Receiving and Keeping Your Healing and Other Blessings.... Since we’ll be talking about your body and Soul today, I came across this little account... A science teacher was grading a science test at home that she had given to her elementary-school class and was reading some of the answers. The subject was “The Human Body,” and the first question was: “Name one of the major functions of the skin.” One child wrote: “One major function of the skin, is to keep people who look at you from throwing up, skin covers a lot of gross looking things”....
A pastor was praying with folks around the altar, and he got to Gladys the gossiper, and said “Spirit of God come upon this, your servant, and close up all the places where the blessings are leaking out”....
I may be sharing this in a way you may have never really considered. But let’s get started with Luke chapter 4....Jesus took the scrolls and read from Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy....
Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”…
Park the car right here for a moment.....
Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in Isaiah, and repeated it here in the gospel of Luke, to let those who were listening know, that this prophecy was about Him. Then He made it clear in John’s gospel, that the Spirit which anointed Him, was going to take what was on Him, and put it on every believer who received Holy Spirit into their lives.
John 16:13 “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come. 14 He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew (or demonstrate) it unto (and through) you”.
Jesus told us that Holy Spirit would demonstrate to us and through us, liberty to the captives, healing to the sick, freedom to the oppressed of the devil, and the favor of the Lord! (doesanyone come to mind?)
Let me tell you first, how to increase your faith and anointing for these things. Jesus told us we should be receiving them and doing them. Jesus said in John 6:63 “The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.” So, First....Get full ofthe Word of God.... The Word is anointed and Spirit breathed. If you want to see people saved, fill up on scriptures about people getting saved. If you want to see captives set free, fill up on scriptures about captives being set free. If you want to see the sick healed, fill up on scriptures about the sick getting healed. If you want to see the oppressed of the devil set free, fill up on scriptures about deliverance. (Faith comes through and by the Word of God)
As a believer, your Spirit will receive a transfer of the anointing embedded in the Word, which will cause those very things to begin to happen in your Christian walk. If the Devil hits you, the Word should come right out of you, instead of that other blankety, blank stuff!
The word of God will retrain your brain from all the stinking thinking which we’ve all been programed with all of our lives. The believer’s brain is begging for the Word so it can be whole and healthy. Holy Spirit is referred to as fire, because there are some things in us that need to be consumed, that are nothing but brain trash....BURN HOLY SPIRIT!
The Spirit is referred to as water because we need a good cleansing with the heavenly “shout it out spot and stain cleanser” CLEANSE US HOLY SPIRIT!
The Spirit is referred to as Wind and breath, because there are things that are depriving us of the heavenly atmosphere. May God breathe upon us mightily once again. BREATHE OH BREATH OF GOD!!
When you get your healing, your freedom, your deliverance, if you don’t stay in the word, and keep fueling your faith and your confidence, you will find that the enemy will steal it from you and make sure you’re worse off than you were before. I see it all the time.
Stay free, by staying in the word, staying in prayer, and staying filled with the Spirit!
Your Spirit man needs to feed on the Word just as much if not more so, than your physical man needs nourishment. What you feed will grow and develop and what you starve, will wither and die, or at least be sickly and unwell.
Genesis tells us that Spirit was breathed into man by the very breath of God. God Himself "breathed into (man's) nostrils the breath (The RU-ACH) of life and He became a living soul or PSYCHE, a conscience being, capable of knowledge, reasoning, emotions, and inter-relations". Notice that the spirit came first and then came the soul, which made the body alive. God created the order in which man was to function and we only function well and whole in God’s order.
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually (of the Spirit) discerned”. When the body rules, self indulgenceis in control. When the soul rules, rebellion against God is the norm. When the Spirit rules, a person comes into harmony with God’s plan and purpose.
Many people are physically well, but their spirit is diseased, deformed, or totally dead, because the wrong ruler is in control!This will constantly be talking your Spirit out of what the Word says you can have. One day a primary school teacher was talking about Jonah and the whale. He said that it was impossible that a whale had swallowed Jonah, since whales live on small crustaceans such as krill, plankton and schools of tiny minnows. A young girl disagreed with him saying that the Bible said it had happened so it must be possible.
The discussion went on and both the child and teacher were insistent that they were right.. Finally the girl said that when she got to heaven she would ask Jonah herself. The teacher replied, ‘but what if Jonah is not in heaven but is in hell?’ Immediately the girl replied, ‘In that case you can ask him for yourself!’
So, because many are in a state of confusion about the connection between the Spirit and the soul and the body, I want to take a moment on this. It’s important because it has a lot to do with staying healthy mentally, emotionally and physically....
OK, we are not a body, we LIVE IN a body. (someone said, “as long as we have a body we are never homeless”) We are not a soul, we HAVE A soul. We ARE A SPIRIT that has a soul, which lives in a body. This body is the earth vehicle which we have each been given, so that we can operate in and have authority in this physical realm, which by the way, God designed to be a very spiritual place! This realm was given to man as a spirit being, who could interact with God the Spirit, and that spirit is designed to be healthy, prosperous, wise, fully equipped, eternal, and was created in God’s own image.
Romans 8:16 “The Spirit itself (God’s Spirit) bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children (having the image) of God.” Your spirit knows, whither your soulish self acknowledges it or not, that Holy Spirit is there pressing against your own spirit and constantly bringing up the important subject, of your being created in the image of God. Holy Spirit is a master of communication.
That doesn’t mean that we always yield to those inner promptings, but it means that every person is at some level,having them. We are instructed in Hebrews that we play an important part in how much these promptings influence our total life. We hold the key that opens the veil which allows the Spirit’s promptings to enter our physical reality. We must intentionally give attention to these inner spiritual messages, spiritual urgings and red flags.
Hebrews 5:14 “But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, (who have developed in spiritual principles) even those who by reason of use, have their senses (faculties) exercised (through obedience and self-denial) to discern both good and evil”. We may refer to it as conscience, a moral gyroscope, an inner compass, core values, a sense of duty, inner promptings, scruples, gut feelings, or an inner voice. But for believers, we fine tune those senses by the Word of God!
The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. You may have read a bible verse many times and it didn’t really quicken in you and then suddenly the verse comes alive. We call that “the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.” He will never lead you contrary to the Word of God but will always be in line with the Scriptures if we will receive and acknowledge it.
Reagan called it the “Trickle down effect”.... Whatever happens at the top always trickles down to everything else. Scripture tells us that if the Soul is not under the rule of our spirit, then it becomes our enemy. The body is the outer level, followed by the soul which is the carnal mind and self identity and the spirit is created and designed to be the leader. It is the Spirit that must give the soul it’s spiritual identity, so likewise the retrained soul or intellect, then gives the body it’s proper sense of wellness or wholeness. Matthew 16:26: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and neglects (training) his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for (not training)his soul?"
This is a self evident truth, that is as apparent as the sunrise or sunset. This is not rocket science. These things are self evident. If you’re looking, no one has to tell you that the sun is rising! Darkness is leaving and light is coming! It’s like asking someone if they are a Christian. If they are, it will be self evident. I have seen so many folks who received Christ as their savior, but never retrained their soul, so the soul continued to run the show and convinced them to leave the church, and their faith, leaving them spiritually shipwrecked and physically needy.
Matthew 6:22 that says, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes (your perspective) is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
If you seek happiness you will never find it, because it is the bi-product of a positive view of life, a good conscience and healthy life values. God has already decided that we are highly blessed, anointed and with authority in the earth. That’s in the spirit, but the soul has to be trained and convinced of that fact.
Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
Now, that’s how God sees us Spiritually... Redeemed, healed, spirit filled, filled with wisdom and knowledge, anointed and FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, FREE AT LAST!!! If you turn to Revelation, you know WE WIN! No matter how it looks or feels in the moment, WE WIN!
But if the soulish man is not subdued, ruled over, and trained, then it is, “GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY”.. “HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT”....
Now notice Ephesians 1:4 “According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
God decided that we were chosen, holy, without blame, and loved with Agape love, before the world was formed. Because God thought it, and God said it, it was so. So now we have to rule our soul, and train it, so that our soul will not contradict what God has decided, and stop blocking it in negative, toxic messages to our body and our emotions.
Ephesians 1:8 “God has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, (the ability to do the right thing) 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself, (since the foundation of the world)
So we see here that we were designed to be filled with all wisdomand the ability to do the right thing, and know the mystery of His will...
Ephesians 1:11 In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” Now would you say...”TheBest Is Yet To Come”.....
Listen to me, please. Before the world was formed, God adapted you, and gave you an inheritance. If your daddy was a billionaire, and you were 3 weeks old. You might be crying and complaining about a diaper rash, and needing your bottle, and needing a nap. It’s all you can see in life, but you are the heir of a billion dollars, even though you don’t understand it yet. You’re going to grow up, and one day you can get your head around it, but it’s true in the moment before you can even understand it..
Say with me, “I am an Heir, and joint Heir with Christ” ..... That means that no matter how your soulish man feels today, and no matter how everything looks today.... YOU ARE NOW AN HEIR.... YOUR INHERITANCE HAS ALREADY BEEN SETTLED before the world began. Don’t let your soulish self, talk you out of receiving and keeping your inheritance. It’s yours!! The soulish self is all about your feelings, your emotions, and your self will....
You’ve discovered your God image, and what God designed you for, before the foundation of the world!!!!
Hebrews 4:12, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”.
We can see here, that being filled with the spirit of the word, brings a separation between the soul’s influence over the Spirit, so that the Spirit can become active, healthy and alive!!
When this revelation takes place in us, we begin to know Him, whom to know is truth, life, Spirit, Wisdom, and there comes a demonstration in the earth of the anointing that sets you apart unto Him...
The anointing for all you need in life is activated by worship... giving Him the honor and reverence which He is due. Giving accolades and reveling in His presence. Getting overwhelmed by His very majesty and splendor His eternal omniscience.
The second thing that activates the anointing is The Word of God, which is His revelation of Himself, for He so longs for mankind to know Him....His will, His intentions, His pleasure, His plan, His love, His power, His provision... Wow!
The third thing that activates the anointing is prayer, or intimacy with Him. (And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own) I talked about access last week, and He wants you to access a new level of intimacy with Him. Where you talk together about everything through out the day. And you let Him into your deepest inner conversations, where no one else is allowed to go.
You will never spend another lonely day in your life. You’ll never be bored again. You’ll never lack something to do. Your schedule will be so full of His appointments, His stuff, you could be the only one on a deserted island and still be busy for Him!!
Living His life through our spirit isn’t something we’re used tobecause our spirit is so used to competing with our soul and body for every decision.
When our thoughts, feelings, and intentions of our soul are directed by our spirit, we find it easier and easier to release the things God has already planned into our lives.... Health, joy, prosperity, and fullness of life. When we exercise our spirit by praying the Word of God, the Word releases the full life of God through us.
Declare with me.....”Lord Jesus, I turn away from living in my soul. I turn to You in my spirit. Lord, I want to live by the Spirit.”
We see a prayer which Paul prayed for the Thessalonian believers... (Drum roll please!)
1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify (set you apart for Himself) completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I started this message with “How to receive and keep your healing”....
How many can see, that receiving and keeping your healing, and your emotional and mental health, has a lot to do with retraining your soul and keeping your spirit in charge of your total well being.... Our Spirit is ready for a demonstration ofliberty to the captives, healing to the sick, freedom to the oppressed of the devil, and the favor of the Lord!
God said it was yours, don’t let your soul talk you out of it!
The more we train our soul, the more healing, gifts and blessings we will see in our lives....
Yes, there are things that God has embedded in our Spirit, but we all need our soul imprinted upon by God’s word. It’s already yours, don’t let your intellect, emotions, sensory faculties, social self, and will, talk you out of it. Receive your inheritance. It’s waiting for you.
