“My son, attend to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body.”
(Proverbs 4:20-22 MEV)
LAYING THE SCENE
In recent months doctors diagnosed me with a reactive, inflammatory arthritis.
I had severe pain symptoms in my shoulders and serious swelling in my fingers – they looked like sausages!
If I’m being honest, historically, I’ve battled with the nature of healing.
So, I’m not here professing to be an expert. Rather, I just want to share with you what God has taught me in this season and how I’ve put the Word [of God] into practice.
My health journey over the last four months has led me to dig deep into what the bible says about my healing. In learning and applying this to my life, I have come to understand so much about God’s plan for our lives and health.
I’ll preface the words that follow by saying it hasn’t been easy! Every day I’m learning how to put my faith in the field and keep it there until what I’m believing for manifests.
My hope is that my experience encourages you, and at the very least, points you towards some rock-solid scriptures on healing that you can embed in your heart and declare with your mouth.
WHEN IT HURTS
It all started five months ago when I began to notice some painful symptoms in my joints, specifically my shoulders and then down into my fingers.
Initially the sore shoulders didn’t bother me. I had an old nagging Taekwondo injury that would pester my right shoulder if I overdid it at the gym or sat at my desk for too long.
But this was different because it was in both shoulders.
It then creeped down into my fingers and they started to hurt and swell up. None of my rings could fit and basic tasks like sleeping, getting out of bed, getting dressed, writing and typing became incredibly difficult and painful.
Going to the gym, one of my favourite things to do, even became a non-option. A push up was impossible.
It was time to visit the doctor.
After a few rounds of blood tests, he diagnosed me with reactive inflammatory arthritis.
He put me on steroids which helped for a time to minimise the pain. But because you can’t stay on steroids for too long, after a few weeks he weaned me off them. Within a few days the pain was back and starting to spread to my hips and knees.
At this stage my doctor referred me to a specialist. My doctor prescribed me with a very strong pain killer to help with the pain while I waited for my specialist appointment a few days later.
This was the point where my family and I decided to firmly stand against these symptoms and diagnosis. We dove head-first into every healing scripture we could find and plugged into preaching and teaching on healing.
Jesus loves us so much that He died on the cross to remove our sins and overcome our sicknesses.
Matthew 8:17 says that when Jesus was crucified, “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” When He defeated death on the cross, He also defeated all of our sins and sickness, once for all!
As if like clockwork, as soon as we started to fight this physical battle in the spiritual realm, declaring the Word of God as the ultimate authority on my health, the enemy tried to steal the Word.
The bible tells us this is one of the devil’s oldest tactics, in Mark Chapter 4 Jesus shares the Parable of the Sower. In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says: “The sower sows the word. These are for those beside the path, where the word is sown. But when they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word which is sown in their hearts.” (MEV)
What did this attempted theft look like in the physical? Me taking a ride to the hospital in an ambulance in the early hours of the morning because all the drugs I was on had burned through my stomach.
Not OK!
But I refused to let the devil steal the healing words that God had been planting in my heart. As I was laying in the hospital bed waiting for the morphine, I was declaring – “Bones, hear the Word of the Lord!”
I left the hospital with renewed resolve, knowing the only way to fight this physical battle was through using the sword of truth (aka: the Word of the Lord)!
HERE’S WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT HEALING
How did I know this?
Because Proverbs 4:20-22 give us the prescription for healing:
“My son, attend to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body.”
So that is what I set out to do!
I found as many healing scriptures as I could and began to memorise them all! Reading them in the bible every now and then wasn’t going to cut it! Proverbs chapter 4 says we are to “keep them in the midst of our heart.”
Here are the scriptures that I would (and still do!) speak over my life every day…
1 Peter 2:24 – “He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. “By His wounds you were healed.””
Psalm 103:1-5 – “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Isaiah 53:5 – “But he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.”
Ezekiel 37:4-5 – “Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you so that you live.””
Jeremiah 30:17 – “For I will restore health to you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord…”
Joel 3:10 – “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior!””
Matthew 8:16-17 – “When the evening came, they brought to Him many who were possessed with demons. And He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all who were sick, to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, “He himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.””
As I continued to speak these words day after day, morning and night, my faith continued to grow. Not only was I speaking the words but I was deeply and truly believing them as truth and God’s will for me!
THE WORD IS THE MANIFESTATION OF YOUR HEALING
During this time, I still felt pain in my shoulders and my hands were still stiff and swollen. But one of my dear family friends who I look to as a true faith warrior told me this, and it has stuck with me:
The manifestation of your healing is what the Word says, not what you feel in your body.
What does this mean? It means that the enemy will try and convince you that what you are experiencing and feeling in your body is your reality. But the truth is in the Word and what it says about your healing.
I love the way The Passion Translation says it in 1 Peter 2:24: “He himself carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we would be dead to sin and live for righteousness. Our instant healing flowed from his wounding.”
Note the past tense – we are healed!
Healing is no longer a future-tense promise, it is a past-tense fact!
Despite what my body presented, I looked to and trusted what the bible said about my healing and chose to believe that instead!
At the risk of this all sounding too mater-of-fact, I’ll admit, this was hard! I had days of doubt. I had days where it felt like my faith was wavering. But I remember hearing a preacher say that on these days you are to keep your faith in the field as you wait for the manifestation of what you are believing for.
Easier said then done. But certainly, something worth pursuing!
POWER OF THE TONGUE
Remember what the prescription in proverbs 4 says – “…incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body.”
Once I had my healing scriptures and had them memorised (aka they were in my heart), the next step was to get them onto my tongue (aka speak them out loud).
Why?
Look at what the bible says about the power of our words:
Proverbs 18:20-21 – “From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who live it will eat its fruit.”
James 3:5-6 – “Even so, the tongue is a little part of the body and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. The tongue is a fire, a world of evil. The tongue is among the parts of the body, defiling the whole body, and setting the course of nature on fire…”
These scriptures talk about how powerful our tongues are in directing the course of our lives and bodies.
So use it to speak life!
What does that look like in practice?
Verbally speaking the healing scriptures over your life multiple times a day!
As I did, my faith and my confidence in God grew and grew!
WHERE AM I NOW?
Writing this in retrospect makes it all sound so simple. And in theory it is!
But in reality, there were days that were oh so hard!
For me, healing wasn’t instantaneous. It was a five month journey that had its ups as faith grew, and its downs as doubt tried to bang down the door.
Each time I’d come off the steroids only to experience the pain again, and when I found myself in a hospital bed, it was so tempting to throw my hands up and quit.
But I didn’t. My faith was growing each day through the declaration of the Word.
Jesus loves me and wants me to live healed! That is my divine right as a child of God, made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross.
Today I have been off the steroids for two weeks and I am pain free! Hallelujah!
This is my story in this season. I recognise the value of modern medicine in helping me to manage the pain, it had an important part to play! But I firmly believe it was the truth of God’s Word, embedding it in my heart and speaking it out daily, that delivered the ultimate victory!
Now, not only am I completely healed in my body, but my faith has grown along with my understanding of the power of the Word of God!
I pray that this story and journey encourages you and has pointed you towards some scriptures that declare the truth over your health and healing.
THE PRESCRIPTION
I leave you with these instructions for healing that truly encouraged me; a prescription for health according to the Word of God:
God’s medicine: to be taken by mouth three times a day until faith comes. Then once a day to maintain faith. If circumstances grow worse, double the dose. There are not harmful side effects.
(‘God’s Creative Power for Healing’, Charles Capps)
Salt & Grace 