It's Our Move
The Book of Luke records the story of a paralytic man whose four
friends tried to bring him before Jesus. However, when they reached the
home where Jesus was, the place was so crowded that they couldn't get
in. So they carried their friend to the top of the house, broke through
the roof, and lowered him in front of Jesus (see Luke 5:17-26).
Now this paralytic man was not, as is commonly supposed, healed
through the faith of the men who brought him to Jesus. No, he was healed
through his own faith. His healing was the result of his own exercise
of bold, obedient faith.
The paralytic man was not healed the moment Jesus said, "Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house"
(Luke 5:24). It wasn't until the man made an effort to rise up off his
mat that the power of God was released. The faith of the paralytic man's
friends brought him to the feet of Jesus, but it was his own faith that
took him off his bed of affliction.
At times I have been led by the Spirit of God to tell people to arise
and walk. And as some of them attempted to rise, we had to hold them
up. I had to encourage them to keep their eyes on Jesus. "Don't walk in
your strength," I would tell them. "Walk in His strength." It takes
faith to do that.
One time in 1943 my wife and I went to the home of a woman who was on
her deathbed. Her husband had taken her by ambulance to three different
clinics in three different cities. The doctors in all of the clinics
said the same thing: "Nothing more can be done for her."
This woman was so weak that you had to put your ear just above her
mouth to hear what she was saying. It took all of her strength to speak
in a barely audible whisper.
When my wife, Oretha, and I went to pray for her, I knelt by the head
of her bed and Oretha knelt beside me. As I laid my hands on her and
began to pray, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, "Take your
hands off of her. Stand up and say to her, 'The Lord told me to tell you
you're healed. Arise and walk.'"
After I stood up and told the woman what the Lord had said, she had
only enough strength to kick one foot out from under the covers. Two of
her neighbors were also in the room. I stepped outside while one of the
ladies went to the closet and got her robe and slippers, and my wife and
the neighbor ladies helped her put them on. Then they lifted her out of
bed and called me back into the room.
This dear woman had wasted away to almost nothing. As the neighbor ladies held her up, her knees sagged almost to the floor.
Well, what do you do at such times? It looked as though nothing had
worked. I said, "Let's all lift our hands and praise God, because she is
healed." The neighbor ladies lifted up her hands while holding up their
own hands to praise God. A time or two the woman began slipping out of
their grip and almost slid to the floor. My wife tried to help them as
they pulled her back up.
We all praised God for a few moments, and then they quit and looked
at me with pitiful expressions, as if to say, "What next?" I said, "The
Lord said she is healed. Lift up her hands and praise God, because she
is."
My wife tried holding her up by putting her hands around her tiny
waist, and the two ladies pulled her up by her arms. And we all started
praising God again. As we did, His power came upon this dying woman. She
jerked loose from my wife and the neighbor ladies, kicked off her
slippers, and started dancing barefoot before the Lord! The next Sunday,
she was in church testifying about being raised up from her deathbed.
But you see, we made the first move. This woman used what strength
she had to act on God's Word. And we praised God by faith for her
healing when it hadn't yet appeared.
We have to cooperate with God by believing in Him and doing what we can to act on His Word if we want to get His blessing.
It may seem as if it is impossible, but if we will make the
effort, His power will meet us and take over from there. Just as the
paralytic man in Luke chapter 5 and the bedfast woman given up by her
doctors to die arose from their impossible situations, we, too, can
"arise and walk" in the mighty Name of Jesus.
(Editor's Note: This article was adapted from a message Brother
Hagin taught in Rhema's Prayer & Healing School on July 1, 1980.)
