Dr. Douglas Wingate, Ph.D.
Life Christian University
I conduct healing services on Thursday nights at Life Christian University. When we first started last year, the Lord prompted me to let all the people know that they qualify to be healed because Jesus qualified them.
You see, often when we are trying to help people receive the healing power of God, we have to deal with potential hindrances to receiving healing. If we are not very careful while doing this, many people’s imagination runs away with them and they begin to mentally disqualify themselves from receiving healing. This comes from a tendency to condemn oneself based on a misunderstanding of righteousness.
Let me make a case for how Jesus qualified you to be healed.
First, you must understand that God has always been a healer of His people. Under the Old Covenant, He protected them, He provided for them, and He healed them. Now, under the New Covenant, Jesus has made a way for everyone who is part of His kingdom and His family to be protected, provided for, and healed.
The first thing that Jesus did was to provide the way for the Holy Spirit to dwell in His family members. This happens as soon as we are born again. You see, the Apostle Paul revealed to us that we are made up of three parts: the spirit, the soul, and the body (1 Thes. 5:23). You are a spirit, you have a soul, and both spirit and soul live in the body. When you confess Jesus as your Lord, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your spirit, which has been washed clean by the Word of God and made a suitable habitation for Him to dwell in.
This is why you can approach the throne of God in prayer and He sees you clothed in Christ’s robes of righteousness. You see, God looks at your spirit, the real you, when He looks at you. This truth is corroborated by John’s words in John 3:6. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
More about our new spiritual reality is revealed to us in 2 Cor. 5:7 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; all things have become new.”
In addition to being a new creation, it is revealed in Col. 2:9,10 that we are now complete in Him. “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is head of all principality and power.”
The next fact about our new spiritual condition will explain two verses that unbelievers think is a contradiction in the Scriptures. Keep in mind that John the Apostle understood Paul’s revelation that we are made up of spirit, soul, and body. In John’s first epistle, he is referring to our soul when he says in 1 John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
The moment you were saved/born again, your spirit became holy, but you still had the same soul and body. In order to follow the Lord as one of His disciples, you must begin the process of being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Your mind is one of the main functions of your soul, another is your emotions. Your mind has to be renewed to God’s thoughts and ways, and then you are empowered to live uprightly before Him.
The reality that John is referring to is that no one has ever become perfect in his or her soul. You will sin in your mind and probably your body sometime between now and when you die. No one, not even the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul, has ever become perfect. As hard as it is for some to imagine, even the mother of Jesus, Mary, never arrived at perfection in her soul. She was a human being just like you and me. As much as we Christians would like to become perfect in our souls, that simply will not happen until we leave our earthly bodies and enter into heaven. Your soul will always have some doubts and fears and will be tempted by sin until you are in Heaven. None of those negative earthly weaknesses will be allowed in Heaven. You will be permanently delivered from them when you get there.
But John goes on to say in 1 John 3:9, when speaking about our spirits, “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” John knew that your soul would not become perfect and sinless, but since your spirit is the “whoever” that is born of God, it has already become perfect and cannot sin because the Holy Spirit’s seed dwells within you.
How deep does this union with the Holy Spirit go, and how qualified to receive God’s blessings are we? 1 Cor. 6:17 gives us some insight here. It says, “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” This reminds us that God calls a husband and wife joined in holy matrimony “one flesh” in Gen. 2:24 and 1 Cor. 6:16. Now Paul refers to those joined to the Lord in the new birth as “one spirit.”
I fully believe that when God looks at each one of His Christian children and He sees your spirit with the Holy Spirit living within, that it is difficult to see where the Holy Spirit leaves off and where your spirit begins.
In other words, He sees you holy and acceptable because of the gift of righteousness that Jesus provided for you. He has qualified you for receiving all of His blessings; He has qualified you to receive healing.
In addition, He sees the divine purpose for which He put you on this earth, and He knows that you need a long, healthy life in order to fulfill your divine destiny!
Join us at the LCU Healing Services on Thursdays at 7:00pm to learn more about receiving God’s best blessings in life through faith. For information about attending Life Christian University contact us using the following information:
Dr. Douglas Wingate, President
Life Christian University
410 E. Chapman Rd.
Lutz, Fl 33549
(813) 909-9720
www.lcus.edu
www.lcuonline.com