A declaration is the act of speaking or pronouncing God’s word and will over a situation. It is an essential weapon to be used in spiritual warfare.   Jesus modeled that strategy in his showdown with Satan in the wilderness after fasting and praying for forty days.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.      “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 3:2-11

Satan tried to bait Jesus into engaging in a dialogue with him about his rights and privileges as the Son of God on earth. When Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be drawn into a conversation, they were out maneuvered and manipulated. Sin was the outcome. I don’t believe for a second that Satan could bested Jesus at anything but our Savior modeled a better strategy. He simply declared the word of God over each temptation.

The word of God has authority. When we declare God’s word over a situation, it first establishes His authority and, as his delegated representatives, our authority over the circumstance. If you watch any crime show on television, you know that when police show up at a house, they first have to identify themselves as officers of the law or authorized representatives of the law and then they will still need a warrant or probable cause to begin to exercise their authority. The Holy Spirit within us and the name of Jesus on our lips identify us as representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven. A declaration of God’s word demonstrates the extent of our authority over a situation and establishes that the enemy is in violation of God’s law. That violation gives us probable cause to exercise Christ’s authority and issue commands in his name. The enemy is not always a demon but may also be disease, poverty, conflict, etc.

Paul tells us that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph.6:17), which can function either as a defensive or offensive weapon. The word translated as sword in that passage is not a Roman sword or a broad sword but a dagger. Daggers are used when the fighting is close – hand to hand. So when the enemy closes in, it’s time to pull out the word of God and use it as a weapon. Solomon said, “Reckless words pierce like a sword (Prov.12:18). If the words of a man can pierce, how much more the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb.4:12). These passages suggest that the word of God declared over the enemy not only establishes authority but may inflict pain as well. When I was being schooled in deliverance, I used to minister with a man who had done deliverance for decades. On occasion, when a spirit was stubbornly hanging on, James would lay his Bible on the back of the person and the spirit would leave as if the word had afflicted the spirit in some way. That didn’t work for me, but it did for James. He probably had more faith in the effect of the Word than I did.

Another important aspect of declaring God’s word over a situation is that it helps to keep us aligned with the word of God. The enemy is skilled at twisting the truth and introducing doubt just as he did with Adam and Eve in the Garden. The tempter himself came to Jesus and tried to lure him into sin. With each temptation, Jesus answered with scripture – “It is written…” Not only was Jesus wielding the sword of the Spirit but he was keeping himself anchored in the truth of his Father’s words. Those words were true and had authority. For Jesus, that settled the matter and it should for us as well. Any lack of confidence on our part regarding our authority or the Lord’s authority in a matter seems to give the enemy a right or at least the ability to continue his assignment.

When ministering deliverance, we always want to establish our position and authority first by declaring the Word of God. We typically begin with a declaration that we are servants and sons of the Most High God who come in the name of Jesus who has all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt.28:18) and a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Phil.2:9-11). We also declare that the prince of this world has been condemned by Jesus (Jn.16:11), that we have been given power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy (Lk.10:19), and that no weapon formed against those who belong to the Lord will prosper (Isa.54:17).   We may declare similar things over sickness as well when we suspect a spirit is involved.

Our words establish both the Lord’s authority and our delegated authority over the enemy like an arrest warrant. They also remind us of who we are in Christ as we begin to deal with the enemy. In addition, these declarations establish the victory that is ours in Christ and remind the enemy that he too must bow the knee to Jesus. If Jesus used declarations of God’s word against the enemy then how much more should we? The word of God declared through our lips over people, nations, and circumstances is powerful and an indispensable part of spiritual warfare.

Paul instructed Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). This verse suggests that we are to know and wield the word of God as a craftsman or as one who expertly knows how to use the tools or weapons entrusted to us. Getting the word in us so that the Holy Spirit can pull up the word that we have stored in our hearts whenever the enemy shows up is critical. There is no substitute for time in the Word and the capacity to declare that word over temptation, weakness, or crisis. I’m concerned that too many believers today have substituted good books written by their favorite authors and YouTube sermons for Bible study. Books and sermons are great resources but the Word itself contains the power. Jesus said that his words are Spirit and life. We need all of both that we can get.

Easter is only days away. In a very real sense, Easter is the most significant day of all days for without the resurrection the entire life of Jesus would have been only a gesture of holy living and a presentation of philosophy of life. But, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: (Rom.1:4). In other words, it was the resurrection of Christ that established without doubt that he is the Son of God and that he will make good on every promise. Easter does not celebrate the cross but an empty tomb.

The account of the last hours of the life of Jesus is so significant that John gives Chapters 13-20 to those hours. While the other gospels race past the Lord’s Supper and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in two or three chapters, John slows the camera to a slow motion version of the story which essentially begins in an upper room where the twelve plus Jesus are gathered for Passover. Jesus expressed that he had longed to share that Passover meal with them. I find that hard to grasp because the conclusion of that meal would launch a brutal evening of betrayal, arrest, abandonment, abuse, perjury, beatings, and insults ending with being spiked to a rough hewn timber full of splinters and hoisted into the air to suffer for the next six hours and then to die.

Yet in the middle of the Passover seder, according to the other gospels, Jesus takes some of the unleavened bread that was commanded for the meal, breaks it, and hands it to the twelve saying that it represented his body which he was about to be given for them. He then took a cup of wine for them to sip and told them that the wine would represent the new covenant in his blood. He indicated that his followers were to take these elements on a regular basis until his return because by dong so they would remember him.

If I put myself in the shoes or rather sandals of the apostles, I think both of those statements would have been very confusing. I’m not sure that they yet grasped that this man who had walked on water and commanded storms would be killed in a few hours. Why eat broken bread to represent this physical body and what is this talk about a new covenant when so may of the prophets had already died defending the covenant God had given to Moses for Israel? After all, wasn’t that what Passover pointed to in the first place – the Exodus, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the Law?

I am convinced that most of us as followers of Jesus still do not fully understand the depths of communion which the Lord established at a simple Passover meal 2000 years ago. I’m certain I don’t and yet it was at the heart of the Christian church and their life together for centuries. The early church came together for fellowship and communion rather than preaching and elaborate praise services. They came together on the first day of the week to share a common meal (the agape meal) in which those who had plenty brought plenty to share with those who had little. That was a practical expression of “Love one another as I have loved you.” Then they would take bread and wine to remember the Lord’s sacrifice until his return.

For them, the cup of the New Covenant must have been a breath of fresh air – especially for the Jewish believers who were suddenly out from under the weight of the Law of Moses with its sacrifices and hundreds of laws defining every move of their lives. Covenants were often established by the shedding of innocent blood (animals) in those days and that was a familiar reference point for those believers. The bread that was broken to represent the body of Christ is more of a puzzle. Of course, it represents the physical suffering he went through for each of us but is there more?

Peter may give us some insight into the “more” of his broken body when he says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25, emphasis added). The Greek word that is translated “wounds” in this text speaks of the welts, the swelling, and the injuries that would come from a slave being beaten or whipped. That certainly describes the scourging that Jesus endured at the hands of the Romans.

Peter’s words were surely lifted from Isaiah’s writings when the prophet spoke of Messiah saying, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa.53:4).

Isaiah discussed two things that Messiah carried for us at his death – sin and sickness. Many modern translations make “diseases” into “sorrows” but the word consistently means disease or sickness or infirmity throughout the Bible. When one and a half million Israelites came out of Egypt the Bible tells us that no one of them was sick or lame because God’s grace had provided health and healing for the journey. One of the major marks of Christ’s ministry was healing. Through his Spirit he gives gifts of healing to the church and a special command to call for the elders of the church, if anyone is sick, for their prayer of faith and that prayer is promised to bring healing (James 5).

In modern times we have tended to confine the blessings of Christ’s death to the forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing. But God is interested not just in our spiritual life but also in our physical well-being. The wounds or the bruises of Jesus not only purchased our forgiveness but our healing. Because of contemporary theology, we tend to have faith for the forgiveness but not for the healing. David tied those two blessings together when he said, “Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all my benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psm. 103:2). In Matthew 9, we are told of a paralytic that Jesus healed. He began by telling him that his sins were forgiven. When the teachers of the law questioned his right to forgive sins, Jesus said, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk.’ He then healed the man. The link between forgiveness and healing is seen all through scripture so it should not surprise is that they are linked in the New Covenant as well.

As we take communion, we should reflect not only on the love of Christ demonstrated by the cross and the covenantal forgiveness we have in Jesus, but also the healing that has been purchased for us by his suffering as well. Each time you take the bread, you may want to receive healing in the name of Jesus as part of your inheritance for his world as well as celebrating your forgiveness. Blessings in this life as well as the life to come.

A dear friend of mine and our church died of cancer this week. She was (and is) a great woman of faith with an amazing family of faith. We all believed God for healing. She certainly believed God for healing. She, of course, has received ultimate healing in heaven but that is not what we prayed for. So what do we do when we stand on the scriptures, when we know others who have been healed, and when we believed God for healing but our loved one dies?

Often, our first thought is birthed by our disappointment. We may be disappointed in God or with ourselves. We may feel that God has let us down and didn’t keep his word or that somehow we weren’t enough or didn’t do enough to merit God’s healing for the one we had been praying for so earnestly. I know in moments like these I often default to those feelings and thoughts. It’s very human to do so but not very beneficial nor does it reflect the mind of Christ.

If no one was ever healed of cancer or if we believe that God does not heal today then we would simply write it off as something God doesn’t do. We would simply accept the individual’s death as inevitable and pray for a peaceful passing. But when we have seen people healed or, at least, believe that healing is still for today, we are left not only with the loss but also with a myriad of questions. Often those moments create a crisis of faith.

In the midst of loss, they’re a few things that I hang on to. First of all, I need to stand on what I do know rather than bowing to what I don’t know. I know that God is love. I know that he is good. I know that he is compassionate. I know that he is eternal and unchanging. I know that he is present because he has said he will never leave us or forsake us and, in fact, lives within us.

Whatever my questions are that may go unanswered I must frame my conclusions with the things I do know about the nature of God. If you wonder about who the Father is or what he is like you can look at Jesus. Jesus told Philip that if we have seen him, then we have seen the Father. In this life, believers must be willing to live with some mystery about God’s decisions, answered prayers, seemingly unanswered prayers, why some are healed and some aren’t, etc. God has an eternal perspective that we rarely have. Ultimately, our reward is heaven. As Christians we profess that we long to be in the presence of God. We profess that we are restless as we wait for the return of Jesus. We declare that all we want is to enter his presence and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And yet, when a loved one crosses the finish line earlier than we anticipated, we are often upset with God.

There comes a time when we must trust his goodness and his grace and even his judgment over our own. The hard part is navigating the waters of loss when we have believed God for healing without taking offense at God or ourselves. We sometime assume that the loss of our loved one was punishment for something we did or didn’t do. There are times when illness is a result of unrepented sin on the part of the one who is ill but repentance opens up the pathway for healing again. In addition, a scan of the gospels reveals that healing was always about grace rather than merit anyway. Jesus healed some godly people but he also healed many ungodly people. He healed some with great faith and some who had no idea who he was. At times he healed every person in the crowd but at the Pool of Bethsaida he healed only one. Our reasoning finds it hard to explain God’s choices and so faith trusts his nature and his character and believes that all of his choices are grounded in love and compassion. We then give thanks for the time we had with the person we are grieving for and trust God for the future. There are simply some things we don’t know.

The truth is that, as believers, we will see that person again if he or she was also in Christ. For them, the separation will only feel like minutes. Not only that but our loved one is now immersed in perfect health and indescribable joy. We grieve for ourselves and if we let him, God will fill the void with his love and with the love of others he has placed in our lives for moments like this.

As the saying goes, “No one gets out of this world alive…unless the Lord returns.” Death was not God’s doing. Adam and Eve chose it when they chose rebellion. It is now a part of every life and we must trust God with it. The contemporary church is just beginning to embrace the reality of healing again and there is much we still don’t understand.

So again, we need to stand on what we do know rather than bowing to what we don’t know. God has a heart for healing. It is his nature for he said, “I am the God who heals you.” If healing were not in his heart, he would not have given gifts of healing to the church nor would Jesus have made that a touchstone of his ministry. So why are so many not healed? I think the problem is on our end, not his and so we must continue to pray for healing while we learn more of God’s ways regarding that.

The loss of a loved one to sickness can have two effects. We may become discouraged and decide that God does not answer our prayers for healing and so we never ask again or we can determine to press in harder for more faith, greater understanding, and the biblical standard of healing. I have determined to go with the second option and I hope you will too. I have seen many healed. I have also seen many godly people who were not healed. But I am also confident that we will continue to see an increase in healing in the church in the days ahead and an increase in the expectation of healing until we are perplexed when someone is not healed rather than being surprised when they are. Be blessed in him to day and if you are in need of his grace may the God of all comfort and compassion, comfort you in all of your troubles (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Ezekiel 37:1-10

There is an expression among some of our contemporary prophets that “prophetic words don’t tell the future, they create the future.” That may sound arrogant, but not if you understand how God has determined to do his work in this world through his people. Ezekiel is a prime example and the familiar story above illustrates the principle. In a vision, God took Ezekiel to a valley that had probably been the sight of a large military battle. The dead were not buried but simply left where they fell. They had been there a very long time and the elements had stripped away everything but the bones. In the story, God is illustrating what he plans to do with Israel, which by all measures has become spiritually dead.

God could have easily set Ezekiel on a high cliff overlooking the valley so that he could have watched God’s handiwork from afar and reported what he saw. Instead, God made him a vital part of the process. God had already determined what he wanted to do but, once again, would not do it until one of his prophets declared his intentions. It’s as if God is always ready to run a race and will always win, but he will not leave the starting blocks until one his people fires the starting gun. Our words are the starting gun. God told him the words he was to declare, but would not act until Ezekiel was obedient to declare the word of the Lord over the situation. As he did, the Spirit of God began to move and amazing things happened. Where there was once despair, hope emerged. Where there was only death, life appeared. In what was once a sight of defeat and desolation, an army stood.

Remember God’s word to Jeremiah as he called the young man to be a prophet. “Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer.1:9-10). God’s method is to put his words in the mouths of his people and when they declare that word, he will empower his words to create the very thing that is decreed. God’s original intent was to rule the earth through his representatives to whom he had given authority over the works of his hands (Ps.8). I believe God honors that intent by waiting on those to whom he has given authority to release the word over their rightful dominion before he acts.

Since the Spirit of God lives within every believer, every believer can hear the voice of God speaking to him or her. One of our prime directives should be to listen to God intently to discover the very things he wants us to pray or declare or command over a given situation. We have been taught that prayer is our opportunity to persuade God to do what we want him to do. There is probably a time for that but I’m convinced that the rule of thumb is that we have been placed here to declare the words he puts in our mouths and on our hearts. Jesus is our example and he clearly stated that he only did what he saw the Father doing and only spoke what he heard the Father saying. When we do that, we can have absolute faith that our prayers will be answered.

That doesn’t mean that we never initiate a need or a concern. But after having laid our concern or a crisis before the throne, the best approach would then be to ask the Father how he wants us to pray or what he wants us to say over that situation. I must confess that too often I act as if God is there to represent my interests rather than me being here to represent his.

The truth is that we approach just about every situation or need with a very limited view of all the issues and variables that will affect the outcome. We have no idea of what will transpire six months from the time we decide what should be done in a situation. We usually pray for the easiest road rather than the most beneficial road. We have a very short-term view of life rather than the eternal perspective of the God who has no beginning and no end. It stands to reason then that what he would have us do, pray, or declare would be very superior to what we would try to convince him to do.

All of this is why it is so critical for us to learn to hear the Father and to take time to do so on a daily basis. When he puts his words in our mouth, our prayers and declarations can change entire nations. How much more can they affect the individuals and smaller issues most of us deal with? Paul taught us that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom.8:14). So what does it mean to be led by the Spirit of God? It simply means that we do and say what the Spirit directs us to do and he tells us what he hears the Father saying. That is what makes us sons and daughters of God. You have heard the expression, “like father, like son.” A true son reflects the father in his words, actions, and motives. A father can be seen in a true son so when we pray or declare what the Father gives us, then we are most like him and accurately represent him on the earth. Let’s listen for him before we pray or declare. It is the way of the prophets and the Son and should be our way as well.

Life without a real sense of purpose is miserable. When I was in my twenties I had already begun to feel the angst of not knowing what my life should be about. Career and love were big on the agenda of a twenty year old but I had no compelling reason to choose one career path over another and my quest for love wasn’t working out. Work wasn’t fulfilling because I was just working to pay the bills and not making enough to chase recreational pursuits or travel the world. Besides, God had wired me in such a way that “meaning” was a central issue in my life and I wasn’t finding real meaning in anything. As a result, I started fighting depression at a time when life should have seemed full of possibilities.

I think the world is full of people who don’t sense any purpose to their lives beyond the day-to-day essentials of life and maintaining the duties of marriage. Even materialism is an effort to find some meaning in a life that has no sense of value or purpose beyond the temporary rush of the new purchase. People drift from relationship to relationship, job to job, and fad to fad trying to find something beyond themselves to give their lives a greater sense of significance.

My sense of purpose finally came through a relationship with Jesus. The realization that God had established a destiny for me was intriguing but still vague in my early years as a believer. It was later when I began to delve into studies on my temperament and spiritual gifts that I started making the connections. Psalm 139 was especially helpful to me. David declared, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps.139:13-16).

As I studied the Psalm, I recognized that God had a very intentional hand in my creation. At the point of conception, he seemed to have shaped me according to his purpose. In fact, he had apparently laid out a plan for my life before I was ever born. I have a choice as to whether or not I cooperate with his plan, but a sense of destiny was forming in me. The question still remained, however, as to how I could discover that destiny so that I could cooperate with God in my life’s plan.

The Apostle Paul added another very significant layer to discovering my purpose in his letter to the Ephesians. He wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.2:10). The idea of being God’s workmanship echoed Psalm 139 as he had a hand in developing who I was and what I would be doing. That thought then connected with “good works” which God had prepared in advance for me to do. My destiny did not just lie in being saved and going to heaven one day but in the realization that God has intentionally created me with specific purposes in mind.

If God had laid out good works he wanted me to accomplish, then he would have surely designed and equipped me to accomplish those works with some measure of excellence. My temperament and my abilities would both contribute to my capacity to do what God had called me to do. The additional layer of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes then became a final clue. A number of temperament profiles exist today to help you understand your “wiring” and with those profiles you can discover a list of career paths toward which those temperaments gravitate. Add to that an awareness of spiritual gifts and you can begin to sense the kinds of life focus you have been designed for. One of the notions that we need to jettison is that careers in the market place are unspiritual while only church related ministries are spiritual. God wants to plant his people in every corner of society in order to reach people who are not attending anyone’s church and to spread the influence of kingdom values in those pockets of culture. Spiritual fruit must be sown outside the church walls and he has designed most of us to do that.

Other general indicators of “your call” are simple.  Has God placed a desire in your heart to do something or to operate in some spiritual gift? Do you find certain things that you do uniquely fulfilling even when it doesn’t place you in the spotlight or massage your ego? Have people told you that you made a difference in their life in a way that drew them closer to Jesus or allowed them to experience God’s grace? Do some things seem easy and intuitive for you while other things just don’t “compute?” Sometimes we keep trying to shore up the areas in which we are weak rather than pursuing and developing the areas in which we can flourish because God created us for those things. Sometimes we are trying to fulfill someone else’s call on our life and pursue those things in order to please a parent or another influential person in our life when God has not created us for those things as well. Frustration and an unfulfilling life is the outcome of that.

When I was in high school and early college, the question was always, “What do you want to do with your life?” Honestly, I didn’t have enough wisdom or life experience to even answer that question. The better question would have been. “What do you think God has created you to do?” You can not always know exactly what God is calling you to do because he will open doors for specific opportunities as you go, but you can discover the direction of your life that he has ordained for you by becoming aware of your temperament (wiring), your gifts, your desires, and those things that intuitively makes sense to you.

I believe we live in a world that has no sense of eternal destiny or purpose but is swimming in a sea of uncertainty trying to find personal significance. Purpose is everything. It makes us part of something bigger than ourselves. It attaches us to others who have a passion for the same purpose. It makes even the small things that contribute to your purpose significant. The ultimate questions for every individual is whether or not they matter and whether or not what they do matters. Purpose answers that and a knowledge that God has established your purpose with eternal dimensions is even more significant.

Helping your children discover who God has made them to be and how to walk that out would be one of the greatest gifts you could ever give them. Discovering that for yourself would be a tremendous gift for you as well. I hope you are clear on the call God has placed on your life or will begin to search for it if you have not yet discovered those things he has crafted you for and established for you even before the creation of the world. Blessings in Him.

One of the great healing evangelists of the early 20^th Century was John G. Lake. In his lifetime he established hundreds of churches in North America and Africa and healed hundreds of thousands. In 1910, he and his family believed that God had called them to Africa to preach the gospel. As they landed on African soil a plague was destroying the country. In less than a month, a quarter of the population had died in one large region. The plague was so contagious that the government was offering $1000 to any nurse who would go there and care for the sick. That was a lot of money in 1910. John Lake and his assistants went to help without charging anything.

He and an assistant would go into homes, carry out the dead and bury them, without ever displaying any symptoms of the plague. When asked by one doctor what he was doing to protect himself he simply stated that as long as he stayed closely connected to God with the life of the Spirit flowing though him, no germ could ever attach itself to him. In an experiment, the doctor took foam from the lungs of a patient who had recently died of the plague and placed it under a microscope. The foam was alive with germs. They then placed some of the foam in Lake’s hand. As the doctor watched through the microscope, the germs died almost instantly as they touched Lake’s skin. By the time Lake and his family returned to America, after five years in Africa, he and his ministry had trained 1,250 preachers, planted 625 congregations, and brought 100,000 men and women to Christ.

At one point in his ministry he moved to Spokane, Washington and established “healing rooms” in an old office building. Historians estimate that some one hundred thousand confirmed healings occurred there. There was so much interest in his ministry and the healings that occurred that local newspapers and the Better Business Bureau investigated his claims and determined that not only were the healings legitimate but that they had not heard half of what the Lord had done through those ministries.

Lake was totally convinced that all disease and disability was from the devil. He hated disease and death with a passion and believed that God did as well. Because of that he never doubted God’s willingness to heal those he prayed for. Was everyone healed? Not everyone, but hundreds of thousands were including late stage cancer victims, paralytics, plague victims, epileptics, and so forth.

There is much more to the story of John G. Lake. He certainly wasn’t perfect but the good news is that God can use imperfect people to do incredible things when they are passionate for God and the kingdom. The second point is that the power of the Holy Spirit makes a huge difference in the fruit that a person or a church can bear for Jesus. Those who want to live for Christ without the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of prophecy, healing, tongues, miracles, and so forth can do so, but will not impact the world as much as those who minister with the gifts. If the gifts are not needed for world-changing ministry then the first century church had no need for them either. However, God chose to equip the church with power on the Day of Pentecost so they could be effective witnesses for Jesus throughout the world.   John G. Lake simply followed in the footsteps of those he read about in the Book of Acts.

One resident of Spokane said, “Dr. Lake came to Spokane.   He found us in sin. He found us in sickness. He found us in poverty of spirit. He found us in despair. But he revealed to us such a Christ as we had never dreamed of knowing this side of heaven. We thought the victory was over there, but Dr. Lake revealed to us that victory was here.”

That would be a worthy prayer for all of us – that God would enable us to impact the world around us in the same way whether a community, a circle of business associates, or simply our family. God is waiting for the next John G. Lake. Maybe it could be you…or me. He simply needs a surrendered heart.

(Much of the biographical material referenced in this article is from God’s Generals by Roberts Liardon.)

For the word of God is living and active. Hebrews 4:12

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. John 6:63

The two verses above speak of God’s word. The Hebrew passage describes it as living and active. The Greek word translated as “living” means that it contains its own vitality. It is as much alive as humans or animals or plants. The fact that it is living in the same way suggests that it grows and bears fruit. It reproduces. The parable of the soils that Jesus told likened the word of God to seed that would bear tremendous fruit if planted in the right soil.

The Greek word that is translated “active” means more than just moving around or animation. It is a word that means something surging with energy is at work and having effect. It indicates that something alive and powerful is accomplishing a divine purpose in the supernatural realm. This definition takes the word of God for beyond information to be digested or principles for living to be learned and incorporated as a philosophy of life. While we study the word, incorporate its principles, and quote scripture, we can be sure that something is at work in the unseen realm that is accomplishing something we may or may not even be aware of.

The second verse from above was spoken by Jesus and adds to our understanding. Jesus declared that his words were spirit and they were life. What does it mean that his words were spirit? I believe they were spirit in two senses. First of all, his words originated in the spiritual realm. While on earth, Jesus still operated as a citizen of heaven whose perspective was always anchored in the spiritual realm. In addition, he said that he spoke only what he heard his Father saying. To his disciples he said, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (Jhn.14:10). His words flowed from the spiritual realm to the natural realm, not the other way around.    That is why they possessed power. Secondly, they came to him from the Father via the Holy Spirit. Jesus had just declared that the Spirit gives life. As they came from the Father through the Spirit they were infused with the life-giving power of the Spirit so that when they went out they fulfilled their purpose.

That is how the word of God becomes living and active (Heb.4:12). As they are broadcast they are infused with spiritual power by the Spirit of God. As a result, the words of Jesus created life in various forms. For some it was spiritual life. Men were born again in response to the gospel. For others it was physical life. Thousands were healed and physically restored and many were literally raised from the dead. For others, emotional life was imparted to them as broken hearts were healed. And for even more, life was restored as men and women were set free from bondage to demons and addictions. His words imparted life because his words carried authority and were infused with power. The words that created the universe demonstrated that dynamic in the very beginning.

But what about today? How is the word activated? There is life in a seed – enough to grow a giant redwood – but that life is not manifested until it is planted and watered. The word of God rests on the pages of a Bible or in the heart of a believer. It may do a work in the believer but not in the world that surrounds the believer until it is activated. It is activated when it is spoken with faith. Throughout scripture, God deposited his word in the heart of his prophets and empowered those words when they were proclaimed. Moses declared each plague before Pharaoh and then God produced each one. He put his words in the mouth of Jeremiah and as Jeremiah declared that word over nations, those words came to pass. I have heard today’s prophets put it this way –   prophetic words don’t tell the future they create it.

God’s word is filled with power and purpose. When we pray it or declare it, those words go forth alive and energized by the Spirit to produce life. When we speak healing, hope, provision, or peace over a person, we should believe by faith that something is going to happen because the word has been activated and is filled with energy and purpose. The word is the sword of the Spirit and when we speak the word of God we are wielding that sword.

Read the word, hear the word, pray the word, and declare the word. When we partner with God, he will honor his word. What situation do you need to be declaring the word of God over right now? Find your scripture and activate it in your life or in the life of someone you know.

And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:11

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Ephesians 6:11

The two scriptures above and others clearly state that Satan schemes against God’s people. According to Strong, the Greek word translated as schemes means, “machinations or (in military terms) attacks against which one must be armed. The nature of the attacks (the plural suggests that they are constantly repeated or are of incalculable variety) constitutes their great danger, against which the armor of God is the only defense. They are distinguished not so much by technique or strategy as by refinement and insidiousness.”

Strong’s definition is much longer than that but, in summary, it tells us that Satan attacks us repeatedly with strategies designed to move us away from God and into vulnerable positions where he can have greater access to us. These strategies are not typically frontal assaults but are more often insidious and very calculated moves that are subtle enough that we might not notice what is going on. It’s not that Satan never uses frontal assaults but when he does we usually recognize those for what they are and begin to pray against the attack and ask others to join us. The more insidious attacks are subtle and move us inch by inch away from the Lord until we find ourselves further away from God and deeper in enemy territory that we thought was possible.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10 that we are to take every thought captive to Jesus Christ. The reason for that extreme position is that Satan attacks us through our thoughts and it is in subtle moments that we begin to doubt God or to compromise with the culture around us. Satan simply plants seeds of doubt and compromise and then waters them over weeks and months and even years.

In the midst of a crisis, the question guided by faith is always, “How is God working in this crisis to deliver me.” Faith is convinced that God is already moving and is simply interested in detecting his strategy. The enemy changes that questions to, “Will God deliver me from this crisis?” which introduces the possibility that he won’t. That possibility then raises other questions of whether God cares or loves me or whether he even has power to protect me. When we start going there, we are in trouble.

The most effective lies are attached to truth. The fact that part of what was said is obviously true lends credibility to the part you weren’t so sure about. The lies that the enemy tells are usually progressive in nature and test our character and motives from different angles. The wilderness temptation of Jesus is an illustration.

In Luke 4, we are told that after his baptism, Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and prayer. At the end of that time, when Jesus was hungry, tired, and vulnerable Satan came to tempt him. He began with a challenge. “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Satan appealed to pride, hunger, and self-sufficiency in this one little challenge. So…you think you are the Son of God? Prove it. That appealed to pride. Secondly, he focused on a legitimate need (food) but suggested that Jesus use his power and authority for his own benefit and without the direction of the Father. Satan will always point us to legitimate needs but ask us to meet those needs in ways that exclude God from the process or that violate his standards. Adam and Eve went after wisdom – a good thing – but used a tree as the source rather than God. Self-sufficiency rather than God-sufficiency is always where Satan is pointing us. He doesn’t point us to things that are impossible without God but things we can do in our own strength. Jesus was fully able to turn the rock into bread but submitted to God’s provision and timing rather than his own.

The second temptation was similar. Satan knew that Jesus had come into the world to re-establish the kingdom of God and to reign as king. Knowing the God-given goal of Jesus, he offered him a shortcut that would avoid the dirty business of the cross. In so many words, Satan said, “If you worship me, I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. You can have a crown without a cross. After all, isn’t that what you came for?” Isn’t that what the world constantly offers – short cuts to success, weight loss without self-discipline, sex without the commitments of marriage, etc. God is in the business of building character along the way and preparing his people to wear a crown. Satan always whispers that the wait is too long and the cost is unfair. Short cuts at any level usually get us into deep trouble. Satan always promotes “the end justifies the means” thinking.

The third temptation included a scripture quote. In essence he told Jesus, “God has promised in his word that he will protect you, so jump off the tower and make him prove his love and faithfulness.” Satan’s great strategy against those who love God and his word is to highlight one Bible truth as if it is the only truth. For instance, John tells us that God is love. Some church leaders have recently reasoned that since God is love, he would never send anyone to hell. They ignore the balancing truth that God is also holy and just. Others have found the scriptures that emphasize God’s love and acceptance of those he loves. Therefore, they reason that he accepts us just the way we are. That reasoning leads to the idea that he not only accepts us but our lifestyles. There is some truth in that. God accepts us as we are but does not accept the sin in our lives and so he gets busy calling us to repentance and freeing us from our bondage to sin. An unbalanced view of scripture leaves us in bondage to sins and moves the church toward a dangerous compromise with the culture.

Each of the three temptations contained truth. Jesus was the Son of God and he had a legitimate need that he could meet on his own. All the kingdoms of the world did belong to Satan and he could give them to whomever he chose. God had promised to protect his Son from harm through the protection of angels. But Jesus countered with the balance of truth and refused to fall into the devil’s trap.

In Paul’s statement to the Corinthian church mentioning the schemes of Satan, he suggested that our unwillingness to forgive is one of his primary schemes. Satan is always quick to provide a justification for refusing to forgive. They don’t deserve it. They haven’t really repented. They haven’t asked for forgiveness. Justice requires that they pay for what they did. You name it. He will probably attach some fragment of biblical truth to each of those justifications but the truth is that God has commanded us to forgive in spite of any of those reasons. To refuse to forgive, gives Satan open access to us and our families through the open door of disobedience and unrepented sin.

The point is that the schemes of Satan are usually subtle efforts to skew our thinking, to sow compromise and doubt, and to draw us away from God’s truth even through the misuse of scripture. Our first defense is the Holy Spirit who has promised to lead us into all truth. We should ask him on a regular basis to do so and to reveal to us any areas in which we are beginning to lean toward a lie. We should also examine our actions on a regular basis to see if our actions are lining up with the word and the character of God. Misplaced actions are clear evidence of misplaced thinking. Since Satan often works in subtle, inch-by-inch ways we need to notice when we are moving our boundaries a little to fit in with cultural values rather than keeping scripture as the standard. We need to notice when sin no longer offends and almost becomes normative in our thinking so that we would be surprised to find that God is offended by what we entertain on a regular basis.

When all hell breaks loose in our life, we know who it is and start arming ourselves and gathering other warriors. The fight can still be fierce and we may still be wounded. But, perhaps, the greater threats are the little, barely noticeable things like one drop of arsenic in your coffee each day – hardly noticeable until the accumulation is life threatening. Watch the little things…the insidious schemes and you will also be ready for the frontal assaults. Blessings.

As followers of Jesus, most of us have opportunities to pray for the sick or the disabled on a regular basis. If you are in any kind of a small group that is almost certainly the case. It is rare when we don’t know someone with cancer or some other life threatening disease these days as well. If you are like me, you long for a gift of healing in the church that would consistently banish disease with the simple words “Be healed in the name of Jesus.” The truth is, however, that the majority of believers who have prayed for the sick have not seen miraculous or convincing healings in response to their own prayers. As a result, they have begun to shy away from praying for anything more than a cold that will go away on it’s own anyway in a week or two.

One of the things we have been discovering over the past few years is that the best approach to healing prayer is typically not just jumping in and beginning to pray. In the spiritual realm, there are things that can block or greatly hinder healing and if they are not dealt with, the healing won’t occur or the symptoms will soon return. Taking a few minutes to talk about possible roots of the condition can increase the probability of healing significantly. Those who serve in deliverance ministries understand the concept when it come to demons but often forget the principles when praying for healing.

In deliverance ministries, we typically do some kind of interview to determine if a person is saved, if they have faith, if they have not forgiven others, or if some unrepented sin or some trauma has given the enemy a legal right to afflict the person. We would rarely try to minister deliverance without leading them through prayers of forgiveness or repentance or without breaking curses generated by the sins of their fathers or words spoken over them by others. The same process is a “best practice” before praying for healing.

One of the reasons for that approach is that demonic spirits are often involved in the illness or disability of an individual. Think about how many cases of back problems, blindness, deafness, muteness, and even seizures Jesus cured by first casting out a demon. Even secular doctors agree that about 80% of illnesses and conditions are rooted in unhealthy emotions. Fear, anxiety, worry, resentment, bitterness, etc. all promote high blood pressure, heart disease, suppressed immune systems and so forth. Those then lead to disease. Unclean spirits are experts at promoting unhealthy emotions. At a healing conference where Bill Johnson was speaking, I remember him saying that a very high percentage of the people they had healed first needed a spirit of infirmity cast out. If we simply go straight to praying for healing we may miss all those contributors.

For example, on several occasions, Jesus made a point of forgiving a man before healing him. That parallels Psalm 103:3 where David declares, “Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps. 103:2-3). Unrepented sin is an open door to disease. When those sins are forgiven that door is shut and another door is opened to healing. Under the New Covenant, God declares that if we do not forgive those who have sinned against us, then he will not forgive ours sins. Unforgiveness, then, becomes a real hindrance to healing. Other spiritual issues can block or hinder healing in the same way.

We just finished another Freedom Weekend in which we spend the morning asking the Lord to heal emotional wounds in each individual. We then spend the afternoon ministering deliverance to all the attendees. About two years ago we began to finish the day by casting out spirits of infirmity and trauma. We have begun to experience a number of significant healings at each Freedom Weekend – typically at the end of the day. Bad backs, painful knees, stomach problems, vision problems, arthritis, deaf ears, skin disorders, etc. have become common place healings because we have dealt with the spiritual roots of these conditions before we finally pray for healing. Many of those healed have suffered from the conditions for decades and have been to doctors over and over without solutions.

I believe that if we would take the time to address spiritual issues that have led to the condition or that support the condition, our healing rates would be significantly higher. As we have better outcomes for our prayers, our faith will grow and we will see even more healings. Not only would those we pray for be better off physically but also emotionally and spiritually because we took our time to help them clean up things that have hindered their relationship with the Lord. Let me encourage you to minister forgiveness and freedom even before you pray for healing so that nothing can get in the way of what God already wants to do for his people. As you see people healed, you will be encouraged to pray for others rather than standing back in order to avoid another disappointment. Blessings in Him.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Isaiah 61:1-2

The text above is one of the most famous Messianic prophecies in scripture. We know that it was a passage looking ahead to the ministry of Jesus because Jesus said as much in Luke 4. If Jesus were crafting a “mission statement” for his non-profit that passage would be it. If you reflect just a bit, you will recognize that those verses summarize his three-year ministry to Israel.

For three years Jesus preached the good news of the Kingdom of God to the oppressed. Some translations say that Jesus preached to the poor but the better translation from the Hebrew is the “afflicted” or “oppressed.” The language harkens back to the Hebrews in Egyptian bondage and the days of Moses. In the days of Jesus, the Jews found themselves under the merciless boot of Rome. Under the power of Rome they were certainly afflicted and oppressed. That was true, not only in a political sense, but spiritually they were in the same boat. Not only were they in bondage to sin but the legalism of the Law as interpreted by the Pharisees and Levites was just as crushing. Speaking of the religious establishment, Jesus said, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger” (Mt.23:4). Peter called the Law a “yoke of bondage” (Acts 15:9). The preaching of the Kingdom of God and the grace God had for his people must have been a breath of fresh air. In contrast to the hundreds of laws the Jews had generated for God’s people, Jesus boiled it down to loving God and loving others. He said that the works of God were simply to believe on him. So Jesus came preaching the good news of God’s grace and mercy.

In addition, Jesus declared that his purpose was to bind up the brokenhearted. In other words, he came to heal broken hearts or bring emotional healing to people who were crippled by emotional trauma and shattered identities. It is amazing how many believers are still in bondage to past experiences that painted them as worthless, insignificant, and as orphans – someone that nobody wants. Jesus brought a different message calling us sons and daughters of God as well as friends of the King of Kings. He declared our worth and significance in the heart of God and the cross put the exclamation point on our value in the kingdom of heaven.

The third part of his mission statement, in general, was to set captives free. The idea was to release men by the power of the cross from bondage – bondage to sin, to disease, to infirmity, to fear, to addictions, and to the devil. When he referenced bondage, he spoke of two groups – prisoners who were in bondage due to their own choices and captives who were ambushed by the sins of others and the devil. Jesus came to liberate both.

Jesus delivered on his mission statement throughout his ministry. Everywhere he went he preached the good news, healed the sick, cast out demons, cleansed the lepers, and raised the dead. He loved the sinner and the “down and out” people of this world and his unconditional love as well as power transformed people like Mary Magdalene who at one time had seven demons and was, perhaps, a prostitute. Through God’s touch, she was no longer a woman tormented by sin and demons but was honored by being the first to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection.

The pattern of preaching the good news, loving people, healing the sick and the brokenhearted, casting out demons, and raising the dead was carried on by the twelve, then by seventy-two others he sent out, and then by the church who was given spiritual gifts so that they could continue to do what Jesus did.

The point is that it took all of that to enable most people to live effectively for Jesus and to experience the abundant life that Jesus promised. What most people get today from the body of Christ is a salvation message and a little love from time to time. But their hearts are not effectively healed, they are not set free from sickness and infirmity, and they are not set free from demonic affliction. In many settings, the church is saved but still crippled. Due to the church’s inability to help set people free, many are sent out from the church to see secular doctors and therapists or “Christian counselors” who have only been equipped with the weapons and strategies of the world. They have little to no training in the use of divine weapons and are often powerless against the schemes of the devil.

My Bible says that the world should be coming to the church for solutions because we have the Holy Spirit who possesses all wisdom, creativity, and power. If we ever have to look to the world to fulfill the mission statement of Jesus, something is very wrong and something is very missing. Freedom ministries are beginning to take root in churches where people are finding freedom, healing, and truly transformed lives but the percentage of churches that minister at that level is very small. And yet, that kind of ministry should be as much a core of the church as evangelism, Bible study, and giving to the poor. That was the core of Christ’s ministry and he expects us to do what he did when he modeled the redeemed life on this planet.

I hope that if your church doesn’t have a “freedom ministry” of some kind where people find healing and freedom through the Holy Spirit, that you will pray about such a ministry and visit with your leadership about it. Many churches that have these well-developed ministries are glad to train and help other churches find their own expression of Christ’s mission statement. If the church is going to walk in the power and glory of God, her people cannot continue to be crippled by emotional wounds, lingering illnesses that never find a cure, and demonic oppression. That doesn’t look like “on earth as it is in heaven.” May every church be more committed to reproducing what Jesus did in the power of the Spirit rather than offering the world the best than we can do in the strength of men.