the living God, how could I allow defeat by the feelings of pain? I talked to no one about my pain, I confessed, instead, that I was healed. Way out in the deep I launched with my faith; I let God know if I died He would be embarrassed because I would die saying, “I know I’m healed!” A million X-rays could have shown peptic ulcers and I absolutely would not have accepted their verdict, that’s how much I believed. God says in Isaiah 53, with his stripes we are healed. Over and over in the Bible God says, I am the Lord that healeth thee. God had said I was healed and I allowed nothing, not even pain and false symptoms, to sway me from believing His promises—He absolutely cannot lie! I was healed and that was it! I staked my life on the fact that God is ALL truth, I put it on the line. There was no need for me to keep going back to Him and asking to be healed—it was done. He had overshadowed me, filled me through and through and I had to face the fact that either no disease could stand before His presence or else all diseases could stand. Why should I seek God if I weren’t going to accept all He said? The devil said if I chose to believe and act on God’s promises of healing that I would die. But the devil is a liar, and I learned my rights: I was God’s child, His property, and the devil hadn’t the right to afflict me. Sickness comes from the devil, but healing from God. As a son of God, I had been adopted into the heavenly family and all the rights of the New Testament became mine. I was covered by the covenant of wonderful marvelous healing. Not cashing in on it would have been like having money in your checking account and being afraid to write a check. Some people have faith they keep stored up and don’t use. It makes them feel secure to know it’s in there somewhere. There’s no need to have money just for the sake of having money, just as there’s no need to have faith for the sake of having faith. If you can’t use your faith, it is not doing you a bit of good! You have the faith to be healed, the faith to come out of that valley but you’re not using it. You’re rich in faith, but starving spiritually because you won’t cash in. It’s like the rich woman who went begging from door to door because she was afraid to reach into her abundant bank account and use her own money. Everything that we need is found in the Word of God—learn to get it out. If you stay with God He will make you well; launch out and use the faith you have instead of hoarding it like a miser.

Put Yourself on the Line

Does the question of being worthy hold you back? The woman from Canaan didn’t consider it when seeking Jesus for her daughter’s miracle. Jesus classified her with the dogs, but she said even the dogs ate the crumbs from the table. What can you do with a person like that? She refused to be put off, the Lord tested her and she used her faith. Crumbs were not what the Lord gave her, He does not serve crumbs, the woman from Canaan received a great miracle. Had she been satisfied with crumbs, they would probably have been hers, but she wanted for herself all Jesus had to offer. Take a lesson from her, use that same kind of faith in seeking God for your miracle. The Lord is generous, He is ready to help you. The Canaanite woman didn’t care what anyone thought about her just so long as her daughter was healed; she put herself on the line, threw herself on the mercy of the Word.

You must throw yourself completely on the mercy of the Word if you want God to heal you. The woman from Canaan, I’m sure, had tried everything known to heal her daughter and nothing had worked. She recognized the fact that her daughter was vexed with devils and that that healing came from God. Recognize that your affliction is from the devil, not God. God wants you to have no part of it, it is not part of Him. All good things, the Bible tells us came from God. Is cancer good? Of course not—it’s a mutilator and a robber. Diseases are not good, but afflictions are straight from the devil; he hates humanity and does all he can to destroy it. If you honestly believe cancer happened to you because it is God’s will, then your thinking is in direct conflict with the Bible that tells us all GOOD things come from God. That conflict in your mind must be resolved in accordance with the Word before God can move for you and bring healing. It is God’s will for mankind to have perfect health! When you believe the devil’s statements that you cannot be healed, then you are helping him do his work. If you had an old mangy tomcat underfoot, you’d say scat and he’d leave. Why not treat the devil the same? He has no business bothering you. Take time to get rid of him, why let him aggravate you to death? Rebuke him with the Word. Do you have rights in his kingdom; is he your doctor? If not, then you need have nothing to do with him. Jesus rebuked Lucifer with the Word, He made quick work out of him. The time Jesus spent talking to the devil could have been much, but it wasn’t. Jesus didn’t even debate with him. Three times Jesus told Lucifer it is written, and that was the end of that. Jesus is our example; don’t waste time arguing with the devil.

Be It According to Your Faith

Two blind men wanting healing came to Jesus. “Do you believe I’m able to do this?” “Yes,” they answered. “Be it unto you according to your faith,” Jesus replied. If they believed, they would have their sight; it was as simple as that. Some people come to me for prayer, but won’t believe enough to carry that healing home with them. The Lord said He would get them well, but the devil whispered otherwise. They had the choice of believing God or the devil. Believe the promise of healing in the Word, use it to prepare your heart and mind to accept your healing.

Jesus told Zacchaeus to come down from the tree. Faith entered Zacchaeus’ heart, and he met Jesus with everything on the line. Half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold (Luke 19:8). Jesus hadn’t said a thing to Zacchaeus except to call him by name and say He was going to his house. If some of you expect to take Jesus home with you, a little confessing is in order. Others, who already have confessed and received salvation, need to have confidence in it. Who are you; what is promised to the child of God? Know your rights! Angels camp around and about those who love the Lord to deliver them! Have confidence in them! Would you have believed God for deliverance had you been Daniel in the lion’s den? Had you been one of the three Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace, would only two have come out? If you had been an Israelite crossing the Red Sea, would one Israelite have drowned?

Claim Your Rights!

Marvelous things are promised to the child of God. Know who you are and claim your rights as a joint-heir with Christ. No one is good unless God be in him; if God is in you, then you are a holy temple, you house divinity! Don’t ask others if healing can be yours—ask the Word! The Word is the lamp that should light your every action. Abide by it, one day it will be your judge. You are weighed with it daily; the Word is all that God uses.

Reach up to God, hold to the things of Him. Are you one of those who have wonderful, marvelous faith and salvation and yet know it not? Use it, don’t let it go to waste! Again I say, study the lives of those in the Bible who received from God, how they did it, what was their attitude and determination. You need to reach out to God for all your needs; He has provided you with a Calvary and a Pentecost. Through Pentecost came the nine gifts and the nine fruits of the Spirit. A table full of blessings is your right. But you can look at those blessings and starve to death if you refuse to reach out and accept them as your own. Make the most of what God offers. Why would God want you to be sick, blind, deaf? Why would He want you to be emotionally crippled? He made man with the intent that man would have liberty, happiness and freedom. Not until Satan entered did Adam and Eve have worry or pain. God has gone to great lengths to provide for His children’s freedom from sin, pain and sickness. He doesn’t want you to be ill. Claim the health He offers, determine that His healing will be yours. If you are His child, you’re worthy. Take what the Lord has for you, reach out for the things of God. He has so much for you and you can have it all.

After He has healed you, hold on to it. If you have more pain, confess the Word of God, With His stripes I am healed! They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. With God, all things are possible to him that believeth. If you are believing, the miracle is yours. Jesus is the healer.