Dave gave a teaching…
I was talking to somebody the other day about healing and provision for our bodies and sustenance. As we get older, we tend to be reminded by those things that are “creaky.” When you’re 20 years old, you could go forever. Three or four years ago, the Lord spoke to me about healing for my body. I’ve had to overcome some things just like everybody else. One day I was reaching out to the Lord, thanking Him for my health in faith. “Lord, I just commit my body to You and into Your hands. You’re the author and finisher of my faith and You can supply all my needs according to Your riches in glory.” When I was younger, I didn’t think about healing as much as I do now. I can’t remember when I was younger visiting the doctor or the hospital. Never needed it. For most people, that’s the way it is.
I asked the Lord about that. The Lord said something to me in prayer. “You should not think of healing as you need a healing” like when you have so and so lay hands on you and now you’re healed, kind of thing. He said, “You need to look at healing as the way I am.” God doesn’t live in a realm where He’s constrained by time. We only think of time because we live in the realm we live in. We try to put Him in a box by the way we think about Him. We try to put our limitations on Him. And we talk to Him like that. He doesn’t have those limitations. We think about, “How can I pray for a certain situation or event, it’s already happened.” That’s our thinking, right? Or you think of a situation that’s impossible. You think “Yeah, they’ve already made their decision and they’re not going to change their minds,” those kinds of things. You just don’t even waste your time praying for it because you think it’s a far gone conclusion that event or situation exists now so therefore me praying is not going to make any difference. That’s human thinking. That’s not God thinking. Because God doesn’t look at things the way we look at things. He’s not constrained by time nor is He limited by our circumstances. So if you’re a prayer, you should not be constrained into thinking about these things in those terms. Because if you do that, you limit yourself and you limit what God can do in your life. And you limit your prayer life and the things that happen in your life.
I remember a testimony from Mark Brazee. He said when he was in college at Rhema, he bought an older European sports car. He was driving home during break and the car broke down and he needed a part for the car. The problem with getting a part for that car is that it’s a European car so the chances of that part being in the US if it’s even in the US is slim. You’re not going to walk down to your local NAPA and pick it up. In your mind, that’s what you think. So he just prayed about the situation and asked the Lord to help him. He needed a miracle. It just so happened where he broke down, he went to the local auto parts store and thought he may as well try. He obviously didn’t have a whole lot of faith. But he had prayed, right? He said, “I need a part for this car blah, blah, blah.” The guy turned around, reached up to the top of the shelf, grabbed a part off the shelf and put it on the table. He said, “That part has been here for six months. Somebody ordered it and didn’t pick it up.” So was it a waste of his time to pray for that? No. Because God is not limited by what we think. He can set things in time that way before you even have an idea, a need, or any kind of thought in your mind about that need. The need doesn’t even exist yet, that He puts it in place. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s exciting to know that.
He has a connection with you when you have a connection with Him. You know, it’s like you could see why the Bible says that nothing is impossible. That’s exciting news. If you’re a praying person, man, that’s a big deal. You could ponder in your mind, “it that’s true, then this could happen” and you start thinking of the possibilities of how and the things you did or didn’t do in the past because you just thought you were limited for some reason and you were holding back.
I’ll give you an example. I have a business and I develop technology and some things. One day I was in my office and the Lord spoke to me and told me to go and develop this technology. He said, “Send one of your engineers downstairs in the lab and give him things he needs and tell him to do some testing.” I did that. He went down there and a little while later, he came back up and said, “It works exactly like you said it would work.” Before that happened, the Lord spoke to me. He had been talking to me about business and about doing His plan and purpose in the earth and how He needs people who are willing to listen to Him and do the things whether they recognize them or think they’re possible or not. He needed somebody to get in agreement with Him to get out of the natural realm and “just do what I tell you to do.” It’s kind of analogous to if you’re standing here in this moment in time and you had a magic cell phone and it has the ability to call you at a younger date at life. You could call yourself and say, “By the way, don’t take this route. There’s traffic on it. Go the other route.” Or you have the ability to say, “This is coming up. Make this investment. There’s this little unknown company called Google. Sell everything you’ve got and borrow as much as you can.” Does that sound familiar to something that happened in the Bible? Remember the woman with the cruise of oil? Go sell all you’ve got and invest in that today. If you had the ability to do that, would you not take advantage of that?
So then do we have limitations? That’s why in Romans 8, Paul is discussing an issue about limitations. He’s praying and says, “Lord, help us in our limitations.” I use the word limitations. The Bible actually says “weaknesses.” But weaknesses are limitations, aren’t they? Any kind of weakness limits you. If you can’t walk, that’s a weakness. If you can’t walk, it will limit you in what you can do. What if you can’t see? Is that going to limit you? That’s what I’m kind of alluding to here is that if you have the ability to see something before it happens and the scripture talks about that… He talks about showing you things to come. The Bible says the Spirit does not speak of Himself but that which He speaks. The Holy Spirit speaks what He hears from heaven. Then it says, He will show you things to come. Wouldn’t it be better to be fluent in things to come?
So let me finish up this story I had about business. I’m in my office working for all these other companies doing consulting work, telling them how to develop technology and how to develop different products. The Lord is telling me about this thing. Basically, I’m trading time for money. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that concept. My time I give you so many hours and you give me so much pay for those hours. That’s not the way God thinks… trading time for money. God likes multiplication. When I hear some of these quarter backs in the NFL making 10, 15, 20 million dollars a year for 20 games maybe. Wow. Some of them if they’ve got a good line, they don’t even get touched. That’s easy money. For many years, that’s what I used to pray about… easy money. What does this have to do with anything? It does have to do with prayer because if you think and pray and relate to God in a way that limits you, then you need to change the way you limit yourself. Because it isn’t God holding you back. That’s why praying in the Holy Ghost is important. It prays out those things that you may not otherwise pray with your brain because you don’t even know, “I don’t know to pray about investing in Google.”
So I’m in my office and the Lord said to me, “Send this engineer down there and go do this.” It worked. So as soon as it worked, I did some more developments, invested some more money in it. Then I filed for some patents and did some things with that. The point with all of that is this: I had no idea that that was going to work or not. Other than the Holy Spirit telling me to do it. My natural mind had no inclination that this is the direction I was going. My natural mind had no connection with any of that. I wasn’t like, “Oh this is my vision. God’s called me to this and this is what I’m going to be doing. I’m just going to put my hand to the grindstone and keep pushing away until I see it happen.” It was nothing like that. Just like Mark Brazee in that auto part store. “Look I’ll just go in there… what’s the point of doing this. I’m going to go in there and then” bam! Sometimes you don’t even need to be in agreement. You know what I’m saying? That’s called grace. You’re just along for the ride and in no way in control.
Not being in control is not a bad thing. It was how it was meant to be. God never intended for you to operate on your own. You were designed to be part of Him and in connection with Him 24 hours a day. The fact that we don’t have that is not because of Him. The design was made that way. That’s why we talk so much about connection in Christ. Connection is so critical because in communion with God, the Holy Spirit constantly reminds you of His existence, His love for you, His compassion and vision, the necessity for Him all the time. That’s why having the Spirit in you is critical in your life. He’s constantly pointing to the Father. Not speaking of Himself but that which He hears the Father speaks. Very humble. Loving and kind and tender. That’s why we need Him so much. And the emphasis should always be “I need You, Lord.”
That example about the investment thing, you know, today I’m reaping the reward of that today. But that would never have happened had the Lord not given that to me. Some people say, “Boy, you’ve got some great business instincts. Come and share at our meetings and tell us the five steps to success.” Everybody wants you to tell them what all the secrets are. I’m here to tell you there is no secrets. If you really look behind the curtain… ha, ha, ha, ha. Right? Those of us who laugh know what that means. If they really knew, right? If he’s just that guy and this is all he knows, well then I got hope. Yeah! You should.
I could tell you none of the education, the schooling, the stuff that I’ve done in my life has brought success to my life. I’m going to tell you that schooling and education wasn’t a bad thing and I don’t say anything negative about that. Because it helped me but that’s not what got me there. You can have all the paper on the wall. You can be in all the clubs and be all connected and linked in, if you know what that is. If you’re in the business realm, you know what that means. It’s all about connections. “If I know this guy, I can get in here.” The only link you need is to be linked in Him. I don’t care if you see somebody with some great business or ministry or whatever… I don’t care if you see them successful and all that, you think, “Gosh, if I had just been born on the right side … if I had just gone to the right school.” You know what? That doesn’t matter. Bill Gates didn’t even finish college. He dropped out and he’s one of the richest men in the world. So you know that ain’t it.
What I’m trying to get to is my perspective and your perspective of reality and how we introduce ourselves into these things of God. And if we recognize those things that way and look at them for what they really are and how we relate to God. How much different our lives will be if we focus on those things and allow them to have that positive influence in our lives. The net result was that you end up doing things that are uncommon to man. You do things that people are like, “Wow.” That’s why I don’t look at man like, “Wow, that’s brother Copeland! Wow!” I don’t look at people like brother Hagin and think, “He’s a big deal. Can I kiss your ring,” that kind of thing. I don’t look at people that way because I know that everything that they have has to do with one thing. And every one of us has it. It’s a level playing field. Nobody has any advantage over the other. That’s good news!
I said all that just to say this. Our need for God in this hour that we live is so paramount in our lives, if you don’t know that, this is the thing if you like… some people like getting tattoos. The tattoo that I would have would be “Don’t forget God.” God is your source. He is everything. He is the center of my life. He is the beginning and He is the end and everything in between. Every day I look to Him and if you’ve had any kind of success where you believed God… I can tell you, anybody that’s had that experience where you believed God or you prayed and God answered your prayer and you’re living in a miraculous grace-filled life, if you’re that type of person, you know this. But by the grace of God, do I go there. You’re so well acquainted with that. That’s one of the things I liked about brother Hagin. He never promoted himself. Everybody else did but he never did. Because he knew why.
Some people struggle with being humble. It’s not hard to be humble if you know the truth. That’s like me going to the Olympics and seeing somebody like Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world. You watch him run and it’s like a joke. It’s like teenagers running behind him. He’s so far ahead of everybody else. It’s like us looking at our abilities and our things we have within us and racing against him. What’s the point? Are you going to go and sit in a room and tell everybody all the accolades and the school and the people you ran with and the coaches coached you and all that stuff and sit there and he’s sitting across the table… will you really even say anything? If you want to be a fool, you’ll say something. You’ll just shut up and listen. Cuz you have nothing to say with him sitting at the table. That’s us with the Lord. We have nothing to say, really.
I heard brother Copeland make this comment. “Here we are with a God who is amazing, exceedingly above all we could imagine or think. Praying to Him, coming to Him daily and He’s the infinite of days. He’s all wisdom. He’s all knowledge. He knows everything before you say it. And we’re with Him and we do all the talking.” Isn’t that something? That makes no sense at all. If you want to learn, what do you do? You listen. You might ask a question, but then you shut your mouth and you listen. And any time God brings big revelation to you, that’s how it comes. It’s you saying, “Lord, I don’t know. Help me in my present limitations, in my weaknesses. Open my eyes that I might see the hope to what You have called me to do. Let me see the thing I don’t see. And the thing that’s keeping me from seeing what I need to see. Help me to see that, that I might have faith to believe that I can overcome that through Your grace and strength.”
How many here has ever fallen in sin? I should just say, who hasn’t had sin, raise your hands. Ha, ha, ha… The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If we have fallen short in sin, then there is something … have you ever sinned more than once? I’m talking about the same sin. That’s the plight of humanity. Everybody has! We all have fallen or have weaknesses and limitations. If we’ve all had those experiences… How many in your hearts feel like you love God? All of us do. So we love Him. In our hearts, we know to do what is right, but like Paul said sometimes I know to do right, but then I don’t do it. Does that sound familiar? If somebody was to give you the key to be free, would that not be a good thing? You know you love God and if the opportunity to be free, “Okay take this pill every day and you’ll be free.” They couldn’t keep that on the shelf. Pop a pill and you’re okay.
The problem with that concept is this. There is something that you don’t know that keeps you from being free. And that is what we’re going to pray about today. The thing that we don’t know. Cuz I know a lot of good people that have problems. They love God. It’s the human plight of life. However, there is an answer to be free of sickness and pain. Some people might even say, “Sickness and pain, that doesn’t seem to be related to sin.” But there are some scriptures that may be contrary to that thought process. Remember Jesus and the blind man. The disciples asked Him, “Lord, what about this man. What has caused him to be blind? Was it the sin…?” They were equating sickness to sin. Jesus Himself said things about sickness being… the wages of sin are death. I’m not trying to get into some controversial thing here. “What are you saying, Dave? Are you saying I’m in sin cuz I got sickness?” No. I’m just telling you what the Bible says.
Let me give a better definition of what sin is. The Bible says that whatever is not of faith is sin. So maybe what crosses your mind, maybe you’re thinking that sin… “I’m not in sin, I know I’m not in sin. Why is this upon me?” Well, maybe you need to think about that statement I just said: whatever is not of faith is sin. I don’t want to kick over any sacred cows here but I do want to say this. That the issue when it comes to health, you either trust Him or you don’t trust Him. There’s no in between. That’s why you see when Jesus comes to the paralytic and he explains to Jesus, “Nobody has come when the water stirs” when he was by the pool. “Nobody comes to help me in the pool and that’s what where I’m at.” Jesus said, “Take up your bed and walk.” Jesus told him to do something that he is incapable of doing. And if you’re incapable of doing something, what does that require of you? Faith. Now you don’t have to feel bad about sickness. Maybe you should say, “Lord, help my unbelief. Help my limitation.” The thing that is keeping me from you and walking in the fullness of what You have for me, help me with that limitation.
I’m trying to get us oriented with this idea that He doesn’t think like we think. There is something different about me that I need to change. It’s affecting me and a lot of times, it could just be the world. It’s not necessarily you watch too much TV or you don’t read your Bible and pray enough. Those are natural things that you could say, “If I just pray enough, I’ll get healed.” Baloney! I could give you account after account of people that have been healed in my ministry that had no faith at all. How does that happen? Where does that leave you?
The point is, we have limitations. Those limitations are the things that God gives us the ability … Paul writes in the Ephesians and prays that you understand things and that your eyes would be opened and enlightened to know the hope to which you are called. He also communicates with us that we might know the love of God, that we might know the breadth and width and depth and the magnitude of God. Then after that he says, “Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly…” But before he says that, it required something. I’m just trying to get us to where we need to go. I’ve seen things happen in a positive way and I’m telling you how it’s come. First of all, humility is a prerequisite for any of that. Surrender to the Lord. “Lord, I need You daily. There is nothing in this planet that I desire or need more than You. I want to be in agreement with You,” then I don’t have to push and struggle for the things that I lack. If you’re struggling and pushing, you’re doing it the wrong way.
The Bible says that His burden is easy and His yoke is light. Our lives and our plight should be easy. The Lord kept telling me, “Easy money.” It should come after you and chase you and overtake you. You should always have enough and abound to every good work that no matter where you’re at, you’re a blessing to everybody you come in contact with. That’s how it should be. The same thing with our physical bodies. We should be so filled with the power and anointing and grace of God concerning healing that all we ever do is go to look for opportunities to help other people get well. Easy healing.
Prayed…
Lord, we lift up the body of Christ across the nations who are suffering in war-torn nations in fear
We bring them to You in the name of Jesus, and we look to You for help for them
The revelation of who You are and Your love and compassion… that we would know You as You are and become like You
That we would know and have confidence to step into the things You’ve called us to
Things like healing and ability to speak the Word
The gifts of the spirit in manifestation
Things we need physically in our bodies, Father
Things we need financially… whatever plight
We pray in the name of Jesus that You bring us into the completion of Your work
That we may get this work done
It’s time to move in the places and plans You’ve called Your body to be
That we would be a light in a dark world… a beacon
Bringing Your power to bear in the nations
That You would bring revelation to us
We all need Your help… there’s nothing we are equipped for without You
Signs and wonders, Lord God
More and more, Father…
Father, the thing I don’t know, I pray for revelation for the thing I don’t know
I pray the eyes of my understanding be enlightened, Lord, for the things I don’t know
I pray for those who are in need that they too would come into the knowledge of this truth
We pray for the insight and ask for wisdom and revelation for those who are authorities and those who need help
That woman trying to push out of that… but she’s… I pray in the name of Jesus … that she would be able to see it the way You see it… Your plan and purpose and walk in the fullness of it… and be done in Jesus’ name… a completed work, Father… days of heaven… no more… no more sitting at the … and day and night… and they would be… that Jesus would be glorified… that He would be lifted up… the plan and purpose… for this time and hour and day… eyes to see, ears to hear what You’re communicating… where is the completion of the purpose and plan of the Most High… Your plan, purpose, grace… You began that work, You’re able to bring it to completion…
Aid, Lord God… aid… easy, easy, easy… easy to work it out… kindness, gentleness, meekness…
We thank You for the fullness of the Holy Spirit in this ministry and those abroad that You’re unfailing love will bring to bear the fruit necessary for them to step out and into that anointing and grace
