Here are a few scriptures to help build up our faith in God because...

"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17 KJV)

Psalm 119:89 (KJV) — Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.

We are not going to get God to change His mind about anything to agree with us, so we must change our mind to agree with Him.

Isaiah 55:11 (KJV) — So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

In other words, God's Word never stops working

Psalm 138:2 (KJV) — I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

Now that's a promise! If His word is no good then his name is no good either. And we also know that Jesus was the Word of God who became flesh

Luke 24:44 NLT

…Jesus said, "When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled."

Numbers 23:19 (NLT)

God is not a man, so he does not lie.

He is not human, so he does not change his mind.

Has he ever spoken and failed to act?

Has he ever promised and not carried it through?

Malachi 3:6 (KJV) — For I am the Lord, I change not…

John 10:35 (KJV) — …the scripture cannot be broken…

Galations 3:13 says, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree").

This leads us to the fact that divine healing is part of the atonement

(it is part of what Jesus paid for us to have when He died in our place)

Isaiah 53:4-5 (NKJV) says,

Surely He has borne our griefs [Hebrew sicknesses]

And carried our sorrows [pains];

Yet we esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised [crushed] for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes [blows that cut in] we are healed.

Matthew 8:16-17 (NKJV) says,

When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:

"He Himself took our infirmities

And bore our sicknesses."

Many Bible scholars have said that Isaiah 53:4-5 refers to spiritual healing, not physical healing. But Matthew 8:16-17 above proves them wrong. Furthermore,

1 Peter 2:24 (NKJV) says,

who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Notice that Peter says we were healed --- that's because as far as God is concerned He has already paid for our healing. Now it is up to us to command the enemy to leave (yes, sickness is an enemy of God --- is it in Heaven?), receive our healing in faith, and thank Him for paying for us to have it.

Just like eternal life is a free gift that we do not deserve, bless God, we cannot earn our divine physical healing any more than we can earn our eternal salvation. When I understood that and understood that it is without a doubt God's will for me to be healed, that Jesus gave us the same authority over disease that He had while on earth, and the same Holy Spirit He had while on earth -- that is when my own healing became much easier to receive.

Mark Chapter 16 — THE GREAT COMMISSION:

And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name …

they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Most people are waiting to feel led to pray for others to be healed when God has already told us to do so.

James 5:14-16 (NKJV)

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Philippians 2:9-11 (NKJV)

God elevated him to the place of highest honor

and gave him the name above all other names,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus said in John 16:24 (NKJV) — Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Jesus said in Mark 11:23-24

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

This means that you can have what you believe and you can have what you say. BUT - whether they realize it or not, how many Christians speak death over themselves and others?

Proverbs 18:21 — "death and life are in the power of the tongue"

Be careful with your words. Our words bring life and death to ourselves and others. There is a great book that has helped my wife and I in being careful with our words called "The 40 Day Word Fast"

It's also well worth noting here that the placebo and nocebo effect prove what the Bible says is true! That our words, which are based on our beliefs, can literally help or harm our health! They don't even put a medication on the market unless it can perform better than the average placebo effect (the average positive belief).

Isaiah 26:23 NKJV says

You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

We can speak scripture over ourselves because God's word trumps everything. Thank you God, Your truth is greater than the facts and Your Word does not return to You void!

One last thing to consider....

What happens when we command sickness to leave and ask and thank God for His healing that Jesus paid for, and expect God to uphold His end of the bargain, but we don't see healing come right away?

This question has discouraged many people from pursuing God's healing and made them believe that healing is not for them in this lifetime, they'll just have to wait. Many others have doubted whether or not it is God's will for us to be healed. But as you can see above, the scriptures are clear that it is without a doubt God's will for us to be healed in this lifetime. Now we need to look at:

How to obtain spiritual breakthrough --- 3 main points

1) Great faith is largely great patience

Patience to hang onto God's promises until we see them come into being.

The Bible definition of patience is "Cheerful Endurance" or "Cheerful Expectation"

Smith Wigglesworth famously said, "I'm not moved by what I see, I'm not moved by what I feel, I am moved by what I believe." Too many of us are moved by what we see and feel. We are moved by the facts. But facts change and God's truth never changes. So we need to hang on tighter to what we believe. The Bible says that faith comes through hearing the word of God. So let's start with that.

Mark 11:23-24 (NET)

23 I tell you the truth, if someone says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Matthew 21:21-22 (NET)

21 Jesus answered them, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe, you will receive."

John 14:11-14 (NET)

11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves. 12 I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

2) Don't speak against your miracle

God is for us, never against us. Doubt cancels our faith. If the enemy is the cause of all of our suffering, and Jesus paid for us to have divine health just the same as He paid for us to have eternal life, and He gave us His name to use to fight off all kinds of sickness and demonic oppression, then at what point do we give up on our miracles?

I've heard of it taking people up to many hours to get someone raised from the dead. Now that is persistence. When it comes to healing, our faith will be tested. For example: If you prayed for someone with bad kidneys, and believed for them to be healed, what would you say if they came back with a letter from their doctor after that showing their kidney function was still bad?

This I know for sure, I will guarantee you that whenever we start speaking and declaring the miracle that we want to see happen, the enemy can find all kinds of ways to make us doubt and give up. But the only way to lose is to give into that doubt. The enemy will tempt us with doubtful thoughts, but we cannot believe them or act on them.

Remember, being tempted is not a sin, but acting on temptation is a sin. Oftentimes while praying for healing or commanding deliverance doubtful thoughts will be happening, but we must realize that is simply the enemy's attempt to trick us into giving up. We have to take those thoughts captive right away and ignore them or better yet get louder and tell them to leave. We need to have the attitude that we will not give up on believing God's promises.

Having extreme faith for God to heal us can get tricky when seeing doctors. One of my favorite healing stories is from Henry Gruver. His oncologist gave him no hope to live but he kept on claiming that Jesus had healed him even though he had not seen the healing yet. It took a while, but eventually his faith led to a miracle and his cancer was cured. Henry's cancer specialist became a believer because his healing was so miraculous.

Whatever you do, keep speaking life into what you want healed or fixed.

Proverbs 18:21 (NASB)

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,

And those who love it will eat its fruit

In other words, we will eat the fruit of our words.

3) Prevailing prayers add up

There are varying levels of spiritual POWER

As stated above, faith is more about quality or stubbornness. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, so it relies upon us having persistent hope, and when faith is combined with power it produces an epoxy that leads to the intended result.

Some might say that different amounts of God's power are needed to accomplish different things. They might say that it probably requires more power to raise the dead than to heal a headache. OR, we might believe that because that's how our finite minds think, but we don't need to think that way because God has infinite power.

Remember that Jesus was known to say, "So be it unto you according to your faith."

In Matthew 17:14-21, the disciples had been successfully casting out demons and healing the sick, which Jesus had given them authority and power to do. Then, an insane boy was brought to them, and they were not able to deliver him of the spirit of insanity. But Jesus came, exorcized the demon and healed the boy. The disciples had enough power flowing to deal with most demons and diseases, but they encountered one that required more power than they possessed, and their faith gave out on them before the boy was delivered. That's why Jesus chastised them and said they had little faith. If they had kept commanding the demon to leave, it would have had to obey. Anyone experienced in deliverance will tell you that demons don't always leave immediately after the first command, and some are more stubborn than others. Demons will also work hard to speak thoughts of doubt at you in order to get you to waver, because doubt will cancel your faith.

Here are a few more accounts to show you that persistent prayers add up:

Mark 8:22-26

22 And they *came to Bethsaida. And some people *brought a man who was blind to Jesus and *begged Him to touch him. 23 Taking the man who was blind by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting in his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, "Do you see anything?" 24 And he looked up and said, "I see people, for I see them like trees, walking around." 25 Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly.

In Daniel chapter 10, we see Daniel is praying for revelation, and the angel arrives 21 days after the start of Daniel's prayers and tells him that he left right away to deliver him a message as soon as Daniel had started praying, but it took the angel 21 days of fighting in the spiritual realm to get to him. Similarly, our prayers of faith have been answered by God the minute we decide to believe, but sometimes it takes more and more power added up to achieve our breakthroughs. What would have happened if Daniel had given up after a week or two of praying every day? Personally, I'm not sure the angel would have made it to him. Perhaps God would have had to find someone else to give us the important message that he gave to Daniel.

Oftentimes prayer breakthroughs are the result of a prayer process. We don't always pray or command one time and experience the desired results. Sometimes we must persevere in doing so until enough power has been released to accomplish what is needed. It is also why the prayer of agreement with others, which multiplies power, is very helpful for breakthroughs.

Matthew 18:18-19 (NET)

18 "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven. 19 Again, I tell you the truth, if two of you on earth agree about whatever you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.

2 Kings 4:32-35 (NASB)

32 When Elisha entered the house, behold the boy was dead, laid on his bed. 33 So he entered and shut the door behind them both, and he prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he got up on the bed and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, his hands on his hands, and he bent down on him; and the flesh of the child became warm. 35 Then he returned and walked in the house back and forth once, and went up and bent down on him; and the boy sneezed seven times, then the boy opened his eyes.

Dutch Sheets has said that he once prayed in his prayer language for an hour a day for 30 straight days, interceding for someone's healing, and each day they gradually got better and better as more and more power was released. The problem was medically diagnosed, and the healing was medically recorded.

In 1985, God assigned Dutch to pray for a young girl in a coma. Viral encephalitis had damaged her brain, reducing her to a vegetative state for the past year and a half. The doctors gave her no hope of recovery. At the instruction of the Holy Spirit, Dutch prayed over her at least an hour every week - sometimes two hours - for a whole year. At the end of that year, her brain was completely healed. Why did it take a year to obtain a miracle for that young girl? Dutch believes that power was being released each time he prayed.

John G. Lake had healing rooms. He trained people how to have faith and minister healing to sick people, and the sick person would come to the healing room every day for up to a month or until they were healed. They did not all need to go there for a full month before they were healed. Did the healing techs just need enough faith for their prayer to finally do the job? It is more likely that more power was needed.

This revelation on prevailing prayer was a game-changer for me in how I prayed for healing for myself and for others. I realized that when perseverance in prayer was necessary, it wasn't to persuade God or to overcome His reluctance. It wasn't that God had been ignoring all my previous prayers. The persistent prayers were simply to release more and more of His power. I realized that if what I was praying about was truly God's will, it would eventually occur - IF I continued doing my part.

As we declare God's word and promises to see Him work miracles in our lives and in others, His power is being released. No word from Him returns void without accomplishing its purpose (Isaiah 55:11). Each time we declare the power of satan's hold is broken, his hold weakens.

Luke 1:37 NASB

When the angel Gabriel told Mary she was going to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit with Jesus, what he said can be translated as: "nothing will be impossible with God."

But a more literal translation of this verse is, "For no word spoken by God is without power." Just let that sink in. The angel was saying, "The words I'm speaking to you are God's words. Therefore, they have the power to perform this miracle.

There is no more powerful prayer or weapon against satan, than speaking God's Word.

We are called to lead a supernatural life.

God's word is truth and the truth is above the facts.

If we stand on the truth, the facts will change because God has promised us that and He cannot lie.

Praying Psalm 91 daily has led to some pretty awesome miracles in my life and I highly recommend it! The promises in Psalm 91 are incredible!

Click here to learn more about that

Remember that God wants us to stand on His word and His words always contain power, so praying His words back to Him is a very powerful tool for spiritual breakthrough. Also, we must be stubborn to hang onto God's promises and ignore the temptations to doubt, because speaking and acting in doubt cancels our faith.