If you read the November 10, 2003, edition of Newsweek magazine, which did a study on the power of Christian prayer in the recovery process of hospital patients, you would have seen strong evidence that Christianity improves human health. Some results of the study show that regular churchgoers live eight years longer than non-churchgoers, prayer improves physical health, religion protects against cardiovascular disease, and being prayed for improves physical recovery from acute illness.

The Holy Spirit challenged me about my lack of aggressiveness in seeking after the gifts of healings, miracles, and wonder-working faith. If the local hospital is seeing results through ministerial prayer, why should our local church suffer from spiritual atrophy when it comes to exercising the gifts God has for us? Questions like, “Why aren’t these gifts more prominent?” and “Why in Africa and not in Michigan?” invaded my comfort zone.

The Lord began to give me some answers. First of all, the American Church looks and smells a lot like the Laodicean Church. She felt she had it all together when really she suffered from a bad case of “Prosperityitis.” We’re pretty comfortable with medicine, science, and technology as our first lines of defense, and have settled for the good instead of our God. Consequently, we have lost our sense of desperation for God to move in our health problems. (Until medicine can’t fix us. Then we call the prayer chain.) Somewhere along the line, James 5:14-15 (NKJV), got lost in the shuffle:

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 sick,
and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Could it be that our priorities are backwards?

The Lord started messing with my motives. “You don’t have the gifts because you’re not desperate for them, and when you finally do ask, you’re more concerned about your ministry than My Name.” Ouch!

I researched the Word about healing in the church and the Holy Spirit strengthened my atrophied faith. In Matthew 8:1-4, as Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain (where they were prayed up and full of His Word), they encountered a desperate leper who was sick in spirit, soul, and body. Jesus was willing to make this guy whole, so He did the unthinkable and reached out and touched the man. How great is the mercy of God! Then Jesus told the leper to document his healing by going to the priest. (This was real!)

A while later, Jesus was looking out over a throng of people (probably at the Mall of Galilee) and said, “The harvest is ready, but we need more workers!” The thing that amazed me was what the Lord
gave to the guys who were with Him on the mountain (Matthew 10:1,7). Not only did Jesus heal, but to these twelve men, Jesus entrusted power (in the Greek, this term means delegated authority) to heal, to drive out demons, and to preach in His name!

God cares about people who face attacks on their spirits, souls, and bodies. He longs to delegate authority to those who will use the gifts of the Spirit to promote His name.

Suddenly, I grew tired of living like a spiritual Barney Fife with only one bullet buttoned up in my pocket. If I was to be a delegated authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, then it was about time I start living like one! So I and the church fasted and prayed, asking Jesus for the gifts of faith and healings and miracles. We prayed, “Lord, be merciful and heal us for Your Name’s sake that your reputation can be promoted.”

The Holy Spirit began to move. A baby in the womb was miraculously touched (documented by a doctor), a woman on anxiety medicine for many years was delivered, men with wounded spirits from childhood abuse were set free, severely injured backs were repaired, a woman with acute ankle and knee ailments now stands and praises God. I could go on. The Lord not only healed people, but He put strength back into the atrophied spiritual muscle of the church, and we like it! What’s wrong with having a little swagger in our step and saying, “Devil, you’ve had your way in these lives long enough. It’s about time you head out of town!”?

Let’s draw close to the Healer and capture His heart. Out of desperate love let’s move forth as
fully deputized, armed laborers to willingly touch hurting people in the power of the matchless name of Jesus.

Tom Rupli has been privileged to serve the Lord as a minister at New Life Tabernacle in Petersburg, Michigan, for the past 22 years, including the past ten years as senior pastor. Tom also functions as the Great Lakes Superintendent of the Eastern Region of Open Bible Churches.