DESTINED for HEALING
by Marty Delmon
Destined for Healing
© Marty Delmon
Published by RPJ & Company, Inc. on Smashwords
This book is also available at: www.rpjandco.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For information, please contact the publisher.
Copyright © 2009 by Marty Delmon
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
Healing Belongs to Us
As a mother of two young children and needing to be economical as well as to feed my kids nourishing protein, I bought a chunk of meat on sale. Wanting to cut it into bite size pieces and make a stew, I took a serrated knife, put the meat on a chopping board and began the task. It amazed me how tough one slab of meat could be.
It took all of my muscular strength to cut through the sinews and gristle. I gripped that meat in one hand, my fingers acting like claws holding it in place while I sawed with the other hand, my body swinging back and forth with the effort. I heard, rather than felt, the knife working itself on a bone, yet my fingers didn’t feel any bones in the meat.
Suddenly I realized it was MY bone! I was gripping the meat so hard that my fingers had become a part of it and the knife sliced back and forth on my own bone. Horrified, I dropped the meat, the knife skittered on the floor as I held my hand in front of my face watching the blood spurt from my left forefinger across the kitchen splatting on the cabinets and the countertops.
Grabbing the finger, I put pressure on the cut to stop the blood from literally shooting out in arced streams. I started to panic when I heard a voice inside of me say, “You don’t have to put up with this.”
The words “put up with this,” stunned me. My logical mind instantly responded with, “Why not? I did it to myself.” Fortunately, I responded to the voice instead of to my logic. I brought both hands, one still grasping the finger, in front of my face and yelled at it. “I don’t have to put up with this! Stop! You stop! Right this minute!”
Wondering what else to say I heard the voice again, “Tell it to be healed.”
Again I shouted, “Be healed! In the name of Jesus! Be healed! You stop bleeding! You grow back together right now!” I continued speaking like this to my finger, actually shouting, frantic to maintain this spiritual pitch, wanting to obtain a healing as much as to respond to the prompting from my heart.
The next cue I received was to release the finger, which I did. The spurting had stopped and as I watched, in silence now, the skin came back together before my eyes and did not leave even so much as a scar, a wrinkle or a line to ever prove something had happened. The only evidence was the blood coagulating all over my kitchen.
This was my first experience with Divine Healing. Since then I’ve had many healings; some have left a small mark, kind of like a reminder of how blessed I am that Healing belongs to me, but most leave no trace, only complete restoration.
When Jesus suffered so excruciatingly for us during His beatings, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion and His death, burial and resurrection, He purchased SALVATION for us. This word, salvation, basically means to be saved from anything that is negative or nasty. Anything that steals life, destroys or kills, that is what Jesus paid for with His body and His blood.
We can make a sentence starting with ‘I’ve been saved from…’ and then fill in the space with whatever steals, kills and destroys. Sickness and disease are things that steal, kill and destroy. And yes, we have been saved from sickness and disease. This book is to demonstrate that truth and to explain how to use the healing that belongs to us.
ISAIAH 53:4, 5
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
This Scripture verse is a prophetic word. Isaiah spoke for God. He foretold what Jesus would do for us when He suffered through all the stages of the crucifixion and resurrection. The Amplified Bible tells us that the word “griefs” means “sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses.” These words refer to physical life, not spiritual life.
The word “sorrows” in this Scripture means “pains.” In His flesh, when He was beaten, Jesus took upon His body the sicknesses, weaknesses, distresses and pains of our bodies while we are living on this earth. We won’t need these healings after we die. Heaven is a perfect place. There won’t be any of these things in heaven so Jesus couldn’t have carried something for us that we will never experience there.
Some claim that although Jesus healed people while on the earth, the only healing that remains for us today is spiritual healing. But consider when He did this. The time when He carried our sicknesses, weaknesses, distresses and pains was on His body on the cross when there was no time left for Him to actually do the healing. He did not come down from the cross and lay hands on anyone. In fact, right after He took these works of the devil on His body, He died. Therefore, who is the “we” that Isaiah 53:5 talked about? Who is the “we” who was healed by His stripes? Isn’t it all those who came after the cross?
He was “stricken, smitten by God and afflicted,” “wounded,” “bruised” and “chastised.” These things were done to His body so our bodies wouldn’t have to suffer. Have you ever taken the punishment for someone else? In a certain family I know, it was customary, when the child was naughty, for the youngster to cut a supple branch from a bush in the yard for his spanking.
One time the father asked his son to cut a switch because he had been naughty. But when the child returned to the house, already in tears for the whipping he would get with that lash, the father got down on his hands and knees. He said, “I want you to spank me with that switch, son.”
The boy asked, “Why? I’m the one who deserves to be punished.”
The father softly replied, “I know. And someone has to be punished for what you’ve done. I’m going to take your punishment.”
“But why?” the boy cried.
“Jesus took our punishments. He took our sickness and disease away and He paid for our sins. So I’m going to pay for yours.”
The boy cried and cried, but he could not bring himself to whip his father. “Please, Daddy, I’ll never, ever do it again.”
Right after being born again, there was abhorrence in my soul for my former sins. I didn’t even know enough to ask to be forgiven; however, I discovered that I was and that I didn’t want to sin again. Like that little boy, I can’t imagine asking Jesus to suffer and die for me. But He did.
I think it’s time we accepted His sacrifice. When we get born again, we never question our salvation after that initial experience. We give our hearts to Jesus; His Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us and we know it is a done deal. Never again do we have to go through the New Birth. We’ve been born into the Kingdom of God as His children and we know we belong to Him.
Healing came with that gift of salvation. ‘Well, if that’s so,’ you might ask, ‘then how come we don’t question our salvation; we always have it, but we have to obtain healing over and over again?’ I’m presenting to you, in this book, the fact that you don’t have to obtain healing over and over again if you receive it in the first place as easily as you received your eternal life with God. The truth is: we hold healing in a state of unbelief.
The Bible says we didn’t comprehend His sacrifice. We don’t see that He did it for our bodies. Like verse 4 of Isaiah 53 says, we stop short in our reasoning and do not realize all He accomplished for us through His suffering. His blood bought us and paid for our sins, but His body bought and paid for our sicknesses and diseases.
The last phrase says it: “by His stripes I am healed.” Peter repeats that phrase, quoting Isaiah in I Peter 2:24,
Who Himself bore my sins in His own body on the tree that I having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes I am healed.
Matthew talks about Jesus healing people and he also quotes Isaiah in 8:17,
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”
There are teachers who say that the healing mentioned here is our new birth, our new spirit. Consider this: healing means to repair something to a previously good condition, to mend, to restore, to patch up. That cannot refer to our spirits. When we are born again our spirits are new. A new spiritual being is placed inside of us. The old one cannot be repaired. A new one is required, one that is perfect and clean so the Holy Spirit can live there and establish His abode as the Temple of God inside each one of us.
GALATIANS 6:15
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Now we can assess our own bodies and emotions and mental capacities and see that all those things are the same after salvation as they were before. The only thing that has become new is our spirit. That phenomenal force in our lives is brand new and looks and acts exactly like Jesus. Our job is to get our bodies and souls to behave like our spirits.
Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God wherever He went and He explicitly described its location. He kept saying it was at hand, it was at our fingertips. The Kingdom of Heaven is not far off some place, something yet to achieve; it is here and now for us to live in while we’re on earth as well as when we get to heaven. Our eternal life began at the moment of our new birth.
LUKE 17:20-21
Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
JOHN 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him and make Our home with him….”
2 CORINTHIANS 6:16
And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
God lives in His Kingdom and is in His temple all the time. That Kingdom and that temple of the Kingdom are in those of us who are born again! We simply have to learn how to live there. We have to learn how to live with healing because there is no sickness, disease, distress or pain in the Kingdom of God where God lives and that Kingdom is in us.
Apparently, there is something we have to do to obtain this healing that Jesus paid such a price to give us, because obviously we aren’t healed. When I hold Healing Services in churches about two-thirds of the people come forward for prayer. The very people for whom Jesus died such an excruciating death – are not healed.
John expresses a certain sense of responsibility that belongs to the receiver of this great gift.
3 JOHN 1:2
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
Before we attack the subject of our responsibility, let us make sure we fully accept that Jesus obtained healing for us and that it now belongs to us. In fact, before God, because we are always before God since He lives in us, let us state our commitment to healing.
Please confess the following, that is, say it out loud.
Heavenly Father,
I am so grateful to be Your child and that You are my real Father.
Thank You for sending Jesus to redeem me from the enemy and give me a new birth.
Thank You that He is now my Lord and my Savior.
Thank You that Jesus’ sacrifice before, on and after the cross obtained salvation for me and my sins are gone forever.
Thank You that His work purchased healing for my physical body and that healing belongs to me.
It is written in Matthew 8:17 that Jesus took my infirmities and He bore my sicknesses, which means that He carried on His body my sicknesses and diseases and I am healed.
It is written in 1 Peter 2:24 that by His stripes I was healed. If I was healed then I am healed.
I believe that in my heart and I say it with my mouth. Healing belongs to me and I am healed.
Amen!
Chapter 2
How to Obtain Healing
When I first moved to France as a missionary in 1988, I had no medical insurance, not in the United States nor in France. So when a mole on my left hand, being about the size of the pupil in the center of the iris of my eye, started growing, I ignored it because I didn’t know what to do. Within a few weeks it grew to the size of the iris. It continued to grow, developed scaly rings around it and turned a dark, beet red.
A friend from the States came for a visit and I casually asked, “Do you think this is simply an age spot coming on me a bit early?”
Aghast, she responded gruffly, “That’s cancer! You get to a doctor right away!”
I told her about my insurance problem and she told me she didn’t care about my insurance problem, she was concerned with what looked to her like a lethal cancer and I better take care of it right away. Having shown her my abnormal tissue the day before she was leaving, I put her on the plane with promises to see a doctor immediately.
I went to see Doctor Jesus. Taking my Bible I looked up at least fifty Scriptures about healing. Now mind you, I had just graduated from Bible school and had memorized most of these very Scriptures, but I went through the process of looking them up. There is something about doing things methodically and meticulously that impresses our souls, at least it impresses mine.
First, I read the Scriptures to myself until I knew I was full. We know when we reach a state of fullness of the Word and in my opinion it is at this point that the Holy Spirit swings into action on our behalf. Of course, we never stay full of the Word; we seem to leak and we have to refill ourselves continually. But when I knew I was full I then read them out loud to the mole on my hand, which in my opinion had become unruly and rebellious!
Then I spoke to that mole from my heart. I said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I curse you! I command you to get off my body now and never return!” Then I put my Bible away and went about my business.
The next morning when I woke up, before getting out of bed, I looked at the mole and the cancer and I said, “Thank God you’re gone!” That’s all. I got up and started my day singing away in the joy of the Lord.
The next morning when I woke up, I did exactly the same thing. It was all still there, unchanged, almost like a neon sign flashing in my eyes, but I wasn’t going to be tripped up by appearances. I said emphatically as before, “Thank God you’re gone!”
The next morning I went through the same ritual. On the fifth morning I woke up, pulled my hand up to once again speak to it and there was nothing to speak to. The cancer was gone and so was the mole without leaving even a tiny trace of what had been there all my life. Glory to God!
Now I am not holding myself up as some kind of successful Christian. I’ve had healing failures, which we will discuss later, but the failures have never been God’s fault; they’ve all been mine. On this one, the success was complete, and so I use it as a demonstration.
What I did not do.
Please note what I did and what I did not do. I did not ask Jesus for healing. Why? He’s already given it. I did not beg Him and plead with Him to give it to me. I knew I already had it because I am born again and my salvation includes healing. I did not allow my mind to go back and forth between ‘yes, I have it’ and ‘no, I don’t.’ I did not diminish Jesus by disregarding what His painful victory on the cross accomplished for me; He didn’t do that for Himself, He did it for me.
COLOSSIANS 1:19-20
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
I used His Word.
PROVERBS 4:20-22
My son, give attention 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 flesh.
The words which God has spoken bring health to all our flesh, and that is the Truth!
JOHN 17:17
Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.
We are the ones who use His Words on the earth. He has spoken them and they accomplish what He sent them to do when we speak them and believe them.
PSALM 119:89
Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven.
PSALM 107:20
He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions.
JEREMIAH 1:12
I am watching to perform My Word.
ISAIAH 55:11
So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
PSALM 103:20
Bless the Lord, you His angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word.
Angels listen to what we say, we put voice to His Word, and they hear it and accomplish it for us. If we don’t speak His Word, or speak words that agree with His Word, then we are not issuing orders to the angels. Note that we do not command angels; they serve God. He has appointed them to minister to us by the words that we speak which give voice to what He has already spoken.
JOHN 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
We know from this Scripture that Jesus is the Word. That may seem a little mystical to us, but then the Kingdom of God is mystical, so get over it. A mystic is simply someone who seeks spiritual truths and experiences. The only spiritual truth that exists is God and His Kingdom. The rest is a lie, a sham, a borrowed reality twisted to deceive and directed by Satan.
When we use the Word of God, we are using what Jesus achieved for us as it was foretold in the Old Testament and retold in the New Testament. That’s why the Bible is our workbook, a book on how to live in the Kingdom of God. We take His Word, we apply it to our situations that exist in the natural world and they are forced to change. Look at how much importance God puts on His Word.
PSALM 138:2
For you have magnified Your Word above all Your Name.
I used His Name.
PSALM 124:8
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I can just tell some of you want to get nitpicky with me. ‘Yeah, but Marty, that Scripture talks about God, not Jesus.’ Now let me get nitpicky with you. Jesus is God. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three in One make up God. Here’s Jesus talking:
JOHN 14:13-14
And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
JOHN 16:15
All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
JOHN 16:23-24
Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
These three Scriptures are all from the same ‘sermon’ Jesus gave just before going to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is God. His name carries the same power today as He personally carried when He was here on the earth. For that power to be unleashed in our lives, we must believe what I just said: Jesus is God and His name carries the power and authority of God.
Today the simple name of Jesus has become quite familiar to us. He is, after all, our friend, our big brother, the lover of our souls, our shepherd and our beloved, and He definitely is all these things. At the same time that He is so – everyday – to us, He is also our Master, our King, our Redeemer, our Sure Foundation and our Commander, all of which demand great respect and awe.
While I use the name of Jesus to be intimate and confidential with Him, I use the fuller name to denote His power and authority: Jesus Christ of Nazareth. To me it’s like the difference between a full name and a nickname. The important thing is to know that the name of Jesus carries with it the command of the throne of God. Every demon knows this. They simply wait to see if we know it.
PHILIPPIANS 2:9-11
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The name of Jesus merits our meditation. If angels, people and demons know enough to bow their knees to the name that is above all names, it seems to me that we should give this subject a bit of study, to say the least. In our mouths is our salvation with the profound word: Jesus!
1 JOHN 3:23
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ….
I used my faith.
HEBREWS 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please God….
ROMANS 12:3
…God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
What is faith, exactly? If we were to say that faith is believing that Jesus is the Son of God, then we’d have to say that the devil has faith because he believes that. The Bible calls our faith ‘precious’ and I don’t think Satan has anything that is precious. The Scriptures tell us that we are each given a seed of faith when we’re born again, so whatever we had beforehand is not the kind of faith the Bible is talking about. This faith is precious, a divine gift, and it accomplishes things.
The book of Romans has more to say about faith than any other book. Let’s take a look at a few Scriptures in Romans in order to answer our question: What exactly is faith?
1:17
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
3:22-26
22 Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference:
23 for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,
24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,