Healing, The Children's Bread.

It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs. (Matthew 15:26)

Jesus, during his healing ministry, referred to healing as the children’s bread (food). In order for us to live and operate in this natural realm, we require a physical body. Therefore, we need health and healing for that body in order for it to function properly.

God has provided health and healing through His blessed Son, Jesus, who took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. By His stripes, we are healed. (Matthew 8:17, Isaiah 53:5)

How can we receive and live in this truth when it seems that so many Christians are oppressed by sickness and disease? Why is that? Is healing really for today? Many believe it is, yet only as a mental concept and not as a spiritual reality that one can live in. Yes, it is available for every Christian, through faith in God’s Word by the anointing of the Holy Spirit!

When God first called me to minister to the sick, I knew very little about divine healing. Today, after many years of having seen people, from different walks of life, receive complete healing by the power of the Spirit of God, I have yet to fully understand this.

Maybe some people have an easier time than others to receive healing from the Word of God because they hear it more. Sometimes the people who are healed have not accepted Jesus as their savior. This, however, does not change the truth that every Christian has a covenant right to live in freedom from sin and freedom from sickness. (Galatians 3:13) As far as God is concerned, we are already healed, even before our bodies show this truth.

Will prayer, alone, heal the sick? I answer this question with another question. Will prayer, alone, save the sinner? During the Dark Ages, man was trying to do different works to deserve forgiveness. One day, Martin Luther received the revelation that forgiveness from sin comes by faith only, not by works, lest any man should boast. This truth and concept revolutionized the world.

Divine healing for our bodies works the same way !

As a child and a teenager, I saw visions of how God wanted to use me to bring healing to the nations, and, therefore, I felt a growing interest to find out more about “the children’s bread”. My father, Nils Wagsjo, used to tell me about how he had received healing many times throughout his childhood, in addition to his adulthood. He shared with me, among other things, that when he was a young evangelist, he was inflicted with appendicitis. He had asked a pastor friend, Brohede, to pray for him. My father then received his healing. My father also told me how my grandmother, tant Svensson, received healing from rheumatism under the ministry of Smith Wigglesworth while Smith was in Stockholm on an invitation by Lewi Petrus (founder of the Pentecostal movement in Sweden).

I can remember how exciting it was for me when Kathryn Kuhlman (also invited by Lewi Petrus) visited Sweden. People were receiving healing by the power of the Holy Spirit. I was a young person during this time, and managed to go to every meeting she held in both Gothenburg and Jönköping.

Later, when the enemy began to attack my health with illnesses that had no cure in medical science, I decided to trust and believe God for both my health and my family’s health.

We have now studied and lived this divine truth for many years and can confirm that it works if we practice it. It is just like salvation from sin--something we receive by grace, through faith, not from ourselves, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8) We have to build our faith and resist sin daily. We also have to build our faith and resist sickness, and it will flee from us. (James 4:7)

Let us break the religious habit of just asking God for healing when we feel sick. Remember, we are called to live by faith. I say this with no disrespect to those who are suffering. You have our love and prayers. Yet, I say that we are called to live by faith in respect to God’s word, which is for us all.

The bible says about Abraham,“Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead.” (Romans 4:19) He did not look to his own body. What did he look to ? He looked toward the promises of God -- the end result.

Before we can live a life of health and healing, we have to see ourselves healthy and healed. This is what God the Father sees when he looks at us through Christ Jesus. This is what we also should visualize when we look at ourselves through the Word of God.

Let us make it a habit – a part of our daily devotion-- to meditate and receive the promise in Romans 8:11. Let us practice it through the confession of our faith, not merely as a ritual. Let us do this while we are worshipping our loving Father.

Because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in me, He (the Father) who raised Christ from the dead will also, today, give life to my mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in me.I resist sickness, disease, and pain, and it has to flee from me in Jesus’ name ! (Romans 8:11, James 4:7, Paraphrased)

As we do this, we are developing a lifestyle of faith. We are eating the bread of the children of God which brings divine health and healing to our bodies and glory to our heavenly Father. Amen !

Words to study: Matthew 15:26, Matthew 8:17, Isaiah 53:5, Galatians 3:13, Ephesians 2:8, James 4:7, Romans 4:19, Romans 8:11.

Roger Wågsjö