Release the Supernatural by Meditation on Christ (2 page)

After sharing this story with a friend in the concrete business, he told me that he had seen occasions where seed had broken concrete. I believe that the seed of the Word of God has power to break the concrete of any unbelief or doubt. It simply must be planted in the heart. Meditation is a means of planting the seed of the Word of God in our hearts.

The Essential Centrality of Christ
.
What should we mediate on? Any plan that would equip believers with Christ-like power in healing would have to include meditation on Christ Himself. For instance, the apostle Paul tells us about the nature of Christ in God’s plan for us. He writes:

But to those who are the called… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God… But by His (the Father’s) doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption
… 1
Corinthians 1: 24, 30 (NASV)

Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. As we see Jesus in the Gospels, we see the wisdom of God revealed in human form. The disciples learned healing ministry by seeing Christ reveal the wisdom and power of God in healing moment by moment and situation by situation. We can see Christ, the Word of God made flesh, in the same way that the disciples saw by meditation upon Him in the Gospels.

Father has made Christ righteousness, sanctification and redemption to us. Power comes by focusing upon the very thing that Father has placed His emphasis upon and that is, Christ Himself. As we meditate upon Christ in the Gospels, the Holy Spirit will transform our understanding and minister righteousness, sanctification and redemption to us as we truly see Jesus as those things.

The Gospels reveal Christ Himself and should be the starting place of meditation with anyone who wishes to have a Christ-like capacity to help the sick and suffering. Beyond that, the centrality of Christ in Father’s plan for us is a powerful place of meditation in the Epistles. Father has made Christ preeminent. Father is building the Church as a
Holy
Temple
on the cornerstone of Christ. Christ is the Master and we are His disciples. Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is Lord over His Kingdom. Christ is Bridegroom that will marry the Church at the end of the age. Christ is Head and we are His body. He is the vine and we are His branches. Christ is the Great Shepherd and we are His flock. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Christ is resurrection and life. Believe in Christ as Savior, Healer and Deliverer and be saved, healed and delivered. Father puts all Christ’s enemies under His feet. Father gave Christ the seven-sealed book. Therefore, Christ controls the flow of time. Christ is Alpha and Omega and is beginning and end. Father has sent the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ. The proclamation of the Gospel is about Christ, His cross and resurrection. Believers are being conformed into Christ’s image. The Lord’s Supper reminds of the importance of Christ-centered-
ness
. Believers dare not lose their first love, Christ Himself. These Christ-centered truths are worthy of extensive meditation. Meditation produces formation. Formation precedes impartation.

Christ Perfectly Reveals the Father.
The more time I devoted to meditation on this second truth, the greater results I had in healing. The Amplified Version says this:

No man has seen God at any time; the only unique Son, the only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom (that is, in the intimate presence) of the Father, He has declared Him – He has revealed Him, brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him, and He has made Him known. John 1:18

Christ alone reveals Father perfectly.
Every attitude, action, and word of Christ revealed the perfect will of Father. The Gospels become Good News to us as we learn of the will of Father by what Christ reveals. Christ often describes Himself as doing Father’s work and those works witnessed that Father had sent Him. Christ said that He did nothing on His own initiative. He only did what He saw Father doing. He said that He did not seek His own will but the will of Father. Christ said that when we see Him, we see Father. He said that He intimately knew Father and that when we know Him, we know Father. He said that He spoke Father’s words and told us truth that He heard from Father.

From the Epistles, the apostle Paul writes that Christ is the image of the invisible Father. The writer of Hebrews writes that before Christ, Father spoke though prophets but now Father speaks in His Son. He writes that Christ is the radiance of Father’s glory and the exact representation of Father’s nature. These are truths in the Epistles worthy of meditation. Meditation produces formation. Formation precedes impartation.

Father’s will in healing can be known precisely by meditation upon Christ Himself. For instance, we discover Christ repeatedly heals everyone in the multitudes who comes to Him for healing. We discover that the only people who didn’t receive healing were the people who didn’t come to Him as Healer like in His own home town. When we are sure that Father always wants to heal everyone, we can pray with simple faith like Christ for the sick and injured.

We can by meditation discover that Christ does not need specific revelation to heal everyone. He does not need a word of knowledge ahead of the time of ministering a miracle to someone like some think today. He is sometimes surprised. The woman with the issue of blood receives healing and Christ does not know ahead of time
who
she is. Christ is sometimes amazed. Meditation on the story of the ten lepers will reveal that Christ is amazed that the other nine don’t return to thank Him.

Meditation reveals that Christ sometimes marvels at the faith of someone. The Roman Centurion received a greater miracle than Christ intended because of the greatness of His faith. In all these cases and many others, we find that Christ’s healing ministry was not dependent upon receiving prior revelation of the specifics of the situation. When we are released from the common misconception that we must know specifics on each situation by revelation beforehand, then we will have more Christ-like experience in helping people find healing.

Meditation revealed that had many other common misconceptions that prevent me from having simple faith in Christ as Healer. As I meditated upon Christ during those two years, I begin to see my doubts vanish and my experience of healing rapidly change. I began to see a much higher percentage of suffering people being healed. Successful meditation on Christ will change anyone’s experience. Many are waiting for something supernatural to happen to them to change their present ability and yet they are not the right kind of vessels. It is the truth that sets us free. We become His disciples and learn the truth from the One who is the truth as we meditate upon Him. This kind of Christ-centered truth will set us free.

Calvary
’s Finished Work.
The third area that is highly significant to consistent power to heal the sick and injured is clarity about the work of Christ at His cross. Here it is important not to listen to what theologians say about the atonement but to meditate on what the apostles and prophets write about this matter. Matthew, one of the twelve apostles, and an eyewitness to Christ’s ministry and resurrection writes this:

And when evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill in order that what was spoken though Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES, AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.” Matthew 8:16-17 (NASV)

Here Matthew points us to Isaiah Chapter 53. He states that Christ’s ministry to the multitude fulfills this prophetic passage. Since this Old Testament messianic passage describes what Christ would accomplish at His cross, it is significant to understanding healing ministry. Even though the final price of redemption had not yet been paid, Father showed grace and mercy in healing all who believe in Christ as if the price was already paid. Father looked forward in time to the cross showing grace and mercy to those who came to Christ in need. The Holy Spirit worked through Christ because of the coming work of the cross.

Patient meditation upon the power of the cross, discussed in the writings of Paul and Peter, will have a profound effect on creating greater success in healing. Christ-centered and cross-centered truth will penetrate our consciousness and becomes part of the inward nature.

A second quotation about healing being available through the cross is found in the
apostle
Peter’s writings. This quotation is worthy of extensive meditation so that it becomes part of us. Peter, one of the twelve apostles and an eyewitness to the ministry, death and resurrection of Christ writes in 1 Peter 2:24:

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed
.

Peter quotes from Isaiah 53:5. In this quotation, Peter connects the work of the cross very closely to physical healing in actual words of the verse above. He also quotes from the prophecy of Isaiah about healing that also connects healing with the atoning work of Christ.

Since both Matthew and Peter quote from Isaiah about healing it follows that meditation on this Old Testament chapter ought to help us be better vessels for healing ministry. Meditation on the passage in Isaiah Chapter 53 does reveal a few simple linguistic facts that should help our understanding of healing. For instance, only the phrase below separates the two quotes about healing with Matthew’s quote just before it and Peter’s quote just after it:

But He was pierced through for our
transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities. Isaiah 53:5a

Again, the quote above is between the two quotes from Isaiah Chapter 53 used by Matthew and Peter. This portion of the verse is unmistakably about the atonement. Therefore, Isaiah does not separate healing from atonement for sin but mixes these biblical blessings. He mixes them because the cross purchases both these blessings for us in just the same way. Just after Peter’s quote about healing this phrase is found:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Isaiah 53:6

In other words, every other statement in these verses is about healing or atonement for sin (forgiveness). This is how this part of the passage is constructed:

The
took
/carried away sickness
phrase quoted by the apostle Matthew…

Followed by the
pierced-transgression
phrase…

Followed by the
wounds-healed
phrase quoted by the apostle Peter…

Followed by
iniquity-on-Him
phrase.

Isaiah is mixing the ideas Christ paying the price for healing with Christ paying the price for the forgiveness of transgression and iniquity. What are the implications of this? Some have doubted that healing is in the atonement but meditation on these passages reveals that healing is indeed in the atonement. The passage does not separate the ideas. Nor does the passage regulate physical healing to some sort of secondary status. This is consistent with the strong emphasis that the Gospels give healing in the ministry of Christ.

In Conclusion.
The same Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is presently seated at the right hand of the Father. This same Jesus does things now through the Church in the same way that He demonstrated consistently to His disciples. The disciples saw Christ and as a result duplicated His ministry. Christ was their doctrine. He was the Word made flesh to them. They saw that He was the wisdom and power of God. Meditation is a powerful way to see Christ and seeing Him will cause us to believe that He will work exactly the same way today through us in healing.