In recent years, the ministry of healing has resurfaced as a poignant and significant ministry in the life of the modern and post-modern church.
This has been positive, notwithstanding the few ministries that have made the ministry of healing a profit-motivated ministry, versus a ministry of reconciliation geared toward wholeness.
Our world needs healing. All we have to do is turn the television on and see communities in a state of chaos, locally and globally. We can read any newspaper and read about people’s lives that have been turned upside down because of someone’s reckless behavior. We need healing because many of us have been taken advantage of and have never forgiven those who have wronged us.
We need healing from childhood hurts and failures. We need healing because many of us have not forgiven ourselves. We also need healing from our fast paced, overworked and improperly nourished culture.
Healing is necessary because “In the beginning,” after God created the heavens and the Earth, humanity, because of free will, made the wrong choice, and since then humans have desired to reconnect to God. We can’t reconnect or be reconciled to God unless we are healed and on a road to wholeness.
Mark Pearson writes in his book Christian Healing: A Practical & Comprehensive Guide, there are four ways God works healing. According to Pearson, God works healing:
n Through skill and science
n Through clergy rites and sacraments of the church
n Through spiritual gifts
n Through the prayers of Christians
I believe Pearson has done an excellent job in synthesizing where God moves in miraculous ways in our Christian practices and witness. I was moved by his articulate analysis of the ministry of healing.
If you are a member of a church and you can’t acknowledge or identify the last time you witnessed a healing, that is a sign that you need to connect with the ministry of healing.
If you are a prayer warrior or intercessor and you can’t identify the last time God worked a miracle through you, that’s also a sign that you need to ask God to revitalize the ministry of healing in your life.
There are literally thousands of churches in Indianapolis. When was the last time the news did a story on miracles occurring in a church or community? As people of faith and followers of Jesus, that is problematic. Wherever there is faith, the mysteries of God should follow.
Remember, “These signs will accompany those who believe, they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18).
Let us pray:
Dear God, we acknowledge your presence and ask that you will continue to guide and direct us. God, we know you as our protector, deliverer, guide, shield and healer. God, we declare that we need healing from hurts and pains. God, we need to be healed from disappointments and failures. God, we need to be healed from sickness and disease. We ask that you will prescribe the right medicine for our ailments. We also ask that you give us the strength to seek healing in our diets, actions, words, behavior and deeds. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Rev. Carey A. Grady is the pastor of Bethel AME Church in Indianapolis. He also has a blog entitled “Straight From the Heart.”You can register online at www.bethelcathedral.org.
