View Site Map

Bearing Your Burdens from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

There is too much sickness in the body of Christ today. This should not be. Obviously, we are failing to do something right. I want to take a closer look at what we should do when sick by examining the prayer of faith and divine healing.

(James 5:13–16 NASB)  Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

James tells us that the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick. Yet all of us have prayed for things that did not happen. We also have to remember that unless the Lord returns first, we will each face death just as all the rest of nature has. The mighty prophet Elisha died of an illness, though he brought the dead back to life ( 2 Kings 4:35 ).

(2 Kings 13:14 NASB)  When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him...

So it is ok for us to fail in our prayers. God never chastises His children for trying to obey His word the best they can. James said it best with "We do not have because we do not ask" (James 4:2). There are Christians who were far greater than us who have prayed for someone to be healed, and it didn't happen. Consider the Apostle Paul here:

(2 Timothy 4:20 NASB)  Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.

I am sure that Paul prayed for his companion Trophimus to be healed, but in the end, he had to leave him behind because he remained sick. Only Jesus had a perfect track record. That said, I would like to see us give it our best effort, for somethings can hinder us from being healed—one of the big ones in unconfessed sin in our life. Sin is an outdated word in our culture today, but thriving among God's people more than ever.

I want to be clear that not all sickness and disease is brought on by personal sin. When the disciples of Jesus asked Jesus why a man was blind, He told them this:

(John 9:1–3 NASB)  As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

However, some cases are directly related to sin. When Jesus healed a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years, afterward, He told the man this:

(John 5:14 NASB)  Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

So in effect, if the man sinned more, something even worse than the illness he previously had might come upon him. Consider this, death did not exist until sin opened the door. Death entered the world through the door of sin. Paul said it this way:

(Romans 5:12 NASB)  Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned

The first roadblock to healing is unconfessed personal sin. Now I am speaking of confessing our sins to our Heavenly Father, God Almighty, and asking for His forgiveness. Not publicly, and not to an elite priesthood. There is one mediator between God and men: the Lord Jesus Christ. There are no other parties involved in our relationship with the Lord.

(1 Timothy 2:5–6 NASB)  For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

There is a time to confess sins to one another. Like when you are struggling with something and need to be held accountable. But even in that case, James said to "confess your sins to one another," so it is a mutual act, which rules out confessing to an elite priesthood. As far as I know, there is no forgiveness without actually asking for it. So go into your room, shut the door, and pour out your heart to God. He understands.

Sin wants to have you, to own you, to separate you from everyone else. It will drive you away from other Christians, and the more isolated you become, the more power it gains over you. It will cause you to try and hide from God as Adam did in the garden, and it will separate you from God:

(Isaiah 59:1–2 NASB)  Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

You cannot pray in faith when you have unconfessed sin in your life, so deal with that first and foremost. After that, have the church elders anoint you with oil and pray for you, and the prayer of faith will raise up the sick. In this, God is sovereign, and He does the healing. We have to do our best and depend on Him to do the rest.

What I am about to say will require you to have an open mind. I am sharing this message to prepare you because I believe we are about to be taken to a new level. We are about to see divine healings begin to take place through the Internet because we connect to each other through it. I felt led last week to have people touch their screens as we prayed for them during our live service, and something new happened. Something that has not happened to me in nearly 15 years. I call it bearing the burdens of others. Paul said it this way:

(Galatians 6:2 NASB)  Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

Isaiah said this about Jesus: (Isaiah 53:4–5 NKJV)  Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

In these cases, someone else shouldered the burden. They bore the pain. It is the servants who carry the burden, and we are His servants. We are to bear one another's burdens. Here is a testimony of what happened to me several years ago.

Once on a Sunday after church, we visited my Mom and found her left knee horribly swollen. It was a deep angry red color, feverish, and she was in a lot of pain. I had a vial of anointing oil with me, so I anointed her knee with the oil and prayed for her. Nothing seemed to happen. That was about noon. When we went back to the church that evening, my left knee had swollen as big as my thigh. It became a deep angry red color and feverish. It hurt so bad it felt like I had broken it.

I explained what was happening to one of the elders, and he said, "You need to release that to the Lord now." So I prayed a simple prayer along the lines of: "Lord, I release anything that I have picked up through prayer to You in the name of Jesus Christ." Within 30 minutes, my knee had returned to normal. I called Mom, and the pain was gone from her knee as well.

After some thought, I realized this had happened to me a few years earlier when someone else carried my burden. I had a wart on my hand that I could not get rid of. No matter what I tried, it always came back. One Sunday, when I went to church, one of the people who greeted us was a wise old friend. He saw the wart, took my hand, and said: "Wart, I give you 7 days to be gone in the name of Jesus Christ." By Tuesday, the wart began to peel away. When I returned to church the following week, my hand was healed, and the wart was gone. I was excited, so I spoke with my friend about it and found that a wart had appeared on his arm during the week. He explained this was normal and that it would fall off shortly. He was in his mid-seventies, and he had been doing this for about forty years.

That was to prepare you for what I am about to say. After I prayed for people during the live services this week, my left shoulder began to hurt so much that I could hardly work. It was like a knife was being twisted in it constantly, even while sitting still and doing nothing. The middle finger on my right hand began to hurt the same way. It felt like advanced arthritis, and it came overnight. I was trying to carry some plywood as we have to replace part of our floor here, but finally, the pain got so bad that I sat down to pray about it.

The moment I sat down, I heard, "You need to release this." Then all these memories came back to me. I realized that I pray for people every week here, and I had taken on some of their burdens. Something new was that the burden transfer happened during a live church service over the Internet without actually touching the person. I prayed, "Lord, I release anything that I have picked up through prayer to You in the name of Jesus Christ," and the pain instantly left my body. If you are an intercessor and pray for others, I suggest you do the same.

I would like to get some small vials of anointing oil, lay hands on them and pray over it here, then send it out to those who need healing or who want to begin sharing the burdens of others. I believe it will strengthen our contact point. We are here for such a time as this, and God is doing something new. Prepare yourself. You can pray this with me if you like: 

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray that You teach me to help shoulder the burdens of others. Please put healing back in the hands of Your people. I release anything that I have picked up through praying for others to You. Iin the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen!

Note: We pray that you are all having a most blessed Christmas season! Last week we posted about our new RHM Store, which has shirts, mugs and other offerings with the RHM logo, as well as many inspirational Christian clothing items and accessories. Unfortunately, we made an error when posting the link, so it may not have worked. Sorry about that! For those interested, here is the link to the store, and we hope that you are blessed by the beautiful shirts and other fun items there!