From time to time I send out testimonies to family and friends to glorify God and encourage people. This is one I sent out in 2007. Though the testimonies I send out are not always of my own personal healing, this one just happens to be.
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Friday, June 30, 2007, I received another healing.
The previous Saturday I had torn a tendon (or tendons) in my sternum. The pain had been excruciating all week. I was in terrible pain just staying still, but moving nearly sent me into orbit. I couldn’t lie on either side to sleep, and it was difficult to do ANYTHING because it affected the whole right side of my upper body: the pain radiated from my sternum through my chest and right arm – shooting all the way down to my fingers, and around my right shoulder and the top of my back. All week I was confessing Scriptures from God’s Word on healing, but was not yet ACTING on those confessions of faith. I knew I first needed to build my faith up by meditating on God’s promises to the point that when I acted it would truly be in faith and not in fear.
That Thursday I had my annual physical and the doctor told me the tendon or tendons were torn. I didn’t know if I’d cracked a rib or pinched a nerve or what could be causing such tremendous pain. He said that it would take a month or more to heal – IF I didn’t re-injure myself. I was thankful for the information so we would know exactly what to rebuke and speak to (to be healed in Jesus’ Name) according to the principles God had taught us from His Word.
The following day, Friday, June 30, I felt convicted to begin acting on my faith – Believing that I HAD received my healing as I had already been confessing according to God’s Word. I determined to clean the house – just as a healed person would. As I cleaned, I felt pain, so I rebuked it and continued acting in faith, continuously declaring God’s promises out loud:
“God BINDS UP ALL MY INJURIES and strengthens ALL my weaknesses. He restores me to health and HEALS EVERY WOUND. God’s Word is Life to MY WHOLE BODY AND HEALTH TO ALL MY FLESH. God sent forth His Word and healed me. His Words are ALIVE and ACTIVE; they PENETRATE every cell, every tissue, every muscle, every TENDON of my body; they DIVIDE ~ performing Holy Spirit surgery; they do not go out and return empty ~ they ACCOMPLISH what God desires and ACHIEVE the purpose for which He sent them. Jesus IS THE WORD made flesh and He lives IN ME; HE IS LIFE TO MY WHOLE BODY and health to all my flesh! Jesus Christ heals me! He takes care of me as one would their own body that they love because I AM a member of His own body that He loves. God is a good Father; He gives me what is GOOD. I do not ask for fish and receive a snake. I do not ask for bread and receive a stone. I ask and I receive; I seek and I find; I knock and the door is opened. I believe I Have Received and it IS mine. EVERYTHING is possible for him who believes. I can do ALL things through Christ and His anointing at work IN ME. The Holy Spirit, with the SAME POWER THAT RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD IS IN ME GIVING LIFE TO MY MORTAL BODY! I REFUSE TO LIVE AS IF THAT IS NOT TRUE! I REFUSE TO LIVE BENEATH THE PRIVILEGES THAT CHRIST HAS PURCHASED FOR ME! I REFUSE TO LIVE WITHOUT THE REALITY OF THE POWER THAT IS RESIDENT IN ME! I refuse to fear. I have not been given a spirit of fear, but of POWER, LOVE, and a SOUND MIND. I know and rely on God’s love. God’s perfect love for me drives out ALL FEAR! Love ALWAYS PROTECTS; Love NEVER FAILS, and God IS love. Therefore, God ALWAYS PROTECTS; God NEVER FAILS. He SHIELDS me ALL DAY long. He is my Strong Tower; I run to His Name and I am safe. He is my SECURE FORTRESS; I hide myself in Him! IN HIM I LIVE; IN HIM I MOVE; IN HIM I HAVE MY BEING. In Him ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER – my tendons, muscles, sinews, ligaments, all hold together in Him. God did not spare the life of His own Son from me! He said if He was willing to give that (the greatest He could give), how would He not also GRACIOUSLY GIVE ME ALL THINGS! God is my EVER-PRESENT HELP in trouble. He ransoms me UNHARMED from the battle. He rescues me from EVERY evil attack. He not only acts IMMEDIATELY to help me, but for healing He has already paid the price 2000 years ago – Jesus bore my infirmities, injuries, illness, sickness and carried my diseases and by His wounds I AM HEALED. God forgives ALL my sins, and heals ALL my diseases. Jesus became my Mediator and became my Ransom, so now I pray to God, my Father, and find favor with Him, and He restores me like a child and renews me in every part to my youth.” Etc. etc. (Scripture references for all these verses are in my “Healing Confessions from Scripture” document and book)
Through this warfare, I have seen many other healings manifest (for myself and when we pray for others). On this occasion, though I still felt pain as I worked, by standing on God’s Word I was able to do everything I needed to do without ending up in the incapacitating pain I had experienced all week from just moving about minimally and cautiously. That afternoon, I was listening to a Joyce Meyer CD as I continued moving in faith to make dinner. During her lesson she read the verse in Isaiah where God said,
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;…” Isaiah 49:15-16
At that moment, I KNEW God was giving me rhema ~ speaking directly to me in response to things I had recently been crying out to Him about in prayer. He had already responded to the cries of my heart, in part, a few weeks earlier through something our pastor said in a sermon about feeling forgotten by God; I knew God was talking directly to me then too. What God spoke to me through the pastor’s message that day had provoked me to cry out to Him about these things on my heart all the more, so God had my undivided attention when Joyce began reading this passage from Isaiah.
Since God, in this Scripture, compared His love and provision for us to that of a nursing mother (even exceeding it), Joyce began to expound on this analogy to further illustrate the heart and character of God toward us. As all mothers who have nursed can attest to, Joyce shared the impossibility that a nursing mother would forget her baby or its needs, since as soon as she hears her child even whimper (or as others have told me, even at just the thought of their child), she is literally FILLED WITH PROVISION for him or her! This provision is available immediately, but even though she may try her best to give it to her child, the child still has to receive it! Joyce described how frustrating it is for a mother when the child will not take hold of and receive what she’s offering. Though the provision to meet the need is right in front of the child’s face, sometimes a child can be so upset by his/her need that he/she does not recognize and receive the supply to meet that need which the mother is longing to give, has made available, and is doing everything she can to get her child to take! She then pointed out that mothers in this situation will not only be frustrated, but can actually be IN PHYSICAL PAIN because they are SO FULL OF PROVISION for their child’s need, yet the child will not receive it!
By this point, I had completely stopped what I was doing and was just standing in the kitchen intently soaking in these revelations at a heart level, in awe of all the implications of how this is a perfect analogy of God’s love and provision for us. If we truly understand His covenant with us through Christ, then we know He is already FILLED WITH PROVISION for EVERY NEED WE WILL EVER FACE in life even in advance of hearing our cries. He has already done His part – having paid the price through Jesus to supply our EVERY NEED. And He is longing for us to BELIEVE AND RECEIVE the abundant, overflowing supply He has of healing, deliverance, provision, protection, peace, joy, wisdom, guidance, salvation, etc. He has done every part that is dependent on Him, but He cannot do OUR part. It’s not only frustrating to Him, but even causes Him pain when His children continue to cry and plead with Him, struggling for things He has already made freely available to us and are ours if we would just RECOGNIZE this truth (BELIEVE) and TAKE HOLD OF HIS PROVISION BY FAITH (RECEIVE). He is OVERFLOWING with provision for us and desperately desires us to receive it! But many of us continue to bawl and squall in desperate prayers produced either by unbelief or, too often, ignorance regarding His promised covenant provision.
As I marinated in how all these truths were so beautifully expressed in this analogy, they became real to me in a fresh and powerful way, and in amazement I breathed, “WOW!” When I said it, I felt the tangible presence of God wash over me, and I began thanking and praising and declaring, “I receive Abba – Daddy, I receive!” At that moment I RECEIVED not only by faith, but also the MANIFESTATION of healing in my tendons that I’d been declaring, believing, and acting on by faith!
It’s essential to clarify that God did not just GIVE the manifestation of healing in that instant. His provision was already made for me through Jesus 2000 years ago and was available for me to receive from the first moment I had a need. This is where the second part of that Scripture in Isaiah so profoundly fits. Just as a nursing mother is unable to forget her baby because of the ever-present physical reminder of the provision she’s carrying inside her for her child’s needs, God says He will never forget us because of the ever-present physical reminder of the provision He’s made and is carrying for all our needs! We are ENGRAVED on the palms of His hands ~ Jesus’ nail-scarred hands that serve as the constant reminder of the high price He’s paid to make provision for every need in our lives. Though Jesus had not yet physically died when this passage in Isaiah was written, we know that He is the Lamb slain from the creation of the world (Revelation 13:8). God already had us engraved on His heart and on His hands even before the price was paid.
Keeping my mind saturated with God’s promises and using them as my “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:10-18) against the enemy helped renew my mind to these truths. This warfare enabled me to walk in faith to appropriate God’s power and provision and laid the foundation for me to receive the complete manifestation of healing. But in this case, it was the fresh revelation of God’s LOVE that caused these truths to fully move from my head (intellectual belief and agreement) to my heart (becoming working heart revelation). This instantly broke through the last layer of any dam of unbelief, doubt, or fear which had been holding back God’s provision from freely flowing from His Spirit in me through my body so I could receive the fullness of healing He had already provided. There was nothing magical about saying the word “Wow!” that caused me to receive; rather, just like ALL God’s promises, I received by grace (undeserved, unearned favor and empowerment to do God’s will) through faith. This faith to receive was ignited in me as I heard the analogy that made God’s love and provision come alive to my heart in a fresh way (faith came by hearing). Faith sparked by that new revelation (rhema) helped me believe and receive the complete manifestation God had been trying to give me all along. Praise God! He is SO AMAZING and WONDERFUL!!
This was another powerful confirmation and reminder of the truth that faith works by/through love (Galatians 5:6 AMP). While this could be saying that our faith will only truly work to its fullest when it is motivated by God’s pure love through us toward others (as I Corinthians 13 further describes), I believe it’s also true that our faith will only work to its fullest when it is rooted in a deep heart revelation of God’s love for us. I have certainly found it true in my own life that my ability to walk in the kind of faith that can receive all of God’s promises is only as strong as my revelation of, my belief and faith in, God’s unquenchable, unfailing, and undeserved love for me! Even when I know this truth in my head, I continually have to meditate on it in order to believe and receive it with my heart ~ especially in the face of symptoms and circumstances that scream a different report. I’m still a work in progress.
I pray this encourages and blesses us all as we continue to renew our minds to believe the love and the ALL-ENCOMPASSING provision and promises of our Abba Father. I pray that the whole Body of Christ will one day soon stop the bawling and squalling of unbelief and ignorance, crying out to God to give us things that He has already freely provided for every area of our lives through His grace. I pray, instead, that we will believe His promises and take hold of them, receiving all the provision that Jesus paid such a high price for, through unwavering, FULLY-PERSUADED faith!
Copyright © Laura Jewell Tyree, July 2007
