TOS078 Efficacious Prayer (Part 7)—The Lord Healed Them All For audio only PPN
Part 7 of “The Lord Healed Them All” series, this episode covers “Efficacious Prayer for Healing”. Based on more than 20 years of experience in the healing ministry, Patti Brunner helps you identify key areas in praying for healing. The Lord hears every prayer and responds. His response is called ‘grace’. Hearts must be open to God’s grace.
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From the very first time I was asked to join in praying for others, I felt inspired by the Holy Spirit to pray in specific ways. I didn’t yet understand what a charism was. I didn’t know that God gives special gifts of grace to build up the church. But I did recognize that when I prayed for others, things like appropriate scriptures would pop into my head or I would remember something I had heard or read. Or I would think of specific prayer needs that were not even mentioned by the person we were praying for. Other times I could see or feel the healing need of the person. As soon as these were mentioned others would say they were thinking the exact same thing. Or the person themselves would affirm the need.
You are listening to Truth of the Spirit. I’m Patti Brunner. Although there is much more I could say from my book “The Lord Healed Them All”, “Efficacious Prayer for Healing” is the final episode in this series.
Let’s look at Jesus. How did he pray? How did he heal? How did he intercess? Jesus prayed intimately with God the Father. He healed with authority after engaging the person in need. He taught us to pray praise and petitions in the Our Father. He did continual intercession for us with prayer and, ultimately, by sacrifice. He persisted; he didn’t give up when challenged by people without understanding. And he prayed and acted with love. Through Jesus we realize that God is love.
“Efficacious” what does that word mean? Effective, successful, efficient. Remember this: The Lord hears every prayer and responds. His response is called ‘grace’. Hearts must be open to God’s grace. When barriers exist, healing is more difficult; so, the Holy Spirit showers those who pray for others with special gifts of grace – knowledge, wisdom, faith, and so on. They help our prayer be efficacious.
This is the prayer that opens the heart of the receiver and is possible because of the open heart of the intercessor. Jesus is in the midst of both but until the heart welcomes Our Lord and Savior the prayer seems to be without merit. Again, God hears every prayer. The effect is the variable in the lives of those for whom we pray. Remember to pray with your heart as well as your mouth.
Efficacious intercessory prayer opens the heart for healing of past and present – this is done by love. Ask the Father to reveal his love. Ask God to let the person know how much He loves them. Listen to the voice of the Spirit. Remember that it is important to call upon the charism of healing, the Word gifts of knowledge and wisdom, and gifts of counsel, fortitude and faith.
I began to read and study about the charisms that flowed so sweetly as we prayed for others. I found that my Catholic faith has many facets including the charisms of the Holy Spirit. Like a diamond gem, each facet is a part of the whole and shines forth the light of Christ and the love of the Holy Spirit.
Healing, Words of Wisdom, Words of Knowledge, Faith, Mighty Deeds, Prophecy, Discernment of Spirits, and the gifts of Tongues each have a unique use when praying as healing ministers. Can you pray without any of these gifts? Certainly! But why would you want to? They are already made available to you personally when you were baptized and confirmed. Why not ask the Spirit to stir them up and allow you to use them for the benefit of others? You may already be using some of these gifts without recognizing them. Understanding is a sanctifying gift of the Holy Spirit given at Confirmation. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to understand his charisms, His gifts of grace, so that you can share them with others. The gift of wisdom allows the soul to listen to the Holy Spirit in thinking about divine things and in using God’s ideas in looking at our lives. The gifts are given to be exercised and in doing so will convey divine blessings to others as well as ourselves. A lamp never lighted is of no value, but a gift divinely used will develop. God will commission you despite your human nature, weaknesses, or failures. He just calls for an open heart.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 798 explains to us that the Holy Spirit is “the principle of every vital and truly saving action in each part of the Body.”
I have taught about the various gifts of the Spirit but I want to point out how God sometimes uses them during Healing Prayer. The gift of Healing is a composite gift in that it can bring spiritual healing, emotional or inner healing, physical healing, and deliverance healing. Spiritual sickness is the direct result of sin in a person’s life; emotional sickness pertains to the mind, memory, and emotions of an individual; physical sickness is specific to ailments and the body parts; and deliverance pertains to setting a person free from the oppression of evil spirits. The composite gift of Healing may encompass all these facets of healing or maybe just some. The gift of Word of Knowledge allows God to reveal a truth about someone’s past. This gift is for individuals. It aides healing by opening “festered” areas in memory and body. These words help break the barriers that people have that limit the effect of God’s Grace. I prayed for a family once and the Lord revealed to me by Word of Knowledge that their young teen was having trouble in school. So we prayed for him. He was so amazed that God cared about how he was doing in school. The next time I saw him he was excited to receive prayer and his parents told me he was doing much better in school. Often the Lord reveals particular areas that need healing. Words of Knowledge are very helpful in the ministry of Inner Healing.
Truly the Gift of Faith allows us to boldly trust in the power of God to heal. This ‘super’ Gift of Faith is given to God’s followers when they are chosen to manifest his power and love to his people. It’s when you know ‘that you know’, without a doubt, that you can trust God. When doctors tell your husband that he will not live without a heart transplant, the Gift of Faith relies on God and seeks and accepts his healing. What glory is given to God when he does the impossible! The impossible happened to my husband as his heart was healed. The Gift of Faith helps you to step from ‘hope’ to ‘know’. It allows you to go beyond all rational conclusions into the realm of the kingdom of God where, as Jesus said in Matthew 17:20b, “Nothing will be impossible for you.” Ask in faith.
With faith you won’t pray with doubt—when you are asking for healing or favor, you are admitting, thus confessing, that Jesus is Lord over the problem. It is okay to repeat prayer and ask until your see the manifestation of the answers. The Lord is all powerful and his power is unlimited. However, when your prayer changes to doubtful and fearful repetition, instead of giving glory, you are reminding yourself and others that you may doubt the goodness of God and don’t think God will heal, and doubt that God has heard your prayers. Double-minded prayers limit our hearts to receive God’s power and grace.
The Gift of Mighty Deeds or Miracles is related to the Gift of Healing when it causes a sudden, unexplainable repair of the body. Once when I was at a Catholic conference near Philadelphia a woman who received a healing for cancer was more excited because she was given a new tooth! The previous year several people testified that they had received miraculous new silver and gold fillings for their teeth. Saints ask for these favors and God gives them to them. Ask and you will receive. Knock and it shall be opened to you. Remember this: miracles are easy; it is getting people to believe them that is hard.
The Gift of Discernment of Spirits is very helpful when the Lord allows you to know if a person is battling an infirmity aggravated by demonic influence. This allows the interviewer to delicately ask if the person has been involved in occult activity. So many people don’t realize the repercussions of reaching into darkness. It also allows the prayer minister to bind interfering spirits that are seeking to hinder the healing. The Discernment of Spirits is used to discern if infirmity is caused by physical, emotional or spiritual barriers or by demonic activity. “In the Name of Jesus” the evil spirits are then overcome and bound. Sometimes when we pray for people my husband, who is my prayer partner, and I will both get a sense that the person’s problems are compounded by the enemy. We then can pray a “binding” prayer, to “mute” the lying spirit, and if appropriate, to help the person send that spirit to the foot of the Cross for Jesus to deal with it.
The Gift of Tongues is the most efficacious prayer I know. That is probably because our own intellect doesn’t get in the way. Since it is a prayer of surrender to God, it allows his will to be the basis of the prayer. I recommend all healing ministers use the gift of Prayer Language each time you pray for someone. It can be prayed quietly. It immediately is a sign of the Presence of God, the Holy Spirit, in our midst. By praying in Tongues the mind and heart can more clearly hear the voice of God and it stirs up the other gifts of the Spirit so that you can understand how to proceed in the particular healing ministry. The gift of Tongues also allows us to voice prayer of the Holy Spirit, and speak it into the body of Christ. We don’t know what we are praying when we pray in tongues. The Holy Spirit gives the utterance. I think that the Holy Spirit is speaking the Father’s words into the ear of Jesus present in the Body of Christ. And you know what the words of the Father can do. They can create a universe from nothing. Surely, his words can repair the body he created! Praying in Tongues shows a manifestation of God’s power and the mysteries of the heavenly. It demonstrates surrender to the will of God and humbleness as the person praying in Tongues surrenders their voice to God. It also witnesses to the truth of the scripture—it is the living word still applicable as a sign of disciples accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior as on Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord gives us these and other gifts to use for healing but remember that the greatest of his gifts is Love. In love we band together to penetrate the barriers. Without love the manifestation of all the gifts are empty. It was with complete love that Jesus sent his apostles out saying in Matthew 10: 7-8, “As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.” In Mark 16:18b Jesus challenges us with thesign of the believers: “… they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” As you pray as a believer, limbs can be replaced, teeth repaired, cures found, cancers dissolved, hearts mended. Emotions and memories can be purified according to the love of the Creator.
Know that praying for one another is important. Jesus said, “You have not because you ask not.” [James 4:2b] In love, we can pray for the needs of others without the barriers of anxiety, without the pain. We pray to alleviate the symptoms, and to heal the root causes. We pray to break the barriers that keep the love of God from penetrating the heart. Jesus said in Matthew 18:19-20 “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’
Prayer is the personal conversation with God. You are asking our Father for a specific favor of healing. Yet, as a child of God and a believerin the authority of the name of Jesus, you can also do the many things He has commanded you to do. Remember that God wants goodness for us. Pray in the ‘Name of Jesus’ because whenever you pray in the Name of Jesus the world must obey–when your prayer is in alignment with the will and commands of God. He has given all you need to bring healing to all the world. Every barrier is broken in the name of Jesus. As you pray, the words carry an authority. Command the body to be healed in Jesus’ name.
When you pray for others, sometimes ‘soaking prayer’ aids in the healing softening the barriers for easier removal. God can heal immediately but sometimes heals gradually. Awareness of Touching Jesus inHoly Communion can continue their healing. In Mark 8:23-25 the blind man Jesus was healing first saw men that looked like trees walking then with additional time and prayer he was completely healed. Jesus “He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village;” [–away from distraction; away from the people who had a judgement against him–] “and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’ And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”
I have also found it much more efficacious to pray the answer instead of the problem. Don’t proclaim sickness, proclaim healing! Often the Lord leads me to cancel the authority of various diagnoses by doctors and patient and the family of the patient as well. I use their diagnosis as a starting place for prayer, but also allow the Lord to tell me the. I have found that what the Lord reveals He heals! Healing takes place in the spiritual before manifesting in the physical. Speak healing to the infirmity in the name of Jesus, visualizing the healing by the Spirit. You may ask Jesus to shine his light on the infirmity. You may speak to their DNA to be changed to the DNA of Jesus or his perfection. You may ask that the blood of Jesus received in Holy Eucharist take charge as it flows in their body and bring perfection. You may command legs to be lengthened, cartilage to be repaired or replaced, bones to be healed, lungs to be clear, by speaking directly to the body in Jesus’ Name. Ask the Lord to show you the healing then speak it out.
Often the Lord gives us a sign of his Presence with a physical sensation. You might sense a gentle rush of the Spirit as you pray for someone. Peace that surpasses all understanding also is an affirming sign of God’s presence. There may be other physical sensations, too, such as tingling, heat, cold, goose bumps, even light-headedness as if inebriated. There’s no high like the Most High! But know they can receive the grace without feeling a thing. When appropriate ask the person if they felt these, too. Resting in the Spirit is a gift that sometimes manifests as the person receiving prayer is hit by a wave of grace. Once someone surrenders in such a way to the Holy Spirit you should not interfere. There is no need to continue to pray. The Holy Spirit has taken charge. This gift can manifest in group settings. When they are ready to return to their seat someone can help them.
The gift of peace that overcomes stress is but one way that the Lord gives his healing grace to his people. Medical science tells us that stress is a root of many infirmities. Lots of people have a lot of stress in their lives, yet God’s will is joy for us. Jesus promised us peace and joy. It is part of living in the kingdom. Peace is mentioned over 378 times in the bible. ‘Fear not’ is mentioned at least 365 times in the bible. That’s enough for every day of the year!
Should a life need repentance, pray that the person receives the grace needed to be repentant rather than laying a course of correction. It is the presence of God that heals. Never judge or condemn in prayer. That will not come forward from the Spirit; only the enemy tears down the tender wounded heart. Jesus shared in Matthew 12:20 “He will not break a bruised reed
or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory.” Sometimes the person has a deep emotional response to the presence of God. Let them. Crying with emotion is normal not demonic.
When God reveals a Word of Knowledge or vision to you, as you pray with the person, be aware of what the Lord is showing you or telling you. Ask the Lord if this is a word He wants you to share with your brother or sister now or is it a word for you to pray about. If it is to be shared now, share it with them. After it is shared ask them if it means anything to them or if it triggers anything in their mind. If the person says yes, pray into it. If the person says no, let it go, pray silently about the issue. If they acknowledge it, praise God openly for revealing the issue. What God reveals he heals!
No prayer intention is too small or too large. We serve a mighty God who created the universe. He can handle anything. Remember to encourage those in need. Their hope is in the Lord; and so is ours!
Today’s broadcast is taken from my book, “The Lord Healed Them All.” And the scriptures are from the NRSV Bible. I invite you to subscribe to the audio podcast or the YouTube channel of Truth of the Spirit. It’s free. Next time I hope to share with you the visit by visionary Alan Ames who came from Australia to share his gift of healing with my parish. I invite you to go to my website PatriarchMinistries.com to find blogs of my podcasts and other news.
This concludes my series on “The Lord Healed Them All”. But remember, there’s more! With the Holy Spirit there’s always more! Amen.
For more information about prayer you can also listen to Truth of the Spirit channel Playlist “Charisms of the Holy Spirit”, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgixdsnYKWlTJQfQVLzkYcfpfOFKCf5Ty
Supernatural Prayer https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgixdsnYKWlSvadkQS6rt0YcCvbAgWteK
