The Power of the Word
All my life I had struggled with my health. Allergies and asthma were almost a daily happening. Mama and Daddy did everything they could, we tried allergy shots, distasteful medicine, breathing treatments and much prayer, too. On many nights, Daddy held me in the chair and prayed until we both fell asleep.

The church I was brought up in believed in the power of divine healing and praying for the sick. Responding to messages on healing was something I was used to doing. The only thing was that I was unsure of how to “get my healing.”

I thought I might feel it or if I begged and cried, God might come through for me. I became discouraged and just about gave up on the healing thing. At about the age sixteen, something happened that sparked a ray of hope.

One afternoon, my sisters and I sat down on our bed to listen to preacher on a cassette tape. Spellbound, we listened as he preached about the redemptive work of Christ on the cross.

I always believed in what Jesus did, but now I learned more. I found out how He was made to be a curse on the cross for us and that the curse Jesus broke included not only spiritual death, but also sickness.

That afternoon, my sisters and I started shouting when we understood how Jesus took that curse
for us on the cross and defeated Satan. He reclaimed the keys of authority and gave them to the Church (Matthew 18:18,19). Jesus gave us the authority and the right to use His name!

I have a part to play in receiving my healing.

This meant that I was free from the curse of asthma and it wasn’t God who was making me sick. The truth of John 10:10 dawned on me: “The thief (the devil) cometh not but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy: but I (Jesus) am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

I began to see that healing is something already purchased and provided for me by Jesus on the cross, and through faith I could receive it. I didn’t have to get it, but Jesus already got it for me. Thank God! That day I found out God sent His Word to heal me.

He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered from their destructions.
(Ps. 107:20)

I Have A Part To Play
That’s when I discovered that I have a part to play in receiving my healing. My faith seemed so small and I struggled so much, but now there was hope! Jesus said that the Word of God is a seed (Mark 4:3-20). A natural seed has to be planted and watered to cause it to begin to sprout and grow.

In the same way, the seed of divine healing can be planted in your heart by hearing and believing what the Bible says about it. Next, it must be watered by acknowledging it our loud through meditation and praise. When I understood that, I realized that the seed of God’s Word would grow to produce healing in my body.

Isaiah 53:4, 5 was especially liberating to me. I learned and became convinced that Jesus not only bore my sin, but also every sickness and pain. As I studied, I saw that when Jesus was whipped and wounded, He actually “lifted” every sickness and disease from humanity with every blow that He took.

Surely He has borne our grief’s (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.
(Isa. 53:4-5 AMP)

When Jesus took our sin and sickness, He bore them away and removed them. As our substitute, Jesus absorbed our griefs, sorrows, sickness, and pain. Galatians 3:13 says that Jesus actually became a curse for us on the cross. That led me to study what the curse of the law included. The curse is found in Deuteronomy 28 and lists every category of sickness and disease.

God’s plan of redemption included physical healing as well as spiritual and regeneration. In God’s mind, Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection was restoring man’s spirit, soul and body to wholeness.

Psalm 119:130 (NKJV) says, “The entrance of Your word gives light…” That’s exactly what was happening for me. I saw my asthma, along with emotional distress, being lifted off me 2,000 years ago when Jesus bore them on the cross.

I had a collection of healing scriptures and confessions that I would meditate on every day. Since breathing was such a struggle some nights, sitting up was the only way to get air. That’s when I would get those scriptures out. I would start at the beginning and go to the end, speaking them out loud and letting the image of divine healing be imprinted in my mind and heart!

It would take almost an hour, but relief would come. I would take my asthma medicine and then God’s medicine! Proverbs 4:20-22 says this about God’s Word: “My son (daughter), attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart form thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.”

I praised, I cried, I sang, I laughed, and I danced! I did my best to act on the Word. All the time the seed of faith for healing was growing.