Matt Sorger: “God’s Healing Power: Eight Secrets to Operating in Creative Miracles”
Testimony of Healing Power
I’ll never forget the moment that 12-year-old girl stepped onto the platform while miracles were happening all over the stadium. The Lord had led me to pray for deaf ears to be opened. As God’s presence and glory filled the atmosphere, ears that could not hear suddenly began to pop open.
As testimonies came forth, my team brought a young girl onto the platform. As they brushed back her long brown hair I was astonished at the sight. She was born without ears. There were just little holes in the side of her head. As the anointing of God came upon her, she could hear a popping in her ears.
Suddenly, as the Lord released a creative miracle, eardrums were formed on the inside of her head and her hearing was opened for the first time in her life. I knew the miracle had nothing to do with me. My part was simply to lead the people in worship until the glory came and then let God do the rest. That night in Mexico we saw many healed by God’s power, even several cripples.
Communion and Intimacy Prepares Us
I had first witnessed the amazing healing power of God in my mother when I was 14 years old. But over the next several years, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing more of that same power demonstrated in weekly church life. I was tired of powerless prayers. When I prayed for someone I wanted something to happen, anything!
Combined with this sense of frustration was an insatiable thirst and longing in my spirit for deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit. Two things were happening in my life as a young person: God was making me dissatisfied with the status quo and He was placing a spiritual hunger in my heart that began driving me into hours of communion with the Holy Spirit.
Over the past 20 years of learning to walk with God, He has taught me many things about living a life full of spiritual power. God has allowed me to witness the demonstration of His power thousands of times in the lives of countless people. A walk of intimacy with God along with a deep rooting in His Word became the foundation from which I saw tremendous power released through my life.
You can begin to operate in the Spirit the moment Christ enters your heart. You don’t have to be saved 20 years before walking in God’s power. I experienced many encounters and many moments of God’s power during my early years as a Christian. Those encounters shaped who I am today. God’s timing is perfect and His preparations are essential. Preparations don’t earn the anointing, they simply enable us to carry it for the long haul.
One thing I have learned about God’s power and gifts is that they flow out of His grace and are activated by faith. But we must always remember that He is the source and it is by His grace that we are qualified to be partakers of His heavenly glory. It really has nothing to do with our efforts or works. If it did, we could take some of the credit. Since it doesn’t, God gets all the glory. It is this deep inner working of character that grounds us so deep in Christ that God is able to pour an immeasurable amount of His power through our lives.
Today, I want to share with you eight secrets to operating in the creative miracle power of God. As we apply these principles to our lives, I believe we can be people who will see signs and wonders released through us on a daily basis.
1. Cultivate God’s Presence in Your Life
The glory is the source of all miracles. The more you can cultivate an environment that is conducive to the Holy Spirit, the more of God’s presence you will carry. The more of His presence you carry, the more power you will have. You achieve this by spending time doing whatever it takes to have the tangible Person and presence of the Holy Spirit hanging out with you.
Quickly confess and repent of the slightest leaning toward sin or spiritual darkness. Pray in tongues often. Cover yourself under the blood of Jesus. Meditate in the Word. Express worship to the Lord through song and prayer. Constantly invite the Holy Spirit to be with you in a tangible way as often as possible. Avoid anything that would grieve Him.
You’ll find that as your life is filled with the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, miracles, signs and wonders will be a natural overflow.
2. Cultivate God’s Faith in Your Heart
True supernatural faith flows out of the spirit and affects the mind. Not the other way around. Faith defies logic and natural reality for a higher spiritual reality. It causes the natural to line up with what God has already accomplished in the spirit. We must live in the Word and constantly renew our minds.
Faith is born out of heart revelation. When truth is revealed to your mind and heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word, faith comes alive on the inside of you. John 8:32 says, “And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.” Soak your mind and spirit in God’s Word by constantly setting your mind on it, and revelation of truth will produce supernatural faith in your heart. Heart faith produced by revelation of truth is the ultimate key to operating in God’s power.
“Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection].” Hebrews 12:2
3. Add Action to Your Faith
One thing you must understand about the power anointing is that it comes for a reason and with an intended purpose. Isaiah 61:1 says: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”
The power anointing for healing and miracles will only manifest if you are praying for sick people to be healed. We must be intentional in looking for opportunities where the power anointing will be needed. Faith without works is dead (James 2:20).
The power anointing is given to help other people in a supernatural way, and in the process, reveal God’s heart and nature to them. Don’t allow yourself to get discouraged. You must stay focused and tenacious. No matter what you see in the natural, set your vision higher, know and understand God’s will and truth, and allow His faith to move you to action. This action will release the power of God and produce the miraculous.
4. Passionately Pursue Spiritual Gifts
First Corinthians 14:1 tells us to earnestly desire spiritual gifts. I often lay my hands on my own belly during times of prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to stir up and manifest the gifts of the Spirit within me. Spiritual gifts of healing, working of miracles, the word of knowledge and the gift of faith are all invaluable manifestations for the ministry of the miraculous.
As you ask God to stir them up, He will. The gifts of the Spirit are called, in Greek, “charisma” and are defined as “gifts of grace; a favor with which one receives without any merit of his own” (Strong’s Concordance). They are a manifestation of God’s grace. You cannot work for or earn them. They are given freely by the Holy Spirit just like salvation is. The more you pursue them, the more you will have them. And you can have all of them!
5. Practice Prayer and Fasting
There was an instance in the Bible where the disciples could not cure an epileptic boy in Matthew 17:16. When Jesus was questioned about this, He said the reason was because of the disciples’ little faith. It wasn’t a question of God’s will. Nor did Jesus focus on the boy’s faith. It was the level of faith in the disciples’ heart.
But also factoring in was the element of prayer and fasting. There is a place in prayer and fasting where your flesh and natural mind become so subject to the heart and mind of God that His faith replaces your doubt. Prayer and fasting help release God’s faith within us. It’s His faith within us that produces the miracle, not the fasting. Fasting and prayer in this instance serve as the passageway into the fullness of faith that exists in God’s heart. Again, it is not by our works, but by His faith and grace extended towards us.
6. Learn to Hear God’s Voice
To operate in the supernatural, we must develop a keen sensitivity to the Person of the Holy Spirit. God does not work in cookie cutter formulas and He doesn’t work the same way all the time! This can be frustrating, but it’s true. We see this even in the life of Jesus. He saw signs and wonders on a consistent basis in His daily life. But He rarely prayed the same way for each person.
Sometimes Jesus laid hands on people, sometimes He instructed them to take a specific action, sometimes He even did some very unusual things, like spit in mud and put it into people’s eyes. He was very unconventional and very Spirit led. The key here is He did only what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19).
This ability to hear and see the actions of His heavenly Father came out of the time He spent with Him in prayer and communion. If we are to sensitize our spiritual eyes and ears, we must put ourselves in a place where we can see and hear God. This will often require you to pull away into a “deserted place” so you can place all your heart and mind on Him. When you exercise your spiritual senses by learning to listen and not just talk, you will be led by the Spirit to see wonderful manifestations of His power.
7. Associate With the Anointing
A major key for me in being brought to a new level of God’s power was learning that it was ok to go where God was moving. Some people believe, “Well, if God wants to give me something He can come right here into my room. I don’t need to go anywhere.” Of course God can meet us in our own room, and many times He does. However, that does not negate the fact that you can literally “catch” the anointing by putting yourself in a place where God is moving.
Find people and ministries that are carrying God and get around them. We learn from each other and receive impartation of power through association. These corporate encounters with God do not replace our hidden devotion expressed in the place of private prayer. They simply add to and enhance our relationship with God. I have been blessed to have been able to associate and hang around some of the most anointed people on the earth today. That fellowship has not only stirred my faith but has released transference of wisdom, revelation, and power into my own life and ministry.
Anointed fellowship is crucial to cultivating the anointing in your life. That fellowship can come one on one around a cup of coffee or can happen just by listening to anointed teaching CDs and videos, as well as by worshipping together in a corporate gathering.
Associate with God’s power by hanging out where He is.
8. Be Motivated by Love.
A factor I believe to be the most crucial one of all, and maybe the greatest missing ingredient, is love. Jesus was moved with compassion and healed their sick (Matthew 14:14). We are powerless without the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. Love must be the foundation for everything we do. It must be the foundation for our desire for spiritual power. Without love, power can lead to pride and self-inflation. Really, without the love of God in our hearts for people, the power is empty (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Love is actually the greatest manifestation of God’s power. It was because of love that Jesus walked in total obedience. It was because of love that the power of sin and satan was defeated. It is by love that we lay our lives down for each other. Love is what motivates our faith (Galatians 5:6).
Love is what causes us to live in the Spirit. Love is the greatest virtue of all. Without faith you can’t please God. But without love you can’t know Him at all. Love filled with truth is the ultimate spiritual weapon against sin, temptation, offense, disunity, sickness, oppression and spiritual corruption and death. Love conquers all.
As you apply these principles to your life and walk with God, expect to see His glorious power and anointing released in and through you.
There is someone out there waiting for a miracle!
Matt Sorger
Matt Sorger Ministries
http://www.mattsorger.com/
