Years ago I traveled to Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. I was there speaking at a local church, and in the afternoon we went to a low-income housing project to distribute food and clothing.
As I was standing there handing out stuff, a few people from the church mentioned to me they had heard about “treasure hunts,” which is when you ask God to help you identify specific people to pray for, sometimes based off physical descriptions, objects or locations. They asked me if I knew how to do that.
“Sure I believe in it, I love it. But, it’s not necessarily the tool I use the most but it is very effective,” I said. I use a similar tool with my kids, many times when at a park or at the mall with my family, I will sit on a bench in the center and have my boys (whichever ones are with me waiting for my wife) to pray and ask the Lord to show us something for the person who is about to come sit with us.
We discuss it together and when the person comes, we tell them what we just did and ask if it applies or makes sense. Whether it does or doesn’t we ask if we can pray for them. My youngest kids do it.
I shared this with these guys with me in these projects—”Let’s go over here and pray and ask for God to show us some stuff.”
We went over to the side and started praying asking God for clues as to where and whom we should pray for. While we’re praying, three people from these projects came over and join us. The guys I was with had their heads down praying.
I had to tease them a bit. “Has God given you a description yet of the people we’re supposed to be looking for?”
Without looking up, they said “No, not yet.” One said, “I’m just not seeing anything.”
I finally grinned and said, “Open your eyes, do you see them now?” Some said, “No, still nothing.”
But a few looked up in surprise and asked, “You mean these guys?”
I said, “Yep, we were asking for clues and God sent them straight to us, let’s pray.”
We told the guys that had walked up that we were here with the church handing out stuff for the families, and we were just praying asking God if there was anyone in the community who needed prayer for anything, especially healing. It turned out all three of them needed healing.
One of the men’s shoulders was frozen, and you could see it was prominently forward and that he was in pain. I asked him to move it and show me where he felt the pain and how far it would rise to. We started praying and commanding his shoulder to have full mobility and for all pain to leave.
As we were praying, all of a sudden his shoulder moved back in we heard this loud pop. Just watching it happen made my shoulder hurt. I also sensed the Lord prompting me to pray for his back. I asked him if he was experiencing a lot of back pain, and he said, “Yes! My back is in terrible pain.” We started praying, and instantly the pain left. It happened right there, right in that moment.
Another young man in their group had a big bandage on his leg. After we had prayed for his friend, I nodded over to his leg. “What happened to it?” He sort of shook his head. “I have this flesh-eating bacteria that eats away at my skin.” He pulled apart the bandage and there was a hole in his leg about nearly 2 inches wide.
I said, “Oh man!” It just looked so painful. It was bleeding and oozing clear liquid. It was really, really bad. I looked at him and said, “I would love to pray for your leg, if you want.”
I had the guy whose back and shoulder just got healed lay hands on the guys leg and had him simply repeat after me commanding this hole in his leg to grow back together.
Let me be very clear; we are never commanding God. We have no right to do that. But, these bodies were made by God.
Sickness, disease, and decay had no part in His original design. This is all a part of Satan’s counterfeit kingdom, his attack and destruction of humanity as God’s crown jewel of creation. The Scripture says, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16).
When we pray for healing, that’s what’s happening. It’s the kingdom of God breaking in, overturning the rule of Satan and sin in this world, and taking back dominion that’s been lost. Whenever Christ announced the kingdom of God being present, healings occurred.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t use doctors, and medicine, and science. This is not incompatible, but understanding the spiritual aspect of healing and the authority we have in Christ allows us to speak healing, life and new creation over our bodies. We’re seizing it; we’re recapturing it.
We started speaking to this hole to close up, for this infection to die, and the bacteria to die. After we prayed we asked him to check it again. He pulled down the pad again and we were dumbfounded to see the hole in his leg was about half the size smaller.
The bleeding had completely stopped, there was no more pus surrounding it, and it wasn’t red with infection any more. We began to pray over it again. I stood up and grabbed the young man’s hands. I looked him in the eye and I said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and this is His hand is on your life. There’s purpose that God has for you. He wants to use you to do great and incredible things. And what God has just done by touching, in us by praying and seeing your body being healed, He wants to do with you to transform this neighborhood, to transform your family and to turn the world upside down.”
The young man began to cry. He looked at me through his tears, and said, “I can feel it as you say it.” The young man gave his life to Christ right then and there.
This was a rough neighborhood, and the guys we were praying for had probably seen it all. It was a community that had a lot of need, and a lot of brokenness surrounding it, but right there we were turning around and we were seeing layers of Satan’s power being stripped away before our eyes as powerful freedom was being released over this young man.
That’s how we see that dominion being restored. That’s how we see the kingdom come. Just as the veil in the temple was torn by Christ’s death on the cross, it’s like a veil is being torn before our eyes as we pray for people. Not everyone we pray for automatically becomes a believer, but almost all of them experience God’s love. It’s a glimpsing encounter with heaven and an invitation to draw closer and make it a lifelong pursuit.
I share this story to convey my understanding of how healing is inextricably tied to Christ’s message announcing the kingdom of God, and the good news of us learning to walk in the authority Christ gave us through his death on the cross. There’s a reality there that we have yet to experience fully, but is available to all of us on a daily basis.
I believe it’s more a question of degrees. Paul urges us on constantly for deeper and deeper revelations of God’s love for us, and that we would all be moving from glory to glory. People have commented to me about my kids: “When your kids were praying for me, I never heard anybody pray with such authority because they were commanding my neck to come into alignment. They were commanding it to happen, and we saw that many times it did.”
From the youngest Christian to the elders among us, we have more authority than we realize we because we just don’t use it. Start using it. Take time to develop it. Many times I will pray seven or eight times before I see the full healing take place. My experience is that healing is a struggle in the spiritual realm, and the more we press in to see the kingdom of God come, the more victories we see, and the more terrifying we become to the enemy. The more quickly he flees. For the Kingdom! {eoa}
Robby Dawkins has been speaking and writing full time and is has been based out of the Vineyard Church of Central Illinois since 2013. Having been in over 46 countries around the world, God has used him to help build the church internationally as well. He has ministered in many Muslim countries and in two of the top 10 most dangerous countries, according to Voice of the Martyrs magazine. Visit him online at www.robbydawkins.com.
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