Release the Supernatural by Meditation on Christ

Greater Impartation
Through
Formation
. The truth of the impartation of spiritual gifts has been emphasized by many leaders in the Church in the past two decades. Unfortunately, in many places, this has been an unbalanced teaching promising an instantaneous empowering of believers simply by the laying on of hands. Repeatedly, I have been asked by believers to impart to them the healing and miracle anointing. While this is entirely possible, what believers actually receive when I pray for them is highly dependent upon their spiritual formation.

The term formation describes the kind of vessel that a believer is for the Spirit of Christ. Indeed, we should never overlook the fact that the Holy Spirit seeks to conform us to Christ. Formation of a believer has to do with Christ-like character, child-like faith in Christ and sincere love for God. Formation has to do with our capacity to love and serve people in need. Formation has to do with pure motives and most certainly the clarity of our understanding of the will of the Father. While many English-speaking believers have sufficient Christ-like character to have a significant healing flow, faulty understanding robs them of simple faith and often prevents the from consistently and reliably healing the sick and injured in Christ’s name.

Childhood Lessons on Formation.
When I was eight years old, my family lived in northern
Louisiana
. I remember the rain storms that came in certain seasons of the year. These rain storms have become a parable to me about formation. The rain was so intense, so dense, that you couldn’t see across the street. I found a way to entertain myself even though I couldn’t go outside to play. I would go into our garage and open the door. I would then place various vessels in the garage out into the rain. Glass Coke bottles were generally numerous in the garage and I’d place them
where
they would begin to collect the rain. My mother always had a few Mason jars in the garage also. I’d place them in the rain as well. There were lids to various vessels as well that I would put in the rain as well. There were also a mop bucket and dried out paint cans and other assorted vessels of different types. I put all these into the rain.

I learned a great deal about vessels and their capacity to receive the rain on those days. For instance, no matter how deep the vessel was, its capacity to receive the rain was dependent upon the size of the opening at the top. There were numerous Coke bottles in the rain, but they didn’t collect much rain water because the opening at the top was small. While the Mason jars were about the same height as the Coke bottles, they did much better at receiving the rain. The mop bucket collected a great deal of the rain because the opening at its top was very large. The mop bucket was very open to the rain, while the Coke bottles were in comparison very closed to the rain. Likewise, if our opening at the top, our head, is not open, we also will receive little of the presence and power of Holy Spirit that is abundantly being poured out like abundant rain in our day. Our understanding of God’s will is critical for us to receive properly God’s work through us. For example, many of us rejected or were suspicious of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit when we first heard about this experience. In many cases, we had misunderstandings that had to be overcome before we received what the Lord wished. Healing is no different except that there are more misunderstandings to overcome.

In those days as a child, I learned that the depth of a vessel does not determine how quickly it receives. There are many Christian people who are of good character but receive little from Christ because their understanding of the will of God is faulty. Faulty understanding of the will of God produces doubt and unbelief. Doubt and unbelief do not allow us to receive what Christ has done for us. Christians with little understanding of God’s will revealed in Jesus Christ are like the Coke bottles. They may have depth of character but they have little capacity to receive from God.

I placed lids of various vessels in the rain. Some of the lids were able to receive rain very quickly because they were large lids. However, they were not able to contain as much rain because they were too shallow and quickly reached their capacity. In other words, our understanding of God’s will allows us to receive from God quickly and abundantly and our depth of character determines how much power and blessing from God we can actually contain.

What kind of vessel are you? Are you a mop bucket or a Coke bottle? You can receive an impartation of the healing power of the Holy Spirit but your understanding will determine exactly how much you actually receive. Your character then will then determine how much you can actually contain and maintain. Thankfully, no one has to remain a Coke bottle. We can become a vessel of honor. We can enlarge our understanding of the gracious and merciful nature of Father’s will revealed in Jesus Christ. As our understanding is enlarged, our faith in Christ will grow and we will receive more and more grace and mercy from the Lord. As we receive more and more from Christ, we will be enlarged in character as well. We will become more like Christ as we receive continuously from Him.

Cultural History of Misunderstanding.
The primary reason for faulty understanding is the influence of western culture. Western culture has been strongly affected by medieval misunderstandings of the value of sickness and the availability of healing. Western culture has been affected by the anti-supernatural bias of early Protestantism and then reinforced by the anti-supernatural tenets of the philosophies of rationalism and humanism. In other words, western culture has a long history of unbelief, doubting doctrines, and skepticism about healing.

North America, Europe, and many of those nations that were formerly part of the
British Empire
have been profoundly affected by the anti-supernatural bias of western culture. Those of us in North America and in
Europe
and elsewhere were born into cultures that already were strongly affected by doubt and unbelief about Christian healing. Let us not underestimate the power of our culture to affect us negatively.

The relative lack of healing in these affected nations also reinforces cultural doubts about healing. In other words since healing doesn’t happen very often or reliably in most western churches, we assume that God does not wish to heal for specific reasons in those churches. The actual truth is very different from this. Humbly we submit that the great majority of Christian leaders in the western nations are Coke bottles and simply don’t know it. Their understanding and attitudes are incorrect about healing and therefore they receive little for their congregations. These leaders often reproduce Coke bottles in their congregations without really knowing it. They impart distorted ideas and attitudes about healing that are not found in the New Testament.

The Church in the western nations has often thought arrogantly that it was superior to the Church in the third world. The Church, living in the western nations, has consistently demonstrated that it struggles with healing and the supernatural much more than the Church living in Asian, African, or even South American cultures. Those cultures generally have a superior experience with healing and miracles in general. Since Christ and the Gospel is the same for all cultures, we must conclude that we in the West have the problem.

The extent of the effect of western culture upon us personally as individuals is difficult to discern precisely. Our church’s culture is often all we know until revelation about Christ begins to penetrate our hearts and minds. We simply don’t know what we don’t know. We are all too close to the trees to see the forest. We are very likely to over-estimate how much we actually understand because we have read books about healing or seen healing happen in our meetings a few times. Intellectual knowledge and mental acceptance of doctrine no matter how good is not the same thing as having our minds renewed and having the mind of Christ.

How do we determine if we need new formation in understanding? The best way of determining our need is comparison with the correct standard; Christ Himself. How Christ-like is our present capacity to heal the sick and injured? How do we compare with the believers revealed in the New Testament? We must remember that twelve ordinary men duplicated the healing ministry of Christ after being with Him for just a few years. Are we duplicating the healing ministry of Christ like these ordinary men? If not, then perhaps we do not understand what those twelve ordinary men understood. Perhaps we need to see Christ the Healer in the same ways that those twelve men saw Him.

Formation
Through
Scriptural Meditation
. Overcoming the effects of western culture has to be a priority for believers. Believers must have proper formation. Thankfully, there is a biblical way to accomplish this. Biblical meditation is the answer. God told Joshua that meditation on the Scriptures would make him successful and prosperous.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Joshua 1:8 (NASV)

…and the Psalmist declares this about the power of meditation:

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:2-3 (NASV)

If we meditate on Christ’s healing in the New Testament, we will experience success and prosperity in healing. Why? Meditation allows the Holy Spirit to reform and renew our attitudes, feelings and thinking about healing. Meditation forms the mind of Christ within us allowing us to think about healing in exactly the same way Christ would think and feel. We move from being a Coke bottle to being a mop bucket.

Definition of Meditation.
What exactly is biblical meditation? This is the author’s definition.

Deep continued thought, reflection, pondering, studying, musing and focusing upon matters revealed in the Bible as important.

Meditation is the activity that changed my understanding. As my understanding changed, I became a different kind of vessel and was able to receive a better impartation. This new impartation gave me a more Christ-like experience with healing and miracles. How did this happen?

Experience of Meditation.
Two years of daily meditation on Christ the Healer produced in me a new understanding of healing. Sometimes I spent several hours each day for a week or more reading and studying just one of Christ’s healing events in the New Testament. One occasion I spent eight or more hours studying Christ in a single day. I began by reading the passages, and then I studied them with every study tool in my disposal. I read each passage in various English translations. I took extensive notes about what I was learning. I continued to read and study these passages to the extent that Christ the Healer was in my thoughts even when I was doing something else. Christ became my daily teacher as I meditated upon Him healing people in the Gospels. As I did this, I saw Jesus revealing the will of the Father. My understanding was changing. I began to understand that many things that I had been taught about healing were incorrect and contradicted by Christ. Christ’s example dealt with my doubts one by one. I became a newly formed vessel. I ceased being a Coke bottle and was newly formed into a vessel that could receive more. New formation preceded new impartation. As I was reformed and renewed in understanding, a new impartation of Christ-like power to heal the sick followed. Christ became my instructor through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the New Testament. New understanding of Father’s will revealed in Jesus Christ moved me from a sporadic, unpredictable experience with healing to a much more reliable increasingly Christ-like ministry of healing. I went from occasionally hitting the lottery in healing to seeing a great majority healed when I ministered to them.

Planting the Seed of the Word of God.
The Parable of the Sower found in Mark Chapter 4 tells us that the seed that should be planted in good soil is the Word of God. As we meditate on Christ in the New Testament, spiritual seed gets planted in us that will bear the fruit of the Spirit; the character of Christ. We become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ through meditation on Christ Himself.

A few years ago, I observed an unusual thing about seed. We purchased a home in the country-side more than 30 minutes drive from any town or city in
Virginia
. Because I had a young family and we lived a distance from any public swimming pools, I decided to put a pool into my backyard. I chose a large above-ground pool. I was required to get all the grass and rocks out from where the pool would rest upon the ground. In order to do this, I dug down about 6 inches removed all the soil and placed sand in the cavity that I had created. I then set up the pool which was made of heavy vinyl approximately 3/8 of an inch thick. After putting the vinyl over the sand, I added thousands of pounds of water. The water pressure on the vinyl had to be very intense. About two weeks after setting up the pool, I began to notice that the water level had fallen. I looked carefully for a leak and found that grass had split the vinyl and was growing at the bottom of the pool despite the water. Apparently, there had been grass seed in the sand. Despite the thickness of the vinyl and the pressure of the water against it, the seed had had enough strength to break through the vinyl.