Faith for the Miraculous

Testimonies of healings and miracles increase faith and release prophetic revelation.

In 1994 God put His hand on me, Randy Clark, an unknown pastor from a small church in St. Louis, to birth one of the greatest revival movements of the last half of the twentieth century. This move of God has resulted in the longest protracted revival meeting in the history of North America. Today, almost twenty-five years later, God’s revival fire continues to burn and spread across the globe, expanding His Kingdom as thousands experience the Father’s healing power and love. Salvations and rededications accompanied by miracles, signs and wonders, have resulted in tens of thousands of churches planted across forty different countries. I am humbled and awed daily by the scope and magnitude of God’s great love and mercy. One of the most striking aspects of this mighty move of God is the incredible number of healings. As I look back over the past two decades I am continually amazed and delighted by God’s desire to touch and heal people. At many of our meetings the healings happen so quickly and in such great number that it is impossible to record them all. As I began work on a journal of healing miracles I could not help but think of the apostle John’s words, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

There is such power in a miracle testimony. Jesus used testimony many times to confirm the truth of His words, knowing that testimony sustains and encourages us as we confront life in a fallen world. The early disciples had the Master, Jesus, with them. He is still with us today by His Spirit. Christ in us is the hope of glory, revealing His divine splendor and heavenly radiance as we participate with Him in the vigorous experience that is the empowered Christian life.As you read through the testimonies in Stories of Divine Healing, you will see that they impact every physical part of the human body. Some of the testimonies sound rather simple and straightforward while others confront us with the reality that God indeed does perform creative miracles. Limbs grow out, cancerous tumors literally fall off, blind eyes see, those who were deaf and mute from birth suddenly hear and speak, withered limbs straighten and gain strength allowing the crippled to walk. Demons are cast out restoring physical, emotional and spiritual health where there was once decay and darkness, and broken bones miraculously heal. Every testimony brings fresh revelation of Jehovah-Rapha—the Lord who heals you (see Exod. 15:26b). This healing flows from the very nature of the Father because you cannot separate healing from God.As if all of this were not exciting enough in and of itself, what is equally exciting is that we are allowed to participate in this revelatory ministry. Every believer is commissioned to heal the sick. Matthew 10:7-8 was Jesus’s commission to His disciples when He walked upon the earth, and it is His commission to us today. His blood shed on the cross speaks a New Covenant word that gives us victory over sin and every disease. Testimonies of God’s healing are in essence a victory shout.

Faith That Comes From Testimony

To fully appreciate the power of the testimony we need an understanding of the faith that comes from testimony. Faith is the grace of God that causes His word to come alive in you, enabling your measure of confidence in Him to grow. When you see God as loyal, staunch and steadfast in certain areas of your life, your measure of faith in those areas will increase. It’s important to understand that there is a difference between the gift of faith and your measure of faith. While both are of the same nature, they are not created in the same way. Your measure of faith is your level of faith at any given time, whereas the gift of faith is given to you. The apostle Paul talks about the gift of faith in First Corinthians 12, telling us that it is a manifestation of God’s grace, not an ability we possess. As Paul says, “All these [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines” (1 Cor. 12:11). A little farther along, in chapter 13, Paul shows us a more excellent way to move in the gifts, telling us that true faith expresses itself by love to God and others, not adherence to the law. Your trust and confidence in God—your faith—will grow when you study His Word, as the Holy Spirit illuminates His truths in your mind.

Ultimately faith is not about our ability to believe God. It is God’s ability to bring us into a place of belief in Him.

Sound teaching of Scripture brings an understanding of the ways of God and helps create faith instead of curiosity. People may see someone operate in the gift of healing, but without a solid Biblical understanding of what is happening, they likely won’t be able to appreciate that what they are seeing is of God. They need to be taught the ways of God so that they can approach His supernatural manifestations with a sanctified intellect. Ultimately faith is not about our ability to believe God. It is God’s ability to bring us into a place of belief in Him. A few years ago I was having a discussion with New Testament scholar, Dr. Craig Keener. We were talking about the difference between having faith in God and faith of God. Greek translations of Scripture tend to lean towards faith in God, probably because the majority of Greek scholars were not healing evangelists. The context of their experience governed their interpretation. You can’t really understand how faith can come from God unless you have experienced it. For this reason, I make it a point to teach before I minister healing. In this way I till the soil in the hearts of those present so God’s seeds of faith can fall on fertile ground. I would much rather take time to teach than see emotion or desperation or curiosity take the place of faith.

Early on in my ministry, God began using words of knowledge to increase the level of faith in me and in those I was ministering to. A word of knowledge is a rhema word from the Holy Spirit. Such words are always consistent with the will of God, and when declared, they can shift the atmosphere. Before and during ministry time I would get all sorts of physical aches and pains that were not natural to my physical body. At first I often hesitated to share these words of knowledge in my meetings because I didn’t fully understand the concept, but as my knowledge and confidence in my ability to hear from God in this way increased, I would share and see people healed. Without fail, every time a word of knowledge brought healing, the faith in the room would increase. Now words of knowledge are an integral part of my ministry. Oftentimes, people are healed just by hearing a word of knowledge without anyone praying for them because the faith of God had taken hold in them.

The Power of Testimony As Prophetic Revelation

Prophecy is an invitation for repetition, because what God has done, He will do again.

While healing reveals the heart of God, it was and is also prophetic revelation of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah declared that mankind would know the true Messiah by the preaching of the good news to the poor accompanied by demonstrations of power (miracles, signs and wonders) that validated His Messianic ministry, (see Isa. 35:3-6) and that is exactly what happened. Jesus came on the scene and everything changed. Jesus the Messiah continues to reveal Himself today in the same way—through the preaching of the good news of the Gospel, and through miracles, signs and wonders. In fact, every testimony of a healing miracle is a fresh revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Healing and deliverance are as essential to the Gospel as the actual proclamation of the message. Revelation 19:10 says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Prophecy is an invitation for repetition, because what God has done, He will do again. This is why I believe we need to build a culture that understands the power of testimony. Some have trouble with this concept because they misunderstand what it means. Sharing testimony doesn’t demonstrate a lack of humility because it’s not about what we have done; it’s about what God has done. The Old Testament tells us to keep the law, keep the statutes, and keep the testimonies. We are to testify to His mighty works. Testimonies of healings and miracles increase faith and release prophetic revelation.