Demonstrating The Gospel: Part 7
Healing
by Gavin Bennett & Bethany Allen
Begin with prayer (5 minutes)
Gather together as a Community in a comfortable setting. Have somebody lead a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to lead and guide your time together.
Read this overview (5 minutes)
Healing is complex; each one of us comes to the conversation with different experiences and expectations. At times, it’s awe-inducing and often breath-takingly personal. And sometimes it’s gut-wrenching and feels hopeless. For most of us, healing comes with layers of questions: When does it happen? How do miracles work? Why does it happen for some people and not for others?
While it would be great to be able to answer each of these questions, the truth is that there is no biblical formula for healing. There is no one-size-fits-all situation. Which means that if we’re going to get anywhere in understanding and experiencing this gift — which is given to us by the Holy Spirit — we’re going to have to move from asking how and why to asking what. What does healing feel like?
In the Scriptures, we see that healing feels like hoping, confronting, waiting, and laughing. Healing always starts with hoping, which has this way of revealing our humanity and dependence, and calling us to risk a belief that God just might change something. At the same time, healing is not a passive reality, but an active confronting of the darkness and all that is broken. And as we hope, as we confront, we also wait. Waiting has always been central to God’s redemptive story. And, finally, healing brings laughter, which is a way of acknowledging what is and celebrating what God has done.
In the midst of healing or waiting for it, God reveals his nature to us. We can have confidence in his love for each of us. Whether this side of new creation or after resurrection, God will answer every prayer for healing.
Work through this practice tonight as a Community (40 minutes)
Tonight, we want to have a discussion about our response to the teaching and then spend some time praying together. On Sunday, people were invited forward after the teaching to be anointed by the elders and prayed over for healing.
Take a few minutes to share and reflect on the ways you saw the Spirit at work within the gathering. What was the experience like for you? What stood out?
If you went down for prayer (or if you would have gone down had you been there), what did you ask the Lord to do for you?
Next, we want to spend some time praying and contending together for healing for each other. Whether it was something you went down to the elders for on Sunday or something totally different, what can we ask God for with you?
Take the next 20 - 30 minutes and pray for healing over one another.
Discuss the coming week’s Practice (5 minutes)
The Practice for the week ahead is twofold.
First, spend time each day asking the Lord for healing. Whether it’s physical, emotional, spiritual, or something else, bring it before God and ask him to heal you.
Next, take time each day to pray healing for someone else in your life. Whether in your Community, a family member, coworker, or a total stranger, contend on their behalf in prayer, asking God to heal them.