See Yourself Well

“What is the base emotion in your heart when you think about your physical condition—hope or fear?” I asked Jim. He had received a bad report from his doctor concerning his health and had come to me for help in receiving healing.

Jim answered me truthfully: “Well, to be honest with you, Pastor Greg, I would have to say right now it is fear.”

I went on to ask him, “What is the primary picture on the canvas of your heart, sickness and death or life and health?”

Jim responded: “Again, I would have to say that at this moment it is sickness and death more than life and health, because the doctor told me if this condition does not go into remission, it will very likely become terminal.”

I asked Jim these questions because I knew first-hand the inward struggles one goes through to believe for healing when he receives a negative report about his health. Once a “worst-case scenario” is communicated from a doctor to his patient, the devil will quickly create a picture of death on their heart—unless a picture of life and health has already been “etched” on their heart by the Word.

I didn’t have a strong picture of life and health painted on the canvas of my heart when I was told by the head surgeon that I had cancer. To make matters worse, before the surgery to remove a golf-ball size growth from my neck, I told the surgeon I had placed my trust in God to heal me supernaturally. I am sure those comments influenced his communication with me following my surgery. When I awoke from recovery, he came to my room, sat down and talked with me. He said, “Son, I am a Christian, too. But I want you to know that God is not going to heal you. We removed the growth and I am 99 percent sure it is cancer. We got everything around it, but that was just the pup. We need to run more tests and do more extensive surgery to identify and get rid of the mama that has produced this pup.” They later identified “the mama” as my thyroid.

The first vision my wife and I had after hearing the “C” word was my body in a casket and all of my family getting saved at my funeral. I am not exaggerating. Janice and I both had the same vision. Thank God the Lord showed us that this vision did not line up with His Word. It was Jesus’ death that paid the price for the salvation of my family and friends—not mine. Once a different picture than the truth is painted on your heart, it becomes difficult to believe the Word of God in that area. That is why I asked Jim if hope or fear was the base emotion of his heart. Identifying that emotion helps us determine the strongest picture that is etched on our heart.

What is the predominant picture on the canvas of your heart? Is it life and health, or is it sickness and death? I want to give you hope today. After hearing the bad report from my doctor, Janice and I started out with the wrong picture in our hearts. If you had asked us if we believed in healing we would have responded positively. Yet the truth was that God’s Word about healing had not yet displaced the picture in our hearts of cancer and death. As we spent more time meditating on God’s Word, the Holy Spirit painted a new picture of health on our hearts that displaced the old picture of death. That new picture resulted in my physical healing.

Doctors ran a battery of tests over a three-day period. At the end of the three days, the chief radiologist told me they could find no trace of cancer in my body. Of course, I was ecstatic. When I went back to the surgeon for a follow-up appointment, he told me, “I don’t know how to explain what has happened to you, but I think that it would be wise for you to allow us to remove your thyroid anyway, just to be on the safe side.”

My response to him was, “No thanks. That would be like taking my heart out to see if it’s beating. I’ll keep my thyroid, thank you.”

The same results are possible for you no matter how bad the report from the doctor is. The important wisdom key that will help you overcome every negative report is to see yourself well! The apostle Paul describes this process to the church at Corinth in the following way:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

What a powerful verse. Paul tells us here that we become like whatever we behold. We are transformed into the image we focus on. If this is true, then I can become healed by focusing on Jesus and His Word to me about healing. Or, I can focus on the disease and the negative report and become chronically ill or die.

If we want to walk in divine health, we cannot allow a health crisis to dictate to us the outcome of our situation. Let me share a Bible example with you that will illustrate this point.

Jesus got into a boat with His disciples one day and instructed them to cross over to the other side of the lake. On their way Jesus fell asleep in the boat, and a great windstorm came down on the lake and filled their boat with water. In a panic, they awakened Jesus, proclaiming: “Master, Master, we are perishing” (Luke 8:24).

You know the rest of the story. Jesus arose, rebuked the wind and raging water and there was a great calm. Then He rebuked His disciples, not because they were afraid but because they misplaced their faith. They placed greater value and authority on the circumstances and the storm than they did on Jesus and His Word. Jesus told them to cross over to the other side. That word was sufficient to give them faith that their outcome and destiny were on the other side, no matter what came against them. Yet they had allowed the storm to dictate their outcome, declaring “we are perishing” instead of standing on Jesus’ word to them.

We went through another great physical storm and battle with our son, Michael who was diagnosed with a muscular arthritic condition. This sickness and disease raged for three months. Every day that storm screamed at us, “Your son will never walk. He will never get better. He will die at a young age.” We couldn’t deny the reality of the circumstances and the fact that we were in a great storm. But we could deny that storm the right and authority to shape the ultimate outcome of Michael’s health—and our lives.

To keep our focus on what God said about Michael’s health, I compiled three categories of Scriptures that my wife and I spoke over Michael several times each day. About six weeks into this process, my wife had a vision. In the vision she saw Michael running around the corner from our living room and into the kitchen, calling out, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” At that point he could not crawl or walk, much less run.

That vision was so real to Janice that she thought it would happen that day. It did not happen that day, or the next day, or the next week, or even the next month. But within a few months, it became a reality. That vision helped our focus stay on the outcome the Word promised us instead of what Michael’s present physical condition dictated.

How we see ourselves is a critical factor in receiving from God. The children of Israel saw themselves as grasshoppers and that kept them from going into their land of promise for 40 years. In fact, it was their children—not they—who eventually possessed the land.

Let me ask you the same question I asked Jim that day: What is the predominant picture on the canvas of your heart? How do you really see yourself: sick or healthy? failing or succeeding? Do you see bad things or good things happening to you? Be honest with yourself about this. If you are not seeing the right thing, meditate on the Word until God’s picture of you becomes clearly stamped in your soul. Let God’s Word paint a new picture on the canvas of your heart as it did for Janice and me. Then what Proverbs 23:7 says will become reality to you, just as it did for us: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

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