The way the Charismatic church preaches healing is spiritually devastating and falsely puts the sick person's
trust in revelation and in the men giving the revelation, instead of putting their trust and focus on our Lord Jesus Christ. As a Charismatic believer, I am deeply grieved by what I have seen in the church towards our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are sick.
Beneath all of the window dressing,
healing ministries teach that healing is received by obtaining
knowledge or revelation. If you are lucky, you might get one prayer out
of a minister before they start to pile on the "how to be
healed" homework. This is when the healing minister sends you a
video, a book or invites you to come to one of their "training
and equipping" classes. In these classes they will tell you all
the reasons why you should be healed, yet they are unable to
demonstrate it.
Charismatic healing ministers teach
people these 4 basic “truths”:
- It is always God's will to heal.
- We have all power and all authority to heal the sick.
- Healing is always today. There is no delay nor waiting.
- It is part of the atonement. God said, "yes" to your healing 2000 years ago.
These are the basics of healing you
will find in every Charismatic church or every healing book you read.
It's all the same, but repackaged, renamed or "rediscovered"
year after year after year.
Now there are generally two different
camps or viewpoints when it comes to receiving healing in the
Charismatic.
The first camp are those who preach a
hyper-grace/Finished Work healing methodology. They say that you were healed 2000 years ago, but now you need to believe it in
order to receive it. They will say things like, "Healing is
already done in the spirit, but now we need to bring it into your
reality". There will always be some variety on that theme
because they have to explain why Christians are still sick despite it being "finished" at the Cross. They will
have you focus on your identity in Christ and other related teachings
where knowing “who you are” is the most important thing. Those
who get healed by the grace of God are then seen as more spiritual
sons of God than those who remain sick.
The other camp are those who believe
there is a root cause for why you got sick in the first place. This
camp says you need to discover that root cause in order to "close
the door" that the enemy has used to gain entry. These people
believe in breaking curses, believe that your words have intrinsic
power to create or destroy and will usually make you repent for sins
you may have never done or have
already repented of and no longer partake in. This particular camp
loves to get you to open up to them in order to dig into your life to
find the root. These things then can be used against you to
manipulate and control you.
Both schools of thought about receiving healing
are destructive to the spiritual well being of the sick in the church.
Healing ministers teach a very impersonal God who desires His children to partake in a works
based healing theology that requires one to rehearse phrases, repent
of sins already repented of and other strange superstitious and
ritualistic behavior. For instance, I heard with my own ears a
popular "Identity" and "street healing" minister tell a stroke victim to
“stop saying my stroke, but instead just say, the stroke”.
The main reason why all of these
ministers teach that healing is received by special revelation is
because they are the ones who claim to have all power and authority,
that it is always God's will to heal and that healing is part of the
atonement. They need EXCUSES as to why people who come to
them are not healed.
Some ministers like Todd White and Dan
Mohler will say something like, “We are growing in this guys. There is
something we're not seeing. If we had the revelation, all would be healed”.
This is total garbage and offers the sick person absolutely no solid foundation to stand upon! Now instead of having people continue to look to Jesus Christ and trust in Him, we send the sick and those wanting to pray for the sick on a revelation fishing expedition.
Teachings like
this make God impersonal. They paint God as someone who is waiting around until man figures out some secret revelation in order to begin healing His children.
Ministers like Todd White and Dan Mohler betray their own basic healing truths. If God's
will is always healing and we have all authority and power to heal
and there is no timing on His part and it is part of the
atonement, then healing should have happened. Period! Yet this is why hidden behind the "basic truths" these ministers preach, is a never ending journey of discovering more revelation or looking for answers. This is why sick people go from person to person, book to book and conference to conference because they have been sold the lie that in order to be healed they need to find the revelation.
These
ministers REFUSE to go back to the Word of God and re-evaluate what
they believe. They continue to make up new revelations and come up with answers
that are unbiblical and foolish. They set sick people up to become disillusioned and often times many leave the faith.
When a person is not healed, the
healing ministries are suggesting (directly or indirectly) that
something is wrong that needs discovered and fixed. One minister I
used to follow even says, "The deficiency is never with God",
which is suggesting not only that a deficiency exists, but that it is
the sick person's fault.
When you look at both schools of
thought, do you notice a common trend? It is man-based and it is
self-based. It is all about preaching new revelation as a means to
see healing or to see more people healed. It is a Gnostic view of
healing that can be found in the New Age movement.
These teachings put sick people at odds
with God and suggest that God is withholding healing because they
aren't quite figuring out the atonement or the root cause. These
healing theologies cause the sick to learn not to trust God in their
sicknesses, but instead is telling them to trust in themselves, their
doctrine or the minister who is teaching them healing. Sick people
are constantly looking for answers or for other people to give them
answers and this is how deception and error enters in to their
lives. These errors can then extend to other areas of their faith.
Once a sick person tries everything
that these ministers throw at them, then what? What do we have for
the sick? Can we encourage someone to continue to follow the Lord
even in their weakness and sickness? Sadly the answer is NO. I was
that person who went to these ministers and they had nothing but
taglines and catchphrases. They have absolutely nothing to offer the
sick. It was this struggle and battle that allowed the Lord to open
my eyes to other deceptions that I write about on here. It was in
this battle that I finally found the Lord and stopped going from
minister to minister to find Him.
A complete tearing down of healing
theology needs to happen in the Charismatic church. We need to put
our focus on Jesus Christ and teach the sick to trust Him no matter
what happens. We need to stop telling people to look for secret revelations on
healing. This is leading many astray. The sick children of God are being ravaged by thieves and
wolves that have found their way into the church. God have mercy!
