One of the greatest healing evangelists of the 20th century was F. F. Bosworth. The book CHRIST THE HEALER is a collection of his sermons on healing and receiving from the Lord by faith. In this series of videos, his son, Bob Bosworth, reads the entire book. Let these lessons encourage and strengthen your faith to receive from the Lord for yourself and your loved ones who need healing. We gratefully acknowledge the Glorious Church YouTube channel, which provides this series for everyone’s benefit.
If you would prefer to access this message on video, you will find the link below the printed article.
In the natural realm, we are going through a period of time in our world when some items that we need for everyday life are running low – or are unable to be delivered in a timely manner. I’ve had the experience – and I’ve listened to many other people complaining about the experience – of going to the local grocery store and finding shelves almost empty of staples like bread and milk and eggs. And sometimes even a trip to one or two other stores doesn’t glean us any of those supplies either. It’s frustrating – even aggravating – to need something and have no way of obtaining it.
But today I’d like to talk to you about a supply chain that never runs out – doesn’t even run low. I’d like to focus on God’s supply of some things we need and His storehouse that always has well-stocked shelves. I’d like to focus particularly on the bread that He supplies for His children.
When Jesus was here on the earth, He made a pretty amazing statement. When referring to deliverance and healing of the body, He said that those provisions were the “children’s bread.” We find His words in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15 and in Mark, chapter 7. Jesus was speaking to a Syrophoenician woman who, although she was not a Jew and had no covenant with God, was, nevertheless, asking for deliverance and healing for her daughter. And the point Jesus made to her was that He had not been sent to those with no covenant with God, But He had been sent to fulfill the covenant God had made with those who loved Him and had relationship with Him. Now, Jesus did respond to that Syrophoenician woman’s faith and delivered her daughter anyway, but His point in that conversation was that anyone in covenant with God had a predetermined right to a supply of that healing and deliverance, simply because it was a part of God’s covenant provision – as surely as bread was part of their food provision.
It’s significant that He spoke about those provisions as something as basic as bread. It’s a staple for the human diet. It’s not something we consider an appetizer, a dessert, or a between-meal treat. No, bread, according to the Word of God, is one of the primary foods that He promises to provide and bless. One example of that provision is found in Exodus 23:25, where He says “I will bless your bread and your water.”
So God sees bread as one of the most necessary items in our food supply. And He chose to identify His healing and deliverance as a commodity that is a fundamental staple in our lives as surely as bread is a physical staple in providing our nourishment and satisfying our hunger.
Beloved, are you battling sickness or physical infirmities right now? Are you in need of deliverance from some kind of stronghold in your life? Then you can come to the storehouse for your supply of the “bread” God has prepared for you.
There’s plenty of it. And we’re not talking crumbs here. If you have made Jesus your Lord, you are God’s child, and God’s bread belongs to you. If you haven’t made Jesus your Lord yer, you can remedy that fact right now. Simply tell Jesus that you choose to believe that He is the Son of God and that He took your sin and died to pay for all that sin. Tell Him you want Him to become your Lord and take control of your life from this moment forward. That’s all it takes. Once that’s done, you, too, have become a child of God, and His bread is yours.
And God’s supply isn’t running low. There are shelves and shelves of bread available every day. Come and get yours. Take a whole loaf. You aren’t limited to a slice or two. You can have a whole loaf at once, with a new slice for every different thing that’s wrong. Are you dealing with an eye problem and a pain in your foot, as well as a head cold? Are you dealing with cancer and diabetes and arthritis all at the same time? Are your mental faculties waning, causing you to lose memory or have trouble reasoning? Is there a problem with one of your organs because you have had an addiction to alcohol or nicotine, so that you need deliverance as well as healing?
No problem. It doesn’t matter how many afflictions you’re dealing with. There’s a slice for every problem. If you need two or three slices for one kind of sickness, and then two or three more for another issue, there’s still no problem. If your current loaf runs low, there’s plenty more where it came from.
And we don’t even have to stop at getting bread. The Lord loves us so much that He wants to provide a complete menu for us, meeting our every need. He tells us in Psalm 23, verse 5, that He prepares a whole table for us right in the presence of our enemies. Now we don’t have to keep our eyes on the enemy forces that have come out against us, watching all the time to make sure they are not going to get the upper hand. When we put ourselves into the right relationship with the Lord – by becoming one with Jesus Christ – we can rest in that relationship and it’s promised protection. We can sit back and enjoy all the wonderful provisions the Lord has for us even when our enemy is present and wanting to get us down.
Let’s think for a minute about the kind of table the Lord prepares for us. What kinds of provision do you think you’ll find on your table? Will there be bowls of cancer? Or platters of infectious diseases? Will there be loaves of sorrow or pitchers of pain? Why, no, beloved child of God. The Word of God says that Jesus took all of those things for us. Galatians 3:13 tells us clearly that He took the whole curse of the law for us so that we could be free from it.
And that curse includes every kind of sickness and disease man will ever know. You can find the details of that curse in Deuteronomy 28. It lists a lot of individual sicknesses and infirmities by name, but then verse 61 adds the fact that every single kind of sickness and disease that has not already been named is also included in the curse. We are redeemed from it – from every bit of it – so our table will have none of those hurtful, life-threatening things on it.
Instead, we will find bowls of joy and strength, platters of comfort, pitchers of balm, trays of mercies to cover every need, and baskets filled to overflowing with our bread of deliverance and healing.
So if you are in need of any kind of deliverance or healing in your body – or in your mind or emotions – come take a seat at the table the Lord has set for you. Come boldly and joyously. Dip from the bowls and platters and baskets again and again. Take all you need, all you want. Partake until you are fully satisfied and rejoice in the knowledge that your Father is a faithful provider and will never fail to keep an abundant supply for you at His table. The invitation is for all time, so you can come back again and again and feast on the “bread” of healing and deliverance that His love – and the finished work of Jess – have provided for you.
Do you need help understanding how to use God’s Word as medicine for physical healing? This video lesson will help. In this message, Sandra Conner shares multiple truths concerning using God’s Word as medicine, and explains how she and others have applied that Word with amazing results.
This video playlist includes all 23 sessions of the course Biblical Pathways to Health & Wholeness taught by Sandra Pavloff Conner in 2021. It covers several foundational principles required to receive anything from the Lord by faith. It explains in detail 9 specific pathways prescribed by God’s Word to receive physical healing from the Lord, through the finished work of Jesus Christ. The course also covers several common hindrances to receiving healing from the Lord and ways to avoid or remove those hindrances.
The course is part of Sandra Conner’s Healing School curriculum, which she teaches in both public and private venues throughout the year. This particular series of videos was offered to students at a local college in 2021, and listeners may hear a reference to that college occasionally. Please don’t let that interfere with your receiving the truths presented here.
The original course also included study sheets that offered more information on the subject being taught. If listeners on this channel would like copies of those study sheets, they may contact Sandra Conner at the e-mail address below, and she will gladly e-mail free copies to you. Please use this e-mail: radicalaboutjesus@gmail.com.
Are you looking to the Lord for healing? Are you believing Him for yourself or a loved one? Would you like to visit with other Christians who have walked through similar health battles and learned to receive their victory from the Lord?
Let me suggest that you visit the “Healing Journeys Today” YouTube channel. You’ll find scores of people — just like you — who have been healed by the Lord and who have learned to apply His Word and His grace to healing needs. They share their experiences and any revelations the Lord has given them through video messages on that channel seven days a week. So if you’re in need of some encouragement for your faith — or would just like some fellowship with others who know God as Healer — follow the link below and check out this channel.
“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind Him [Jesus] and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood staunched. And Jesus said, ‘Who touched me?’ When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, ‘Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?’
“And Jesus said, ‘Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.’ And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared unto Him before all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately.
“And He said unto her, ‘Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.’” (Luke 8:43-48).
Let us push the world out of our way and come close enough to Jesus to lay hold of Him in unwavering faith, and we will receive our needs met.
The word of God has much to say about suffering. It’s a subject with which everyone has had some personal experience, and therefore, a subject of much discussion in Christian circles. One group of Christians believes that those who live for the Lord shouldn’t have to suffer anything at all in this life. And then there are the Christians on the other end of the spectrum who believe that everything Christians suffer is either from God Himself, or deliberately allowed by Him as a part of working His perfect plan in our lives. Actually, if we look carefully at the Word of God, we find that both of those groups are mistaken.
The problem seems to arise from failure in many Christian circles to realize that, according to the Word, there are three different types of suffering that befall the believer. Each of these kinds of suffering needs to be understood and dealt with in a different way. Unfortunately, many Christians misread Jesus instructions about becoming His disciple, as in Matt. 16:24 when He says, “If anyone wants to be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” When Jesus said that, He wasn’t referring to accepting any bad thing that happens in life as a cross that we must obediently carry.
If illness, loss of income, physical or mental handicaps, drunken, abusive spouses, or rebellious children are the crosses we carry for the Lord, then every human being alive, whether he’s born again or not, is carrying a cross for Jesus – because every one of us has had to deal with one or several of those problems during our lifetimes. These kinds of things befall all people. But the key word here is “befall.” These things fall on us – we do not choose to pick them up and make them part of our lives.
Jesus makes it clear that the cross He requires must be willfully and deliberately picked up by each of us individually – even as His was. It must be the same cross – the cross of dying to sin, the world, and our flesh. Then, and only then, will we be able to live the life of a disciple by his resurrection power. So suffering cannot all be lumped together as a cross we carry Jesus.
Now that we have determined what is and is not a cross for Christ, we need to take a look at the three different kinds of suffering that the Word of God shows us may take place in a Christian’s life. For the purposes of this article, let’s refer to these three types simply as A, B, and C.
Suffering Type A: This suffering results from our own sin or foolishness. Galatians. 6:7 says, “Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Psalm 107:17 says, “Fools because of their transgressions, and because of their iniquities were afflicted.” And Proverbs adds to this truth in chapter 18, verse 7, saying, “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” The verse 21 of that same chapter adds, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Going a little farther into Proverbs, to chapter 19, verse 15, we find this: “Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.” Now, these verses give us just a few examples of the fact that God’s Word says when we disobey Him, or remain ignorant of His ways, we will suffer.
This suffering is not God’s will at all. He has not deliberately allowed it; rather we have caused it.
Now let’s take a little side trip here to consider this word “allow,” as it is used in reference to God. Most of the time when Christians say God has “allowed” something, they mean that He has deliberately considered whether or not to let the thing take place in His child’s life and has decided that He wants it to happen. In reference to that idea, this article will refer to that concept as “deliberately allowing.” However, there is the fact (so often missed by Bible readers) that God is required to “allow” some things to happen in the earth even though He does not want them to happen. He has not considered whether to let those thing happen and decided in the affirmative. He is simply bound by His own Covenant and His own word of promise to let man do what he chooses by his free will to do, and to let the devil do what man has legally allowed him to do. Many people get uncomfortable – even angry – when faced with the idea that God doesn’t always get His way in all things. But it is God Himself who says that He does not.
Many times throughout the Old and New Testaments, God verifies that He did not want something to happen to His people, but because they would not follow the dictates of His Covenant (which would have protected them) He must stand back and let those things happen. We will mention only four examples in this article, but any reader who truly wants to get to the truth about this issue can do further personal study on the subject and find others.
Example 1: Ezekiel 22: 29-31. Israel has been guilty of horrible actions, and God says according to His Covenant, they deserve wrath and punishment. But He says that He does not want to pour out that punishment, and He searches the entire nation for just one man who will stand and intercede for Israel and open up the way for God to pour out mercy instead. But He says He cannot find one man to pray, so He has no choice but to allow the wrath and punishment that Israel has justly earned. God does not get what He wants.
Example 2: Matthew 23:37: Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because He (and the Father) have desired that the people will come to Jesus and allow Him to “gather them under His wings as a mother hen,” but they refuse. He does not get his own way.
Example 3: 1 Peter 3:9: God is not willing that any should die unsaved. But he does not get His way. People are dying and going to hell every day. God’s will is that they accept Jesus and live with Him in eternity, but He is not controlling their choices.
Example 4: Even when Jesus was ministering in the flesh, He still couldn’t control everything and get His way about everything. In Mark 6:5 and Matthew 13:58, we see Jesus spending time in his own hometown, and the Word tells us clearly that He could not perform any mighty works there because the the people refusing to accept Him and believe Him. He wanted to heal the people there and perform miracles for them the way He did for others. It’s important to note that the scripture does not say that He wouldn’t perform miracles for them. It says He couldn’t. He manages to heal just a few sick people — a few who evidently did believe Him — before He’s forced to leave town in order to keep the people from killing Him.
Now, some people think that this concept of God’s not always being in control of everything interferes with God’s sovereignty. But that isn’t so at all. It was God’s sovereignty that allowed Him to decide to make a Covenant with man, which would govern exactly how He would deal with His people, and what would be required of them and of Him. He is the one who made the sovereign decision to bind Himself to that Covenant, both by the Covenant itself and by His solemn promise that He would never break it. He used His sovereignty to willingly put Himself in a position of having to keep His own word. He will never go back on it or change it even one “jot or one tittle.”
So now let’s get back to Suffering Type A, that which comes as a result of our own sin or foolishness. It is part of the “law of sin and death,” that is in eternal motion in God’s universe. (Romans 8). Oh, yes, we can attempt to save face by trying to convince ourselves and others that we are suffering because God is “taking us through something to mature us.” But that’s a lie, and clinging to it will only work to keep us in a state of immaturity. If I don’t have a good relationship with my boss at work because I’m late too often, or always have a negative attitude, it sounds more pious to say, “I’m being persecuted at work because I’m a Christian.” Or to claim, “God is testing me with all this persecution to see how faithful I will be.”
If I’m a student who’s being disciplined severely at school because I haven’t been diligent in my work, or I’ve acted outside of the accepted conduct rules, it’s much easier on my conscience to tell myself, “I’m just misunderstood by all these authorities at school. I guess that’s just a cross I have to carry.”
And if my body is sick because I won’t let go of unforgiveness and resentment, but continue to feed on bitterness, I can comfort myself by saying, “Well, I’m sure the Lord has some reason known only to Him for letting me go through this sickness. He will get glory out of it.” (Now, that’s one of the biggest lies the devil ever told anyone, anywhere. There is not one single example in the entire Word of God where God received glory or honor of any kind because someone was sick. He never received any glory until the people were healed. But that’s another point entirely, so we can save it for another article.)
Do you see that these alibis for sin-induced suffering will only keep us in immaturity? Unless we see the problem for what it is, we will not come to repentance. It is the honesty and repentance that brings us to maturity and to His mercy, which will be able to alleviate the suffering. Instead of being content to just sit back and say, “Well all suffering is God’s will for a purpose in my life,” let’s go to prayer and find out just which kind of suffering we’re undergoing. Ask the Lord if there’s sin or foolishness at the root. God doesn’t play games; He’ll tell us quickly if there is, assuming our requests are sincere, and He’ll tell us exactly how to deal with it.
Suffering Type B:
This type of suffering refers to the various evils in this world, resulting from sin in general and the resulting curse that is in operation everywhere. Some common examples are disease, birth defects, miscarriages, accidents, poverty, barren crops, destructive storms, violent attacks on our person, property, or nation, and so forth. All of these things are part of the curse of the broken law, according to Deuteronomy chapter 28. These are the things that Jesus bore for us, as our sacrificial substitute “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us ….” (Gal. 3:13). Isaiah 53:4-5 in the Amplified Bible is very explicit: “Surely He has born our griefs – sickness, weakness, and distress – and carried our sorrows and pain. … But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes that wounded Him we are healed and made whole.” Those words translate from the original Hebrew text exactly, rather than shortening the definitions as some translations do.
Jesus bore all of these things in our stead. I find the word chastisement most interesting. It has two distinct meanings: a) beating and physical punishment; and b) teaching and training. You can see from the literal translation of Isaiah 53 above that Jesus bore the physical punishment for us (as our substitute), and that leaves us with only the teaching and training to walk through, if we are truly in Him. The Lord never wills sickness and infirmity or calamity on us to teach us something. He put all of that (as part of the curse) on Jesus. Rather, He tells us that it is His Spirit and His Word which will teach and train us. (See Prov. 2:1-6; John 14:26; John 15:3; and 1 John 2:17.)
So if we are undergoing these kinds of suffering in our lives, we need to take a definite stand against them. We need to find the promises in the Word that pertain to our situation, take that Word to the Lord in prayer for deliverance from that suffering, and persistently bombard that evil thing with the Word of power and truth until it yields, and we are free. These things are never God’s will. We must see them as the evil things that they are and refuse to accept them in our lives. It does our dear Jesus a great dishonor for us to grasp and hold on to any of these things that He already so horribly suffered for us so we wouldn’t have to.
Suffering Type C:
Type C is the suffering of persecution and harassment from the devil and the world because we are living as Christ. This is the only type of suffering that we are to accept and live with. Moreover, the Word even tells us to rejoice in it and glory in it. “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in Heaven ….” (Matt. 5:11). He later says in Matt. 10:16-25, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; … and ye shall be hated of all men, for my name’s sake, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. … It is enough for the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household.” Then, of course, we have Jesus’ famous words from John 16:33: “These things I have spoken unto you that you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
So is it wrong to pray for deliverance from some of this type of persecution? Certainly not. If you have loved ones or fellow servants in the Kingdom who are being tortured in a foreign land because they have taken a stand for Christ, by all means, pray for their deliverance. God still delights in delivering His people. And He in no way indicates that we should not seek His help in overcoming the enemy and his tactics even in persecution.
But my point is that it is only this type of suffering – persecution for the Gospel’s sake – that is related to taking up our cross. It is received by choice. If we are not a Christian, or choose to be a Christian in name but still live like the world, we will not be persecuted in this manner. Only when we decide to be a true disciple, will we endure this kind of suffering. And the farther we walk away from the world and into the ways of Christ, the greater will be the persecution. But if it comes, we have this assurance: “For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example; that ye should follow His steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously ….” (1 Pet. 2:19-23.)
The key word here is “example.” Jesus is our example for how to endure thesuffering of persecution. We must always respond in love as He did and trust ourselves to our Father God. But let us not get confused. The Word does not say He is our “example” for how to suffer the things that are part of the curse of the broken law: For that suffering He became our substitute, and there is a huge difference. If He has taken that suffering for us, then He intends us to walk free of those things as long as we walk in Him.
So let’s commit ourselves to feed on the Word and spend time with the Lord in prayer so that He can develop our faith to differentiate between the types of suffering and respond the way He wants us to. When we recognize Type A suffering, we will repent of whatever has opened the door to it and thereby overcome it. And when we recognize Type B suffering, we will be ready with a promise from God’s Word to overcome that attack as well and be free from it. And when we recognize Type C suffering, we will rejoice that we are obviously a serious threat to the enemy, or he wouldn’t be stirring up the persecution. Let’s respond the way Jesus did, and also believe the Lord for mercy and grace to help us in those situations.
The truth of Jesus Christ’s complete redemption can be told in any form. In this post I’ve set God’s truth into Cinquain — one of my favorite poetic forms.
Virus:
To lots of folks
It is a scary word.
But there’s a name that can kill it:
Jesus!
Disease
By any name.
Must bow to Jesus’ name.
His sacrifice redeemed us from
Disease.
Have faith.
Get in His Word:
He says it’s medicine
For every ailment we can face.
Trust Him.
HEALING IS FOR YOU! — FREE TO READ ONLINE — or JUST $0.99 TO DOWNLOAD to your own digital device.
If you’d like to stay focused on healing and health instead of disease, let me remind you that my book “Healing Is For You!” is free to read online. You’ll find the link in the navigation bar above. This book will strengthen and energize your faith for receiving healing and continued health from the Lord.
Also, I have arranged for the e-book version from Amazon to be available for only $0.99 through the end of April. That’s the lowest price Amazon will let me offer.
The book is available in paperback as well, of course, but that takes longer to get a copy than digital. The only difference in the digital is that it does not include study questions, and it has only 33 healing scriptures in the last chapter instead of the 100 scriptures in the print version.
If you do not have a Kindle, that’s no problem, because Amazon offers a free app for any digital device, and you can download it easily from the same page where you order the e-book. I’d offer the e-book free as well if I could, but $0.99 is as close as I can come.
Healing From Jesus 