Healing School Part 5: Pulling the Passions of God Out of the Priest.
II Peter 1:3 tells us that by His divine power, God has given to every born-again believer in Jesus Christ all things that pertain unto life and godliness. One of the blessings of godliness is that God has placed in our born-again spirits virtue and compassion. These two graces are vitally important in bringing forth amazing and unimaginable miracles of healing, deliverance, and the raising of the dead.
The Apostle John wrote that Jesus Christ loves us so much that He washed us in His own blood from our sins, and made us kings and priests unto God. (Revelation 1:5-6) Wow! What a blessing! Not only are we the kings of Christ, but also priests unto God. As priests, we have unlimited access to God our Father, through our faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on His cross. (Hebrews 10:19) When we pray to God, we boldly come before Him and ask for whatever we will from the Word of God, and it shall be done for us. (I John 5:14-15) Furthermore, as priests, we have a great High Priest in Jesus Christ who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities—one who knows what we go through in life. We can come boldly before the throne of grace and obtain mercy and find grace in our times of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
While many Christians know of these benefits that we enjoy as priests of God, most Christians are unaware of another vitally important role we serve as priests on earth. Just as Jesus is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, we also are touched with the feelings of infirmities of people from all walks of life that we encounter. That’s right, the infirmities of people from all walks of life "touch us" in our hearts (spirit) just like they do Jesus! You see our born-again spirits are identical to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 6.17 & Romans 8.9) As such, in our spirits, we deeply feel the pain, suffering, temptation, sickness and disease that other people endure in this world.
As we are touched with the feelings of others infirmities or weaknesses, “virtue” is released from us. Virtue is moral excellence from God, and is a fruit of godliness. Virtue desires only heaven’s justice, love, and peace for all people. Virtue recognizes when something has gone terribly wrong and demands that things be made right, according to the goodness of God.
It is virtue within us that opens the doors of “compassion” from our spirits. Compassion in turn, motivated by the love of God, takes immediate action to fix the problem at hand with a God-good solution! So, virtue and compassion work together to relieve human suffering of all those that would believe on the name of Jesus Christ. In other words, when the priests is touched with the feelings of the infirmities of others, virtue is released, which identifies the problem, and compassion goes and fixes the problem at hand.
Actually, if you think about it, there have been many occasions during your Christian experience in which virtue and compassion have been released from you to help people in distress. Likely, you just chocked it up to doing good deeds for others. For example, you may have encountered a person who was hungry for food. You were immediately touched by their need. Virtue released from you demanded that you feed them, and immediately you had compassion and gave the person something to eat. You can think of numerous other times when helped people who needed clothing, shelter, money, a ride to some place, or other favors. Each time, it was virtue and compassion at work.
But as the Lord’s priest, God wants to challenge you to reach deeper into your compassion and perform marvelous supernatural works of God. In your born-again spirit there are endless levels of compassion to meet every persons need in this world! (I John 3:17) Notice that the Apostle John said that we have “bowels” of compassion—deep and never ending methods of meeting and exceeding the needs of all people by the Spirit of God. In our bowels of compassion there are methods of healing the sick that are beyond human understanding and comprehension. (I Corinthians 2:9-12) The Holy Ghost wants to freely reveal and share these methods of healing with the Lord’s priests.
Take a look at Luke 6:17-29, and see what happened when the great throngs of people who came to hear Jesus preach and be healed, sought to touch Him. Immediately virtue went out of Him, and by His compassion for the sick and demon possessed, Jesus healed them all! Notice that Jesus had not yet even said a word, nor laid His hands on a single person—yet everyone was healed! It was the power of virtue and compassion in Jesus released through the Holy Ghost that did the work!
There are many other examples in scripture of virtue and compassion working together within believers in Jesus Christ that resulted in uncommon and strange miracles. To illustrate:
*At Luke 5:17-26: Jesus was teaching in a very crowded house, and the power of God was present to heal the sick. Men, full of virtue and compassion for a bed-ridden man with palsy, took it upon themselves to try everyway they could to get him into the house. Ultimately, they decided to hoist the man on his couch onto the roof of the house, cut a hole in the roof, and lower him down in front of Jesus. Jesus saw their faith and told the man to arise and take up his bed and go home. The entire crowd was amazed at what they saw, saying, “We have seen strange things today.” I ask you, where did the men get the idea and determination to go to such lengths to see a man healed?
*At Acts 5:12-16: The Apostles did many signs and wonders among the crowd of people gathered. Thereafter, many believers (touched by the infirmities of others and having compassion for the sick) immediately went and brought more sick people as well as those possessed by demons and laid them in the streets of Jerusalem, in hopes that the shadow of the Apostle Peter would pass by and heal some of them. Peter’s shadow passed by them, and all were healed. Where did the believers get such an idea?
*At Acts 19:11-12: God brought forth special miracles from the body of the Apostle Paul, such that believers (by virtue and compassion for others who were ill) collected handkerchiefs and aprons to be placed on the body of Paul, and then the cloths were returned and placed on the sick and demon possessed, and all were healed. Tell me where did the believers get this method of healing the sick from?
*At Acts 20:9-13: Paul was long preaching into the mid-night hour, and a man named Eutychus sitting on a window ledge drifted off to sleep and fell from third floor of a house to his death. Paul went down and fell on Eutychus and embraced him, and raised him from the dead. What led Paul to literally, “fall down on him and embrace him?” Could he not instead prayed to God and commanded Eutychus to rise and come back to life?
These amazing miracles were all the result of virtue and compassion flowing out of believers who had been touched by the feelings of the infirmities of other people. Today, there is such a great need for every one of us, as priests of God to yield our bodies and spirits as instruments of righteousness so that the power of God can flow through us to heal people who are sick with Covid-19 and all other diseases and sicknesses.
(Romans 6:13 & I Corinthians 6:20). In our bowels of compassion lie the methods an determination to do such good works.
Compassion comes from the “passions” (desires) of God that were placed in you when you got born-gain. Do not limit the work God wants to do through you by being afraid to cooperate with whatever way the Holy Ghost wants to perform miracles. Jesus’ passion was to do good works unto all people and to heal all who were oppressed of the devil. (Acts 10:38) His love and passion for mankind was so great that He willingly laid down His life on the cross for the forgiveness of sins for the world. (John 3:16) These same passions are in every one of His priests. (John 14:12
As priests, if we delight ourselves in the Lord, we can prime the virtue and compassion in us to remain ready for release to help people in need of the Lord’s help. (Psalm 37:4-5) God promises that if we delight ourselves in Him—meaning to make our hearts soft and pliable before Him—He will in turn, give us the desires (passions of the heart).
Continual fellowship with God through prayer, study of the Word of God, giving God praise and thanksgiving, giving financial offerings, obeying the voice of God, and loving and forgiving one another are all ways of delighting ourselves in the Lord. Do these things daily and watch how quickly virtue and compassion flows from you as people touch you with their infirmities. God will show Himself strong with creative and exotic miracles that cause men to glorify God and say, “we have seen strange things today!”