Hear & Be Healed

Did you know that our hearing is connected with our healing? The following three verses make the connection very clear:

Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them (Matthew 13:15 NKJV).

…great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities (Luke 5:15 NKJV).

…a great multitude of people…came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases (Luke 6:17 NKJV).

This principle requires us to go inside our relationship with Jesus, listen to Him and depend on Him for the specific strategy He has for our healing. There are many different methods God uses to heal. Also, He does not use the same method with each person every time they need healing. The reason is that He wants us to depend on Him, not the method. Since He doesn’t manifest healing the same way all of the time, it becomes imperative that we look to Him for the specific step of obedience we are to take to cooperate with His healing power.

In their book, How to Heal the Sick, Charles and Frances Hunter describe the connection between hearing and healing this way: “You have to listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and then you’ve got to be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer only.”

I am not suggesting we “work” for our healing, because everything we receive from God is by grace through faith. But our faith response does require some action. Knowing what action to take only comes by learning to depend on Him and by listening to His voice—in other words, by having a relationship with Him. We must learn to listen for His instruction when we need healing or a miracle.

Let me give you several examples of healings performed in Jesus’ ministry in which He used different methods:

1)         Jesus touched the leper with His hand and commanded him to tell no one except to show himself to the priest (Matthew 8:2-4).

2)         The Centurion’s servant: “Speak the Word only and my servant will be healed.”Jesus’ response: “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you” (Matthew 8:8, 13).

3)         Peter’s mother-in-law: “He touched her hand and the fever left her” (Matthew 8:15 NKJV).

4)         Paralytic: “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you…Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (Matthew 9:2,6 NKJV). He first dealt with the sin factor in this man’s life.

5)         Man blind since birth: “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned’…He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”’ (John 9:3, 6-7, NKJV). Jesus did not deal with sin in this instance of healing.

6)         Mute man: “When the demon was cast out, the mute spoke” (Matthew 9:32 NKJV). Healing in this instance followed the casting out of devils.

7)         Deaf mute: “He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue…. He sighed and said, ‘Be opened….’ Immediately his ears were opened… and he spoke plainly” (Mark 7:33-35 NKJV). There was no casting out of devils in the healing of this deaf mute.

8)         Man with withered hand: “‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other” (Matthew 12:9-13 NKJV).

9)         Blind man: Jesus led him by the hand out of town. He spat on his eyes and put His hands on him. Then He put His hands on him again and he was restored and saw everyone clearly (Mark 8:23-26 NKJV).

The bottom line is this: Jesus did not heal people the same way every time. He listened to the Father, followed the Spirit and involved the recipients of healing. The principles are always the same, but the methods are not.

Whenever you experience an attack against your health, the first thing to do is to take time to seek the Lord. Sometimes you will find that you need to seek counsel or agreement in prayer, or simply stand, take authority over the enemy, and speak to the mountain of sickness, commanding it to be removed from your body.

Adapted from Greg Mohr’s book, Your Healing Door.