Should You Get the Surgery or BELIEVE FOR HEALING?

Whether a person should seek physicians for a healing or go to the LORD is an ancient conundrum, as King Asa dealt with the issue 2900 years ago (2 Chronicles 16:12). So, if you’re facing this dilemma, it’s nothing new.

The answer is entirely dependent upon the individual. Healing is a core benefit of the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:24) and so you can believe in faith and receive your healing directly from the Lord, as observed in the Gospels (Mark 5:34 & Mark 10:52). I’ve done this on several occasions, which you can read about here (also see the corresponding video). That article & video show that combining your faith with perseverance is necessary to receive and maintain your healing (Hebrews 6:12).

‘But Why Not Just Get the Surgery?’

This is certainly an option and you can do this if you so choose. It’s entirely up to the individual.

I suggest healthy living and building up your faith to receive healing when necessary; only turning to medical professionals and drugs (aka medicine) when absolutely necessary. Of course I recommend regular checkups with an honest, trustworthy doctor, which will provide necessary info in regards to what to believe for when you pray and so on.

The Bible says that the woman who was subject to bleeding for twelve years “had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse” (Mark 5:26). At that point she was fed up and desperate because she had blown many years of her time and “spent all she had”; so she went directly to the Lord for healing and received it because she believed (Mark 5:34). Obviously if she didn’t believe, she wouldn’t have received.

It is true that people with little faith or even no faith can receive a powerful healing, but they have to wait for a gift of the Spirit for healing to manifest since gifts of the Spirit function as the Spirit wills and can only operate through a vessel that boldly believes and ministers accordingly, like the Messiah & the apostles did in Scripture. A good example is Christ’s amazing healing of the high priest’s servant with a cutoff ear (Luke 22:50-51); another is Paul’s healing of Publius’ father of fever and dysentery (Acts 28:7-8). But these kinds of healings are hard to come by in this era of gross unbelief. In other words, finding an assembly/ministry where gifts of the Spirit regularly manifest is hard to come by, but they’re out there, if you search. It’s for this very reason that I encourage simply learning to receive healings directly from the Lord. Interestingly, the Pool of Béthesda was a type of the gifts of the Spirit and, specifically, the gift of healing.

Getting back to the woman who suffered feminine bleeding for twelve years while under the care of physicians, this explains why I don’t use doctors unless absolutely necessary: Why blow time & money when you can get your healing directly from the Lord? Again, healing is a core benefit of the gospel (Isaiah 53:4-5) and so I’m going to take advantage of it, my wife too. We’d be fools not to. At the same time, we value doctors for cases where they’re needed and effective. For instance, I fell off a cliff when I was a teen, breaking my thigh bone and cracking my pelvis. I sure am thankful for my doctor & the medical staff that treated me! So please don’t think that this article is anti-doctor or anti-healthcare. It’s not.

Of course, doctors and medical technology have improved exponentially in the 2000 years since the account of the woman with the issue of blood. This is absolutely true. Again, if you want to utilize the services of doctors & medical technology to (hopefully) cure whatever ails you then please do so. But it’s going to take time & money (traveling to medical facilities, endless waiting in rooms, etc.), plus — keeping it real — there are legitimate concerns even in our day and age of medical expertise and advances:

The doctor can botch the surgery. For instance, my mother went ‘under the knife’ for foot surgery in 1985 and the doctor bungled the job. For the last twenty years of her life she had a malformed foot with an unresponsive big toe. More recently, a popular 18 year-old in my local area, a healthy star athlete, underwent minor surgery and never woke up from it. His funeral was attended by many of his fellow students and it was heartbreaking. In another infamous case, a man underwent surgery, but the doctor misidentified the patient and unnecessarily amputated his leg. Imagine waking up from the anesthesia with a missing leg! Sure, these are the exceptions and not the rule, but they’re still very real possibilities when choosing surgery. Ask my Mother.

Doctors tend to push unnecessary surgeries and medications (drugs) because healthcare — when it comes down to it — is a business, which needs patients to exist. For instance, doctors are often linked to Big Pharma and so they rashly prescribe some medication (drug) for the patient’s ailment, which of course costs time & money. Then there’s often a side-effect to the medication (drug) and you have to take another drug to treat it. On-and-on it goes. Some people are on myriad “medications.” It’s absurd. Personally, I refuse to be a guinea pig to support the extravagant lifestyles of medical professionals & the people of the institutions that back them, like Big Pharma. But if you or anyone else wants to spend time & money on such procedures or “medications,” that’s your choice. It’s not my business.

You’re more apt to get a staph infection — MRSA — at healthcare facilities, such as hospitals. A friend of mine visited a hospital for something routine several years ago and got MRSA. Not only did he almost die, he lost sight in one of his eyes, and ever since has to visit the hospital a couple of times a week, every week, for dialysis. (He finally did pass away six weeks after the original publishing of this article at the premature age of 59).

For all of these reasons, it’s best to focus on healthy living/eating and learn to receive any healings you might need directly from the LORD. But to do this you have to build up your faith, otherwise you won’t be able to believe to receive.

Building Up Your Faith

How do you build up your faith? By adding knowledge — the Word of God — to your current level of faith on the topic/issue in question (2 Peter 1:5-7), in this case faith for healing (Romans 10:17). For example, meditating on verses like Mark 11:24, John 14:14, John 16:24, Mark 1:40-41 & Matthew 8:1-3 will certainly beef up your faith in this area.

I encourage you to master the passages & points in this video, which includes examples of two healings I received by faith:

Feed on the relevant healing passages cited in the video (Matthew 4:4), plus receive from other anointed ministries who teach/preach faith & healing, as Christ’s ministry did (Matthew 4:23). Stay away from ministries that preach unbelief/doubt and, in essence, advocate sickness/disease. Then start walking in faith to receive healing when you need it for relatively minor things before tackling bigger issues. For instance, if you don’t have the faith to receive healing for a skin rash or back pain, you’re probably not going to have the faith to tackle cancer. Before David had the faith to face Goliath, he built up his faith taking on the lion and the bear (1 Samuel 17:34-37). Like anything else, there are stepping stones to walking in victorious faith.

I should add, just because someone believes in receiving healings by faith and walks in it as much as possible, it doesn’t necessarily mean that s/he has the faith to receive healing for everything on every occasion. For example, a minister with a powerful healing ministry needed some serious dental work. This guy had led formidable healing crusades, but he discerned the LORD instructing him to get the work done because the Spirit said he didn’t have the faith to receive on this occasion. Perhaps it was a case where it would’ve taken time to build-up his faith to receive in the area in question and it needed immediate attention. I don’t know. But we need to be honest with ourselves and God concerning what we have the faith to receive for and what we don’t at any given time. In any case, the minister got the dental work done. There’s no condemnation here for people who decide to go this route, whatever the reason. It’s their decision and their right.

‘But Is It God’s Will That I Be Healed?’

Christ was Immanuel — “God is with us (in the flesh)” (Matthew 1:23) — and so what the Messiah did during his ministry on Earth reveals God’s will to us. For instance, people needing serious healings would approach Jesus and ask “if you are willing.” The Lord never responded “No, it is not my will”; rather he plainly said it was his will (Mark 1:40-41 & Matthew 8:1-3).

I repeat, healing is part of the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:24), which is one of several reasons why it’s “good news.” The Bible promises a minimum of 70-80 years of life (Psalm 90:10) so, if you’re under that age, you can claim this promise by faith (2 Corinthians 1:20). Even if you’re over 80 you can believe and receive in faith in your awesome covenant with God simply based on your righteous desire (Mark 11:24, John 14:14, John 16:24).

Don’t Wait till the Last Minute to Build Up Your Faith on Healing

When people are in their 20s-30s they’re in generally good health, so it doesn’t really matter if the assembly/sect they’re hooked up with emphasizes faith & healing. But in later decades it literally becomes a matter of life or death. For instance, when you’re in your 50s your body’s ‘check engine light’ usually starts coming on.

Let me share a recent example of what I’m talking about: My wife, Carol, has a healing anointing and so a woman around 50 years-old asked to meet with her for prayer because she was scheduled for surgery in a couple days. This presented a conundrum that I pointed out: Should Carol simply pray for the woman’s surgery to go well, including praying for the medical professionals who would be treating her, or should she pray that the woman receive healing, which would of course make the surgery irrelevant (assuming she received it)? Carol was led to do the latter and so the woman’s scheduled surgery would then be dependent on if she received healing by faith or not.

When they met, Carol wisely had this woman watch a teaching video on healing, which gave the scriptural basics about receiving healing by faith (this video was from a proven ministry that was anointed to minister in this area). This was necessary because, in order for the woman to receive a lasting healing, she was going to have to have faith to receive and such belief is a result of hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). At that point Carol laid hands on her and prayed, to which the woman said her pain was gone and they praised the Lord. Carol suggested that she postpone the surgery and get retested. Meanwhile the husband was curiously silent the entire time. Carol & I suspected that he’d talk his wife out of receiving healing by faith and sticking with the scheduled surgery, which is what happened. The good news is that the operation was successful. There’s nothing wrong with doing this if that’s where the person’s faith is. But God’s best is to receive healing by faith rather than go under the knife, which can be costly to your body, time and finances. But, to do this, you shouldn’t wait until the proverbial last minute (a mere couple days before a scheduled surgery) to build up your faith in this vital area. Are you following?

Of course believing for a healing and not actually having the faith to receive it can also be costly. It’s no secret that people have died doing this. That’s why responsibility rests with the individual needing the healing and no one else.

If you choose to receive healings by faith — or walk the faith life in general — you’re going to have to develop a righteously stubborn spirit in response to the lies/attacks of the Enemy, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did (Daniel 3:16-18). You’re going to have to righteously hate any curses the Enemy tries to put on you to hamper (or end) your life & productivity in service of God’s kingdom.

I should add that, in cases where your child needs medical attention, please take them to a physician. Never experiment with your faith when it concerns someone else’s health needs (unless, of course, you have no other recourse in the situation, like pioneers in the Old West).

FIGHT the Good Fight of Faith!

The Bible says the believer is to fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). If there’s a fight to faith, then there are enemies to faith. Sickness/disease is one of those enemies.

To build up your faith and develop a spirit that ardently fights the good fight of faith, master the principles & passages covered in this article: Spiritual Warfare — Do You know What You’re Fighting For?

This article is available in book form as chapter 8 in…