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Healing and Health
Dale M. Sides
While preparing to present a new class, Exercising Spiritual Authority over Sickness and Disease, I swung the pickax at an old familiar verse and hit a new vein of priceless, spiritual gold. The verse is a faithful, ol’ standby that every preacher everywhere uses at one time or another. It is 3 John 2.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. 3 John 2
It seems that my understanding (and that of the vast majority of the body of Christ) has been to render this verse as saying that God wants us to be healed. I don’t believe this is a proper interpretation. Even though He does want us to be healed, this verse says that one of His greatest desires is for us to be in health. Healing is a verb, and health is a noun. One (healing) is an action; the other (health) is a condition.
“Health” is the Greek word hugiaino, which is a passive verb indicating a state of being. It reflects a condition rather than action—the condition being one of wholeness and health. The Greek words for healing, therapeuo and iaomai, are also verbs, but they are action verbs. These words are not conditions, but actions that will contribute to, or determine, the resulting condition. God’s great desire is not just for us to receive healing, but to maintain that gift and see it cultivated into a healthy condition.
The difference between these two words, healing and health, is worth considering, especially since God so highly desires health (and prosperity) for us. Health, being a noun, is a continual state of well-being. It includes the aspects of spirit, soul, and body, and it is God’s great desire that we live that way—not just to receive a healing and then continue to need more gifts of healing in individual portions.
The subject of prosperity has been handled much the same. We have interpreted 3 John 2 to say that it is God’s will for us to receive more money rather than to continually live a good life and have a good journey, full of blessings and repeated successes. Prosperity is a noun and a condition, rather than a one-time action. God wants us to perpetually live in prosperity—not just to receive a little extra cash in the mail.
This subject of healing and health is very close to me in my ministry. The Lord, through a revelation dream over two years ago, told me that He was going to teach me things about healing in Holy Communion that would be a major blessing to the body of Christ. This has already begun to be fulfilled and is still ongoing. At the end of the revelation dream, He specifically said, “I want a healthy bride.” Time and again, in going back over the dream, I can distinctly remember Him saying that what He wanted was a healthy bride, not just one upon whom He must continually pour out healings.
It seems that Christianity (as well as the world) wants a continual flow of healings to be poured out by the Lord. If you ever want to see a non-Christian or even an agnostic or atheist pray, watch what they do when they get really sick. They will fall down on their knees and pray to God to remove the affliction and take away the pain. Do you think that maybe this could be one way God finds an opportunity to remind people that He is still God?
While praying over this subject recently, the Lord said to me, “Most Christians, and especially charismatic ones, want healing, but they do not have the discipline to maintain health.” Upon sharing this with my mentor and spiritual father Apostle John Kelly, he told me that the Lord had recently spoken to him on a similar vein and said, “I (the Lord) supply healing, you (My people) are supposed to supply the health.” What a word! What a revelation!
The Lord is continuing to distribute His grace and healings upon His people. I know this and am seeing continual manifestations of it almost daily. But, in addition to this, I believe He wants us to see that we must maintain a healthy environment in order for the healing to take root and flourish. In other words, we have a responsibility to give the Lord “good ground” in which to grow His crops.
Lately, as I have been teaching Exercising Spiritual Authority over Sickness and Disease, I have seen a number of really breathtaking miracles of God’s grace being delivered to His people. Throughout the classes, the Holy Spirit has worked to open people’s eyes to the truth that they need to repent for sins they have committed against their own bodies. I believe this is a major reason for the healings we have been seeing during these classes. They are beginning to realize that they have a responsibility to maintain their physical health so that the miraculous healings that the Lord imparts to them can stick. (I hope to be able to teach this class more and more so that you can attend one of these.)
I am in the process of outlining a new booklet entitled The Satanic Deception of Knife and Fork, which will serve as a sequel to Understanding & Breaking the Schemes of the Devil. This will show the deception and snare of the enemy against our bodies and how we have been fed lies (or at the very least we have not been fed the truth) about the responsibility we have to care for our physical tabernacles.
We all have the responsibility of stewarding our physical bodies as tabernacles of the Holy Spirit. The Christian church gasps in horror when they hear about Antiochus Epiphanes slaughtering a pig on the altar of the temple in Jerusalem in 168 BC, but are we not committing a similar desecration when we pollute our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, with impure food? Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 9:27 tell us to keep our bodies in subjection? This includes diet, rest, and exercise.
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. 1 Corinthians 9:27
What I have recently seen in ministering supernatural healing to people is amazing. When God’s people repent for the improper care of their bodies and commit to take positive actions so they may receive and facilitate the gift of healing that God will give, amazing numbers of healings will be manifested.
The Holy Spirit is our assigned Helper, and He will assist us. Has it ever occurred to you that He would help in the care and stewardship of your physical body? By giving you revelatory counsel, He is preparing you to receive the grace of God in supernatural manifestation. Maybe He will tell you to eat better or exhort you to learn more about improving your physical lifestyle. Regardless of what the Lord tells you to do, you are still responsible to obey and maintain health while God supplies the healing.
In closing, remember what I told you in the opening of this article: Health is a noun and a condition, as opposed to healing, which is a verb and a one-time action.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. 3 John 2
God, above all things, wants prosperity and health for you.
©2004 Liberating Ministries for Christ International, Inc.
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