Dr. Douglas Wingate, Ph.D.
Life Christian University
In addition to our weekly healing services here at the Main Campus of Life Christian University, the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to conduct a few healing revivals this summer.
As I increase in understanding and in effectiveness in the healing ministry, I can’t help but pass my discoveries on to others.
What I would like to share this month is actually something that will bless every Christian in their entire walk with the Lord, should they apply all of the principles. When I focused on the primary points that I need to be conscious of while conducting healing services, I realized that these truths can be applied to any part of our walk with the Lord.
First, I remember that when God gave the first commission to man, that His commission remained the same, even though Adam and Eve relinquished their rights to exercise it. Now we can be confident that the last Adam, Jesus, restored all things to mankind.
Elohim, (the one God, manifested in three persons), said in Genesis 1:26a,28b, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness: let them have dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth.” I can’t take the time and space to explain this thoroughly here, but follow these concepts.
When I am ministering, I find the results amazing when I simply say, “I command this body to be healed, regenerated, and restored to excellent health and function now, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.” It really is a simple as that, but that is certainly not all that there is to do.
So we see that we have restored dominion over living things, but next we have been given authority over all of the works of the kingdom of darkness. In Marks gospel we read in Mk. 9:1,
“Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.” Then in Mk. 10:18,19 Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”
Yes, it is possible to use the name of Jesus in authority over every disease known to man, because the name of Jesus is above every name that is named, even cancer.
We simply, by faith, take authority over the disease, command it to leave in the name of Jesus, and it has to obey. Like I said, we have to do it in faith, which is a problem for many Christians because they have not learned how to increase their faith. But that is something that every Christian can learn.
I am teaching a course on angels right now, and it is amazing how many ministries that angels have besides being guardians. There are healing angels, provision angels, and messenger angels. These are just some of the ministries that angels have which minister to, and with us here on earth.
Many angels minister only in heaven and have responsibilities there, like worship before the throne of God and some even have the responsibility of conducting war. But concerning our discussion, I am always depending on and expecting healing angels to be with us in healing services.
Hebrews 1:14 says, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation.”
Inheriting salvation is speaking of when we leave Earth and go to heaven to receive our full inheritance. It would be correct to say that we were saved in the past, we are currently being saved and we will always be saved in our eternal future. But while on Earth, God has provided angels to help us in many ways.
I believe that the next two items are the most important in ministering to others. It is very important to remember that before Jesus sent His apostles out to minister, He told them to remain in Jerusalem until they were endued with power. Right before His ascension, while he is addressing 500 born again believers, He told them, “For John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. For you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:5-8.
I have whole university courses that I teach the many benefits of the Holy Spirit coming upon a believer, but one primary benefit is that your can pray the perfect prayer in every circumstance by praying in the spirit, or, that is, praying in tongues. This is spoken of in Romans 8:26-27. Being built up in faith is essential in order to walk uprightly before the Lord and not bring a reproach to His name by sinning. But in Acts 1, Jesus was referring to walking in the power to be a living witness, not just to boldness to witness. In other words, the Lord wants to demonstrate the overwhelming love of God through us with miracle signs and wonders happening around us and through us. This is what we call walking and ministering in the anointing. We are now anointed with power to minister.
The final point that I want to make ties directly into what happened when Jesus was able to release the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the church. First, let’s go back to when Jesus was ministering on the Earth.
The Bible tells us in Philippians 2:6-8 something very important about the Lord’s ministry. It says, “who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
We know that Jesus was sinless and did not need to be baptized for the remission of sins, but He still came to John the Baptist to be baptized in water. John even said that he was not worthy to untie the sandals of Jesus. But Jesus told John to baptize Him in order to fulfill all righteousness.
Jesus had to fulfill what was required in the law of Moses, which was that a High Priest had to be baptized before he entered into his High Priestly ministry. Immediately after His baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Jesus was of course the Son of God and at the same time the Son of Man. He did not do any miracles out of His deity, but did them as the anointed Son of Man.
The passage in Philippians explained to us that He essentially stripped Himself of the right to use His deity when He made Himself of no reputation, even though He was still God the Word, manifest in the flesh.
When Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism, we find out from John 3:34 that God gave the Holy Spirit to Him without measure. That is, the full measure of the Holy Spirit came upon the Son of Man.
Now we can get to the really fun part. Did you ever ask yourself why Jesus didn’t just stay on the Earth after His resurrection and set up the His Earthly kingdom at that time? Well, we know that it must not have been the Father’s plan, but we also know that Jesus needed to get back to heaven and and be seated at the Father’s right hand in order to release the Holy Spirit without measure on the whole church. You see, while Jesus was still on the Earth, even in His resurrected state, the Holy Spirit without measure could remain on Him only, and the church could never walk in the fullness that God had intended for it.
It must have been something for the 120 in the upper room to have 1/120 of the Holy Spirit come on them at once. Today, the Holy Spirit is available to manifest His whole anointing throughout all of the Body of Christ who have been baptized in the Spirit with the gift of praying in tongues. But there is still something else that we can expect to happen.
Remember that the Apostle Paul told us in Hebrews 13:5-6 that God said these words. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear: What can man do to me?”
Remember that Jesus did not use His deity while He was ministering, but ministered by the power of the Holy Spirit. But now He has given the power of the Holy Spirit to us, and now He is able to use the full measure of His deity, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
He is not bound by space or time any more than the Holy Spirit or the Father is, so even though He is seated at the right hand of the Father, at the same time, whenever you go and where ever you go, He never leaves you nor forsakes you. In the reality of the manifestation of the presence of God, when you lay hands on the sick, Jesus is laying His hands on the sick, and they will recover.
So we have no excuse when God gives us a commission to go. We simply remain conscious that we have dominion over every living thing, authority over all the works of the devil, we have angels accompanying us, we are anointed with the Holy Spirit of the Living God, and Jesus Himself goes with us to guarantee the victory.
Join us every Thursday night at 7:00pm for Healing Services at Life Christian University, 410 E. Chapman Rd. Lutz, Fl. LCU classes are offered on Monday nights from 7:00 to 10:00pm. Call at 813-909-9720 or log on at www.lcus.edu.