One of my favourite accounts in the Bible is the woman with the issue of blood. After 12 years of non-stop bleeding, she heard of Jesus, and she said if I touch His garment I will be made whole, then she fought her way through the crowd, encountered Jesus, touched His garment and was made whole.
Now I have preached on that many times over, mostly about the power of saying and doing what we believe, but also in terms of persistence and fighting our way to Jesus. I have also preached that we need to see ourselves like Jesus, with healing power coming from us as people touch us.
But recently, I saw this account from a whole different angle, and it’s not obvious at first. At first, this account is one of the most positive examples of faith in Scripture – she heard the Word, said the Word, did the Word and received her miracle. In case there is any doubt how she received her miracle, Jesus Himself says “Your faith has made you whole” to her. But while meditating on that, I had a revelation – her faith made her whole. Touching the clothes of Jesus did not heal her, her faith did.
But her faith was limited! It limited God, it put God in a box. She said if I touch His clothes I will be healed, and she touched His clothes and was healed. But she limited God – she set the circumstances on her own healing. She did not believe she could be healed without touching his clothes. If somehow the crowd had been larger, or she had been weaker, she would not have touched Jesus’ clothes and would not have been healed. Not because Jesus is not the healer, but because she put God in a box – she gave a limit to her faith. She added terms and conditions to her receiving from God that were not originally there!
And that is something so many of us do, regularly. We establish how we will receive from God and then – not because of God – but because of our unbelief – we restrict how God acts. We add terms and conditions to our healing, to our prosperity, to our winning, and if we keep to the terms and conditions we invented, we believe and we receive. If we don’t, we feel condemned, we feel incapable of receiving, so we don’t believe and we don’t receive!
When Andrew Wommack came to our church to preach in 2022, many people were healed. Those people could have been healed in their local church, they could have been healed in a house group, they could have been healed in their living room, but they said – and I know people were saying this because I heard them – if Andrew Wommack lays hands on me, I know I will be healed. They said it, in faith, Andrew Wommack laid hands on them, and they were healed. Healed by faith. But their faith was mixed with their limits on God, and they could have been healed in many different ways. They set terms and conditions the same reason the woman with the issue of blood did – their superstitions, their religious traditions, their ignorance of God’s Word!
If you read Matthew 14.34-36, you find there was a group of people who started touching the hem of Jesus’ garment to receive their healing. They heard that ladies’ testimony, did what she did, and received their healing. They had faith, but that faith was actually limiting God – according to their faith, they could only be healed touching the hem of Jesus’ clothes. Now everyone who touched the hem of His clothes was healed, but the implication is that the people who could not touch the hem of His clothes were not healed – why? Because they had limited God to working through the hem only. They had added terms and conditions, those who kept the terms were healed, those who didn’t were not, but all of them could have been healed – Jesus is that good and that powerful.
Many Christians limit God’s power by adding terms and conditions to His promises that were never there in the first place. They think He can only work in big meetings, He can only heal in conferences. I have heard people tell me that God can only heal in America – we have gone back to the Catholic practice of pilgrimage and why? Because of our unbelief.
The woman with the issue of blood added an unnecessary condition to her healing! And sadly, so many Christians have added unnecessary conditions to receiving their healing, their prosperity, their freedom! They feel that to receive from God they need to break a generational curse, get a specific preacher to lay hands on them, be in a particular place. That kind of thinking limits God, puts Him in a box, reduces His ability and power, and opens the door for satan to get involved. If you are looking for reasons why you are not healed, the devil has a box of them for you – he will explain to you from circumstances why you do not deserve to be healed, or free, or out of debt.
My precious friend, Richard Waller, went to a healing meeting to get a specific preacher to lay hands on him for healing, but the meeting was so busy, that the worship leader laid hands on him. I know many people who in the same circumstances would never have received their healing, because they have limited God to one vessel, one way, one plan. Thankfully Richard was spiritual enough to see beyond that and see that healing comes from God’s Word and we don’t have to add our superstitious ideas to it.
A lot of the conditions we add to receiving from God are from the Old Testament, because we don’t realize we live in the New Testament. We look at curses and try to break them so we can be healed or prosperous, and it works because we believe it works, but the truth is that we are redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3.13) and the blessings of Abraham comes from faith (Galatians 3.14). All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ (2 Cor. 1.20) so stop limiting them by adding terms and conditions to them that Jesus never added.
We, even in faith churches, even in grace churches, have added our terms and conditions to God’s promises. They still work because we believe they work, and people still receive their healing. But you could receive your healing without that preacher, without that conference. We are seeing healings every weekend in local church. I heard one preacher say that pastors can not see as many healings as teachers and evangelists. I don’t care who you are, that’s adding terms and conditions to God’s Word that are simply not there.
You can touch the hem of His garment and be healed, or you can not touch the hem of His garment and still be healed. Your faith makes you whole.
Selah.
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