Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: A few months went by and the Holy Spirit began to bring me a whole other level of revelation which is important for you to hear because there are so many teachings on this subject that don’t have balance. I want to share a story from my own life. I was ministering and traveling all over the world about 10 years ago. I was preaching in Africa to crowds of 30, 40, and 50,000 people. People were getting healed. I saw this happening before my own eyes. At first, I was questioning if this was real. Are all these people that are coming to testify really healed?

I didn't know. So I said, "Lord, show me a healing miracle that will absolutely convince me that You are truly, supernaturally healing these people. Then I'll know and I won't have any question or doubt." Literally, I saw a woman that was legally blind get instantly healed. We went back and documented this a year later. We have all the witnesses from the town where this woman lived. We saw the change in her life and have a witness from her daughter. She was totally a different woman. She was absolutely, remarkably, 100% healed of blindness.

When I saw that miracle, it took my doubt away. I knew this was real. Eventually, after being on the mission field and seeing thousands of people healed everywhere I went, I said to myself, "Well, I'm seeing all these people healed and I'm preaching healing, so why am I still taking my medicines from the doctor?" I called my doctor and said, "Dr. Amanda, I preach all over the world that God is our healer and yet here I am taking medicine. I'm going to give up all these medicines now. I'm no longer going to be taking them."

She said to me, "Rabbi, I feel like I was put on Earth to help people like you." That was really humbling to me. If I'm on Earth to help people spiritually, why should I not be able to receive the ministry that other people have for me? My doctor was telling me that her ministry was medicine. We came up with a plan to go off certain medications and keep others for things like cholesterol. One of the medicines I was on was a proton pump inhibitor to eliminate acid reflux.

I had struggled with acid reflux for many years. At that time, I had such bad acid reflux that I was getting a very sore throat from the acid coming into my esophagus and burning it. My throat pain was so bad I literally felt I was going to burn out my vocal cords. I told my doctor I was going to stop taking the inhibitor and trust the Lord. I read every scripture every single day on healing. I read books on healing. I love the doctrine of divine healing because it brings God so close.

I love trusting God to be the healer of my body because it brings Him into me. A lot of times we believe in a God that's up in heaven or believe that when we die we go to heaven. But to believe in God right now for your body, to put your faith to the test by believing God for healing, it brings Him so near to us. We're trusting Him internally to heal our bodies. About a week after going off the medication, my sore throat began to return and it was getting worse every day.

I was believing God as much as I could for my healing. By Your stripes, I am healed. I believe that You not only took my sin away, but You took my sickness away. I'm believing You, Jesus. I love believing in You to be my healer. But my throat was getting worse every day. Another week went by and my throat was so sore. I felt like my tonsils and my vocal cords were going to burn out. I kept going on and trusting God, but the throat was getting worse and worse.

I finally said, "Lord, if You don't heal me in three days, I'm going to have to go back on the prescription." Three days went by and I was still in tremendous agonizing pain. I went back on the prescription and the sore throat went away. But my faith was broken. I was crushed. It was one of the biggest faith challenges I've ever experienced in my life. I was still believing in Jesus and loving Him, but I was struggling. I believed, but it didn't work.

I wondered if faith even worked. I believed for my healing as much as I could and fed my faith with the word of God about healing every single day. I believed it was all in the atonement, and yet here I was still struggling with it. I was broken and couldn't move forward. A few months went by and the Holy Spirit began to bring me a whole other level of revelation because there are so many teachings on the subject of divine healing today that don't have balance.

I was in Brazil when the Holy Spirit began to speak to me these two words: "mystery" and "balance." There is an element of mystery and balance surrounding the doctrine of divine healing. The Lord began to bring me scriptures that you often don't hear being taught by those that are proclaiming divine healing because they don't make any room for the mystery. Consider 1 Timothy 5:23. Paul is speaking to Timothy and says, "No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments."

Paul tells Timothy, his true son in the faith, to use wine because of his stomach and his frequent ailments. Paul didn't rebuke Timothy for his lack of faith. He didn't tell Timothy to pray more or read the Bible more. Instead, Paul told Timothy to drink wine as a remedy for the sicknesses he was dealing with. This tells me that sometimes God uses agents. All healing comes from God, but sometimes God uses agents. We see this revelation rooted in the Torah in the book of Exodus chapter 15.

Israel was on their journey and they came to a place called Marah, which means bitter. There was some water there which the Israelites needed to drink, but they couldn't drink it because the water was toxic. Moses called upon the Lord and God told Moses to take a hyssop branch. God told Moses to put that hyssop branch in the water. When Moses put the branch in the water, God cleansed the water. Then the Lord said to Moses, "I am Yahweh-Rophecha, I am the Lord that heals you."

God revealed Himself as the Lord that heals you. When He released His healing at the waters of Marah, He did it by the agent of a hyssop branch. God was the healer, but He didn't just speak to the water directly. He used a natural remedy. Some people have heard God referred to as Yahweh-Rapha. Rapha is the root word of heal, but in this case, it's Rophecha because it means "your healer." Sometimes God uses agents.

Guest (Female): You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider. He’ll be right back. But first, I want to let you know that you can watch full episodes of Discovering the Jewish Jesus on Roku television. We have episodes that are filmed in the Holy Land and outreach events from Nigeria and Gulu, Uganda. Every episode is available to help deepen your understanding of scripture and the Jewish roots of your faith. Search for Discovering the Jewish Jesus on Roku today.

Guest (Male): Your support is fueling a powerful move of God through the Discovering the Jewish Jesus Israel Awakening Initiative. Right now, we’re equipping and strengthening congregations throughout Israel. We’re launching evangelistic outreach campaigns in the land. Lives are being changed as Israelis encounter the love of Jesus. Stand with us today and boldly proclaim the gospel in Israel clearly and without compromise. If God is moving you to join us, go to DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. Now, back to Rabbi.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The challenge is that we don't look first to the agent; we look to the Lord. As we keep our eyes upon Him, He may bring us an agent. He may bring us a remedy or a medicine, whether it be a plant, food, a prescription, or a physician. But we are always looking to the Lord to be our healer and giving Him thanks for the healing. We ask Him to use the agents as opposed to just relying on man and the flesh, which too often God's children have done.

It hurts us when we're looking to the natural rather than to our supernatural God that wants to be our personal healer. Often God does heal people directly and supernaturally. Yeshua often said, "Be healed," and they were healed. But sometimes Yeshua Himself used an agent. He spit on the ground and took the dirt so that it became a mud substance, and then He put it on the blind man's eyes and the blind man was healed.

There's an element of mystery and balance to all this. Too often, faith healers try to lock us into something, making us feel that if we don't completely rely with no agent involved, we're somehow weak in faith. Some people have doctrines and even denominations where they won't use any medicine or see any doctors. I think that's unbiblical. It's not in accord with God's word and doesn't have balance. Some people are healed instantly. I've seen it in my own ministry.

I was at the NRB conference in Nashville. I ran into one of the most influential Jewish evangelists in Israel. As I'm sharing with him that Israel needs boldness in proclaiming the word of God on the streets followed by irrefutable miracles, a woman about 70 feet away was looking right at me. It was obvious she wanted to talk to me. I called her over and she said, "Rabbi, I was here last year at the NRB conference and I had MS. You laid your hands on me and I'm healed."

She was instantly healed. That pastor had strong confirmation of what I was telling him because she came up right at that moment. God be all the glory. Some people supernaturally recover from the time they start trusting God for their healing. Getting back to my story, I went back on the medication and the Lord began to show me the element of mystery and balance. Timothy took a remedy. Another example is that not everybody gets healed. Paul left one of his companions sick at Miletus.

Think about it. Paul healed the sick. He was bitten by a venomous snake and shrugged it off, and when he didn't die, they started worshipping him like he was a god. Here's the great man of faith, the Apostle Paul, who healed the sick and didn't die from a poisonous snake, and yet he had to leave a companion sick. There's an element of mystery and balance to all this. I go back on the medicine and the sore throat goes away.

About a year later, I decided I was going to go off the medicine again. I'm still not on the medicine. I tried it again and said, "Lord, I'm going to trust You for the healing of my acid reflux." I still battle with it sometimes, but I've been off that medicine now and I have never had the type of problem that I did back when I first began to trust God. I supernaturally recovered over time. Some people might not get healed instantly, but they begin to recover and get stronger.

Some people seemingly never get healed on this side of glory. They have struggled with some physical ailment their entire life. They love God and people and are believing for their healing, but for reasons we don't understand, they have not yet received it. Sometimes people don't get healed until they leave this world. We don't understand why this is. Let's not let what we don't understand keep us from believing and receiving what we do understand.

God by nature is a healer and His healing flows to His people through the provision of Jesus's sacrificial death and shed blood. I've been praying that Father God would continue to subject me and that I would cooperate with His subjection and come under the blade of His word. The word is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword. In order for this process to take place, I have to be willing to come under His authority.

When we come under His authority, it affects our thoughts, our attitude, our words, and everything in life, including how we use our finances. Surrender your finances to God because we can't enter into the fullness of His presence without being surrendered to Him in every area of our lives. If the Lord is blessing you and feeding you through this ministry and you feel Him urging you to make a donation, just be obedient.

Guest (Male): Amen. To take that step of faith right now, just go online and give at DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. You can also support this ministry by calling us at 800-777-7835. You can send your generous financial donation in the mail as well. Our address is Discovering the Jewish Jesus, PO Box 777, Blissfield, Michigan 49228. Because of your generosity, we're able to reach men and women in prison with the hope of Yeshua all across the country.

When you support Discovering the Jewish Jesus, it helps us send teaching materials, broadcast programs, and other resources directly into correctional facilities. God has opened doors for us to share these messages with over a million inmates. Rabbi’s passion is to continue to reach the broken and hurting with helpful and resourceful ways this year. Thank you so much for helping us reach them. Donate today at 800-777-7835, DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com, or text the keyword "GIVE" to the number 88777. Now here's Rabbi to speak God's sacred blessing over your life.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Blessings trump curses. In the book of Numbers chapter six, we find the Aaronic blessing that God commanded Aaron the high priest to speak over the children of Israel. There's power in blessing, so take part in receiving Father's blessing upon your life too.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with His countenance and the Lord give you His peace. God bless you and Shalom.