By Frances
"Everyone was trying to touch him, for when they did healing power went out from him and they were cured" (Luke 6:19 TLB).
And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and
besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole" (Mark 6:56).
Jesus didn't need to touch them; they touched him and were healed because the power of the Holy Spirit, which is like a wind or energy, flowed out of him into them!
"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8).
Was it Jesus who healed the people? Yes and no! Jesus was God's earthly container, but it was the power of God's Holy Spirit that did the healing. We, too, can be those earthly containers for the power of God to flow through, because this is a
laying hands on the sick.
Let the sick lay hands on you! There are not very many examples of this type of healing in the Bible, and I haven't heard of too many present-day
examples of it, but there are times when it does happen.
"And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, 'Who touched my clothes?' And his
disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and say est thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague" (Mark 5:25- 34). This woman knew that she was healed.
You need to know HOW TO HEAL, but you also need to know what to say to people who have a negative
attitude. For example, fairly often someone will come up to us and say "Will you pray for my Aunt Jane?" I will say, "Is Aunt Jane here? I would love to pray for her."
"No, she was too sick to come."
Too sick to come! Let me tell you this. If Aunt Jane called a doctor, and the doctor said, "I am calling an ambulance, and I am taking you to the hospital," Aunt Jane would be in the hospital as soon as the ambulance could get her there! Generally, it is a weak excuse to say, "Aunt Jane is too sick to come." If you are too sick to come, that is when you need to have hands laid on you!
The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment could have looked for excuses. She could have said, "I have been to every doctor in the world and nothing has done me any good, so what is the sense of trying to get up to this man Jesus? I might as well die and get it over with!" Do you think there are people like that today? There certainly are!
Not too long ago, the Spirit of God told me that there was a man in our service who had very severe emphysema, and that he was going to die if God's healing touch was not on him. Although I announced this, the man did not come forward for laying on of hands. As Charles and I were leaving the service, I said to him, "May I pray for you?" He said, "No, I am
doing my own thing with God. If God wants to do it, he will do it!"
Well, do you lay hands on someone like that? No, because it would not do any good if you did. That is the same kind of individual who would say, "I am not going to pray the sinner's prayer, because if God wants to save me, let him save me!" He would never get saved, would he?
Here is another one of my pet peeves. "I have been prayed for by the best. I have been prayed for by Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Kathryn
Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, Rex Hum-bard ..." and on and on. Then they'll say, "Will you pray for me?"
What good would it do if I prayed? None, because there are some people who just like to come forward so they can go around naming all the great
evangelists who have unsuccessfully laid hands on them. But they never believe anything is going to happen!
The woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment could have said the same thing. "All these great doctors tried to heal me, and it didn't do any good." She could have looked at that crowd and said, "What a mess, I am not going to try. Why, there is no way I can get through to Jesus. It must not be God's will Tor me to be healed!"
There are all kinds of excuses people can make. But she didn't make excuses! I see her as a woman of great persistence. She probably had come a long way to get I here, and could have said, "I might as well go home. I did all that traveling for nothing. I can't even get close to him."
But she didn't. I imagine she stood there like a race horse. She probably started pawing the ground with her feet, saying, "Let me out of here, let me into that crowd. I am going to get there. I don't care what I have to do. I don't care if I have to crawl on my knees to get there. Whatever it takes, I am going to get to Jesus, and I am going to touch the hem of his
garment, because I know that when I do I am going to be healed by the power of God!"
That woman could have used every excuse in the world, but she didn't!
She could have let circumstances discourage her, but she didn't!
She could have reached out and thought, "I will get in trouble if I touch that man."
She could have let fear take over, but she did not! She was determined that there was one thing she had to do, and that was all! She was determined to touch the hem of that garment, because she KNEW that when she did, she was going to be made whole! And
because she was persistent, SHE WAS HEALED! Her FAITH in that case was TOUCHING IN REVERSE. She didn't even ask if Jesus would touch her. She just said, "If I can just touch HIM, I will be made whole." And she was!
This is a beautiful Bible story, but who has that much power in his clothing today? Who is walking around today with so much resurrection power that
someone can come up and touch him or a piece of his clothing and get healed?
What is the answer to that question? EACH AND EVERY SPIRIT-FILLED BELIEVER HAS THE SAME RESURRECTION POWER IN HIM!
Here is the story of the hem of another garment. I have been a fanatic from the day I was saved. I say that joyfully, because when Jesus Christ came into my heart, I KNEW that he came in. I KNEW I was a new creature. I KNEW that old things had passed away! I KNEW that all things had become new! I KNEW I was saved! I KNEW that Jesus was living in my heart! It was the wildest, most exciting thing in the world to KNOW that Jesus was in me. I felt like going around saying, "Look, look, can you see him? He is living inside of me!"
Years ago, even before I received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, exciting things had been happening
because I was totally committed to God. One of the greatest, most important things in the whole world is that total complete sellout to God when you don't care what anyone thinks about you, you don't care what happens, as long as you can just serve God and do what God wants you to do.
I had come back from a trip, and in my home church, which did not believe in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, I was sharing some of the exciting things that had happened, how God had used me, and how
hundreds and hundreds of people had accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
At the end of the service, a little note was handed to me which said, "There is a woman in our
congregation who is very ill, and she asked if you would stop by her house on your way home." I agreed, and when I entered the house, I saw the woman lying on just a plain mattress on the floor. I didn't know very much about healing at that time. I KNEW that God healed, but I wasn't sure exactly how he did it. I didn't have any power, but blind simple faith will do a lot!
When I came through the door, she said, "Would you do just one thing for me?"
I said, "Certainly, I will do whatever you want." She said, "Would you stand right over here?" Her
voice was so weak, and she began to inch across the mattress until she got right to the very edge. Then she said, "Would you come real close to me?" I said, "Sure." She had not asked me to pray. She said, "Would you get a little closer?"
I kept getting a little closer, but I didn't understand what she wanted. Suddenly, she looked up at me with the most beautiful faith that I have ever seen in the eyes of any grown person. She said, "If I could just touch the hem of your garment, I KNOW that I would be made whole."
I looked down at my dress and thought, "It sure does not look very special to me!" It did not look the least bit anointed to me! But this woman felt exactly the same way the woman in the Bible did.
She reached out and touched the hem of the skirt that I was wearing, and when she did she was instantly made whole by the power of God!
That was some fourteen years ago. I saw her the last time I was back in Florida, and she has had no recurrence of that horrible cancer that was causing her to hemorrhage to death. She is an extremely healthy, active woman today.
God had put faith into that woman. That faith said, "Just touch the hem of Frances' garment." She didn't
even ask to touch me. She could have touched my leg more easily than she touched my dress, but somehow her faith was in touching the hem of my dress.
There is absolutely nothing special about anything I ever wear! Absolutely nothing! But when you are committed to God, you are anointed! Your skin is anointed, your body is anointed, your hands and your feet are anointed! You have been anointed to heal the sick, therefore any piece of clothing that touches you is equally anointed!
"And God did unusual and extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or towels or aprons which had touched his skin were carried away and put upon the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them" (Acts 19:11,12 Amp.).
Most people don't realize it, but that happens to be just one very unique and scriptural way to heal the sick.