Annointed Mud

 

Here is another free chapter from a book I have written. I hope you enjoy it. You can visit

https://www.amazon.com/author/robertcoutts  if you are interested in the rest of the book. Thanks for your support.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

What Is Healing

        

     Believers today are an extension of the ministry of Jesus. Just as He invested His love and power in His first century disciples, so has He invested His power and His love in us, His disciples of today. We must know how Jesus worked so that we can imitate Him. He said: “. . . He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”  John 14:12;

     As if these words of Scripture were not astounding enough, Jesus then added: “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:13-14;

     The key to healings in Jesus’ ministry was in the relationship He had with His Father. Jesus repeatedly made statements like: “. . .the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” John 5:19;

     During His earthly ministry, Jesus was utterly dependent on His relationship with the Father. He instructed the disciples (that’s us), that they were also to be dependent on a relationship with another helper, the Holy Spirit. “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.” John 14:16;

     The Father showed Jesus how to minister to sick people. In the same way, the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. The Holy Spirit will remind us about how Jesus ministered. Believers today are to be just as dependent on the Holy Spirit as Jesus was dependent on His Father. This dependence is maintained by reading the Word and listening to the urgings in our heart and by seeking direction from the Holy Spirit.

     Jesus used different methods to heal the sick, one of them being through touch. This is the account that Mark gives in the book of Mark. “Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, ‘If you are willing, You can make me clean.’ Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed [healed].”  Mark 1:40-42;

     Just as Jesus touched the sick, we touch them in His name. He said, “…if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in Heaven” (Matthew 18:19).  And He stated further, “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” Mark 16:18;

     I must admit to you that at first this did not make much sense to me.  I reasoned, “I am a believer in Jesus Christ, but what good would it do for me to lay my hands on someone. After all, there is no healing power in my hands, so how would such an act help a sick person. Then God showed me, that all I am is a vessel, an extension of Jesus Himself through whom anointing to heal could flow. Then He showed me it could be done by praying for and seeing tumors removed, fevers taken away, and other diseases healed in His name by the laying on of hands and the anointing with oil.

     To my human logic, it seemed strange at first to lay hands on a sick person, but when you begin to operate in the realm of the supernatural you stop operating by human logic. I Corinthians 2:14 says “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned.”

     In obedience to the command of Jesus, I have laid my

hands on the sick. My natural mind may not comprehend God’s method of healing a sick person, I just know that when I act in obedience to the command of Jesus, His healing power is released and the rest is up to Him. When you are a follower of Jesus, you can lay hands on the sick and see them healed. The early apostles continued ministering by laying hands on the sick.

     Today, every believer can do it because Jesus said, “They will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” Mark 16:18; Further He said, “. . . he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do.” John 14:12; Matthew said, “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.” Matthew 12:15;  and Mark said, “And when they {Jesus and His disciples} came out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him, ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick to wherever they heard He was. Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the market places, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.” Mark 6:54-56;

     Luke who was a doctor also reported the healings of Jesus, “. . . Jesus   of   Nazareth . . . went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. . .” Acts 10:38;

     Now, folks, I do not want you to think that every sick person was healed through Jesus’ ministry. Some thought that Jesus was an agent of the devil. Others hated Jesus because He disregarded the traditions of the Pharisees, the most powerful sect at that time. There were many sick people who did not even approach Jesus. Nowhere in the scriptures do we find that all the doubters and the unbelievers were healed. Jesus healed those who came to Him in faith, believing God and believing His Word.

     His Word is clear: “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” Mark 9:23; “And as many as touched Him were made well.” Mark 6:56;

     The same holds true today. Some people would say, “If you believe in healing, why don’t you go to the hospitals and just heal everybody?” Well, when we study the ministry of Jesus, we notice the He did not heal everybody in Israel. The reason was, they were so bound by their traditions and religiosity that they were completely unwilling to receive from Jesus. In fact, the Bible states that when Jesus came to Nazareth, He could not do any mighty work there because of their unbelief. The Word says that He healed only a few minor illnesses.

     Yes, I know Jesus can do anything but He has chosen to limit Himself. It is the law of God that He not honor unbelief. Nowhere in history is there an example of God rewarding doubt and unbelief. Just as God has ordained the law of gravity and any other natural law, He has ordained the law of faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6;

     As you have been reading this, I pray that faith has welled up in your soul to believe that God can and will heal you. Do not let unbelief rob you of God’s best for you. You are able to receive from God. That is what healing is about. Receiving from God. I’m not talking about a mental assent either; I’m talking about something that has been birthed in your spirit to receive from Him anytime.

     The faith I am talking about is the kind of faith God births in your spirit and allows you to access His miraculous resources which are deeper than one can know. It is a gift from God that you receive as you continually expose yourself to the Word. Paul put it this way. . . “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8; Faith is not of yourself. It is not something that you produce from your own efforts or intellectual study; it is a gift from God. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17;

     So, when you open your mind and heart and study to receive God’s Word, God deposits the gift of faith in your spirit. Then it is no longer your own faith, but rather it is the faith of Jesus that surges through your inner man, moving and energizing your spirit. You are operating in His faith. Another translation of the Scripture verse which says, “Have faith in God,” is actually, “Have God’s faith” Mark 11:22;

     We are not motivated by our own ability. We cannot work ourselves into a state of expectancy and faith. We are motivated by the very faith of God, the faith by which the world was made. Whenever people’s hearts were filled with real faith, the results were astounding, as we read in the gospel of Matthew: “Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.” Matthew 4:23;

     Notice how the word ‘all’ is consistently repeated in this scripture. He healed ‘all’ kinds of disease. This is Jesus the healer in action. He is unchanging! He desires to heal ‘all’ kinds of sickness, just as He did back then.

     He healed to fulfill prophecy, He healed to destroy the works of the devil and He healed because of compassion.

Compassion was the motivating force that drove Jesus to heal the sick. It is the same today. The perfect love of Jesus is extended to us even today. His love removes tormenting fear and releases healing into sick bodies.

     When I minister and pray for healing in others, I am overwhelmed with a love that transcends my own ability to have compassion. This is a work of the Holy Spirit who causes this love of God to be “Shed abroad in our hearts” Romans 5:5;

     That’s what healing is!

 

     That is the end of the chapter and if you continue on with chapter four, you will read about genuine examples of healing. I trust they will minister to you. Thanks for reading.

A Free Sample from "The Holy Spirit: Who is He and what does he do? 13 Messages

 

     For those of you that do not know, I have been writing books of encouragement for a while now. My goal is to lift people’s spirits and let them know that there is a God in Heaven that loves them, cares for them and desires to show them a better more wonderful way of life. In my book entitled “The Holy Spirit of God: Who is He and what does He do? 13 Messages” I give an example of How God uses His Holy Spirit to guide our lives daily. In this book you will find on the first few pages about 120 attributes of the Holy Spirit and the Scripture references where they can be found. In itself this is an awesome study and by the end of it you will have an understanding of just some of the work the Holy Spirit does on our behalf. It took a lot of research to find these attributes and I did not want to waste them so I put them in the book. Following that there are 13 messages that go more into depth of some of those attributes. I know it will move your heart when you get into it. If you have ever wondered about or questioned the who what where when and why of the Holy Spirit, then please take the time to read this book. You will be enriched. It is only $6.50 0n Amazon at this site,

https://www.amazon.com/author/robertcoutts and worth every penny because you will read it over and over.  I have enclosed below, a portion of chapter one for you to read for free and get an idea of what to expect. I trust you will enjoy it and please feel free to leave a comment either on Face book or at the end of this article on my Blog. Thanks for checking it out and be blessed today.

Here is the excerpt from the book...

CHAPTER 1 

We Are One In The Holy Spirit

     The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Holy Trinity and He has been commissioned to be our helper. In this study we will look at many aspects of His work in and for us. We will look at what He is capable of and what He does for our everyday lives. Each one of us who have called upon the Lord to save our souls needs the touch of the Holy Spirit in their lives. He unites us, frees us, empowers us teaches loves and does so many things that change our lives. We will try to cover a host of works He does.

     To start we must first recognize that He unites each one of us. Many have a different view of the person of the Holy Spirit. They have their own ideas of who He is and what He does and they are too comfortable in their thinking but are totally uneducated or unaware of the true Holy Spirit.

     If we have a comfortable and domesticated view of the Holy Spirit, we may end up forgetting that God can and does break into our human lives. He does it in powerful and unexpected ways.

     In this study we will see that this was the experience of the prophet Ezekiel. Sometimes he saw the Holy Spirit in almost physical terms. I wonder if Christians today take the Holy Spirit’s powerful and unexpected ministry seriously. We need to take a look at what exactly the Holy Spirit’s work is and there are three we will look at.

     The first one is The Holy Spirit’s work is regeneration God’s relationship with Israel was a covenant or a promise He made with them. This included the requirements about their behavior toward Him and towards each other. God’s people received this lesson and were obligated to obey. Yet they still drifted apart from their responsibilities and profaned God’s name. What could God do? He could lower His standards so they could be within reach of His wayward people or He could change their hearts.

     Both prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied that now God would not only be faithful to His covenant agreement but that He would also equip and empower them to keep their side of the bargain. God said,

     I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. Ezekiel 11:19 and Ezekiel 36:26

     The word Heart here means the entire personality. God was promising them a radical psychological implant, a complete change of heart so that by God’s Spirit people would be empowered to live. This hope is a reality through Christ’s work.

     So the question is, what stops us from living up to God’s standards or for that matter, even our own moral standards? It’s not our environment. It’s not our economic circumstances. It’s not even our family backgrounds. Even though these things may aggravate the situation. What stops us is internal. We need a radical change of heart. That happens in the beginning of the Christian’s life and experience. It is the Spirit’s ministry of changing hearts.

     The heart of stone talked about in Ezekiel. 36:26; is that human will which is hostile toward God, that will that is incapable of being changed for the better, it is this will that is not beyond the transforming work of God’s Holy Spirit.

     People frequently miss this essential point. Many people think that the Christian faith is all external. But the Apostle Paul wrote,

     “God our Savior. . .saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” Titus 3:4-5;

     These are the same things which Ezekiel mentioned. The Holy Spirit will touch hard hearts, He will open them, He will transform them, and He will turn them to God and empower them to live as God intended.

     So as we believe for the salvation of our friends, loved ones and acquaintances, we can count on God’s Holy Spirit to work in them and transform them into His image. The surprising unexpected powerful invasion of the Spirit, His regenerating work, it gives hope to all of us who are engaged in the difficult task of bringing the Gospel to the lost. We argue, persuade, explain, appeal, all good categories for evangelism but somehow we think, I cannot see him coming to Christ and becoming a Christian.

     Yet know this, the hardest heart is not beyond the reach of the life giving Spirit! If the Holy Spirit has carried out the work of regeneration in our lives by making us new, then the same Spirit will strengthen us to live according to God’s law and standards:

     Romans 8:13; for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 

     That is the end of the sample. I trust you received something from it and that you will go to the site mentioned above and get your copy. Thanks for reading.

 

Here Is A True Story To Touch Your Heart

After you watch the video you can go to this site,  https://www.amazon.com/author/robertcoutts and find the book there and check out the synopsis of the book itself. Many have been blessed by the book already and I am humbled by the feedback. Order yours today online at the place above or email me for instructions on how to get a copy from me at rcoutts60@gmail.com  I know you will be blessed.

JOSHUA AND THE SCARLET THREAD OF REDEMPTION

The Bible is full of pictures which depict the blood of Jesus. Some are hidden and you need to dig them out. They contain some of the most precious nuggets in the Bible.

Rahab had lived in the protection of big rocks for years. Her house was built on a wall and it would be pretty difficult for anyone to scale the wall to attack. So you could say she lived in reasonable safety. Just like everyone else in Jericho, Rahab had put her trust in those big walls of rock to discourage roaming bands of outlaws and also the walls were there to protect against foreign armies.

For hundreds of years the walls of Jericho had proven to be impenetrable and there was no reason to doubt their invincibility. Or was there? For weeks, the people of Jericho had been talking about and hearing about a roving band of Hebrews who apparently were approaching Jericho with take over in mind. The story told was that they had an invincible God looking out for them. He had apparently already dried up the red sea so they could just march straight across when they left Egypt.

This same God had given them victory over Sihon, the King of the Amorites and over Og the King of Bashan. It was reported that both tribes had been utterly destroyed. Now the fear of Israel and its God was gripping the people of Jericho so the news was intensifying. When Joshua sent two spies into the city of Jericho, Rahab had already made up her mind that the walls of Jericho could not be trusted anymore.

So, Rahab hid the two spies out of sight of the soldiers of Jericho and when the coast was clear she helped the two Israelites escape through her window which was on the wall. She lowered them down to the ground by means of a scarlet rope.

It was interesting to see that Rahab became a believer and that when she did, she ‘confessed with her mouth’ that God was God. Joshua 2: 11 says, . . .for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth below.” She confessed her new found faith in God to the spies  and then struck a deal with them. This deal would ultimately write her name in history with the likes of Abraham Moses and Samson, David and others in the heroes of faith found in Hebrews 11.

So, the spies instructed Rahab, “Take this scarlet rope,” put it in your window so it can be seen from outside the city. When we see the scarlet cord, we will spare everyone who is in your house. We all know the typology behind this but it bears repeating. When Christ sees the blood covering us, He will spare us from the wrath to come. When the people were instructed to sprinkle the blood on the lintel’s and doorposts, the death angel was to pass over the house and spare all in side.

I also like to think this is a picture of the world looking in on a Christian. When they look at us from the outside, do they see the blood of Christ or is it hidden.  Do we exhibit Christ in our lives to the point that the bloodline shows through us for others to see just as the scarlet cord was hanging out her window for all to see. Signifying there were believers inside? Rahab’s faith led to her obedience.

She placed the scarlet cord in her window, called her relatives to her house and waited for deliverance. Here is a lesson. We are saved, we cover ourselves in the blood of the lamb and then we call all into our belief who will come and then we wait for the deliverer. The spies looked for the scarlet cord in Rahab’s window and rescued Rahab and her family from Jericho’s destruction. Rahab’s deliverance is a beautiful picture of redemption through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.

God redeemed this Canaanite harlot and the New Testament apostle Matthew tells us that she went on to marry Salmon (Matthew 1:4 & 5). Out of this marriage was born Boaz who married Ruth and became the father of Obed. And Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of none other than King David. So, Rahab is one of only four women to be mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus.

Rahab’s salvation was just an inkling of Jesus’ death for people of every race and creed. Rahab’s deliverance through the scarlet cord is just one of many pictures of Jesus in this wonderful action packed book of Joshua. Even before the Israelites victory at Jericho, we can see Jesus in the lives of the Jews. The book of John gives us the name of the place where the Jordan rolled back and the Jews crossed over into the promised land: Bethabara. It is the same place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus (John 1:28). Beth means ‘house’ and ‘abara’ means passage; therefore Bethabara literally means ‘the house of passage.’

Jesus is our ‘house of passage.’ He is the way into all the promises of God: “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Through Christ we cross over into the promises of the kingdom of God. The waters of the Jordan were rolled back all the way to a city called Adam (Joshua 3:16). What a beautiful picture! Jesus not only takes our sins away but He also cleanses us from all sin all the way back to Adam. Sin started with Adam in the garden of Eden, but Jesus is the ‘last Adam’ who did away with all sin. (I Corinthians 15:45).

That’s why Paul tells us to forget those things which are behind us and reach for those things before us (Philippians 3:13). So, how far back are we to forget those things which are behind? All the way back to Adam! So don’t say my grandfather was this or my great grandmother did that,  Jesus is your passage into the promises of God and He has cleansed you all the way back to Adam.

The book of Joshua is powerful. Even the name Joshua, (in Hebrew Yeshua) means, “Jehovah (or Yahweh) is salvation.”  In the Greek “Jesus” means Yeshua. In Hebrews 4:8 Joshua is directly contrasted to Jesus.  Joshua was the conqueror who led the Israelites into their inheritance, while Jesus is the captain of our salvation, bringing us into glory. (Hebrews 2:10)

Every rope that is in the British Navy has a red line running through the middle of it. It denotes their faith in God and His ability to protect them from harm. Similarly there is a scarlet thread of redemption that runs through every book of the Bible and it identifies each book as belonging to God’s great plan of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ. I do not think that red thread is more visible than in the pages of Joshua. This book has tremendous lessons for today and it also has tremendous pictures of Jesus life work and death on our behalf.

The scarlet thread of redemption brings life wherever it goes. As we read through the pages of Joshua we should allow God to speak life to our spirits and to make us more than conquerors through the blood of Christ.