Now one caution, one word of caution: do not encourage a person, or tell them to stop taking medication. You're not a doctor, you're not a prescriber of medication, therefore, you're not authorised to tell them not to take it. Not taking medication has legal consequences, and physical consequences potentially, so what is important is we understand, if a doctor has prescribed medicine, let the person go show themself to the doctor, and let the doctor release them from the medicine, or let them take responsibility. Don't you go diagnosing someone doesn't need medicine anymore, okay then? So don't encourage them to no longer see a doctor, if they're going to a doctor, just pray for them. Don't be something you're not - you're not a doctor, so our role is to pray for people. We just pray for them, and see how they are, and check them out afterwards, and just encourage them then to continue to thank God for what's happened to them - so that is the gift of healing.
So the 'gift of healing' is different to 'praying by faith for healing'. We pray by faith for healing, we just believe, according to the word of God, that if we pray for the person, they can be healed. Are some people not healed? Yes, sometimes unforgiveness will block their healing, sometimes unbelief will block their healing, sometimes there can be control or occult powers will block their healing. You've got to ask the Lord to show you, what blocks the healing. When you get a gift of healing, you just know the person's going to be healed, and when you pray, it does happen, and it happens pretty well straight away. The rest of time, pray, check the person out, break the power of a spirit over their life, and encourage them to take an action that they haven't taken before - so there's ministry of the healing gift again.
Now gifts of healing are wonderful. Pray for gifts of healing - there are so many sick people. They go to chiropractors and doctors, and it costs them thousands of dollars, and here one prayer could set that person free. What a great thing, if you could begin to flow in gifts of healing - in your workplace, wherever you are. People can be stunned in the community, they just get a healing in the workplace, get a healing wherever you happen to see them. They get so shifted, it's quite astonishing the effect it has on their life. Wouldn't that be great? Now related to gifts of healing are the working of miracles. We won't spend a lot of time related to that area, but a miracle involves the breaking of a natural, or it means that the natural laws are overridden by the realm of the spirit. God brings a superior power into play, so there are heaps of miracles in the Bible where God has invaded the natural realm, and a miracle took place.
I'll give you some examples of Peter walking on the water. You can't walk on water. You all know you can't walk on water, so what kept him up? The power of God. Now I guess, how did he know? I guess he never knew he could walk on the water, until he stepped out of the boat, and got his foot in the water, and who knows how far down it went before it was solid? You don't know. There's been examples of people doing this in Indonesia during revival, crossing rivers that you couldn't cross, and the people came after them, went in the river and they were swept away it was that deep. So there are many examples; the feeding of the 5000. You notice that what Jesus did was He took the bread, He blessed it, He spoke over the bread. He spoke words over the bread, He looked up to heaven to the source, spoke words over the bread, then broke it, and gave it to the disciples. Now at that point, it still hasn't multiplied. It was when they distributed it, it began to multiply, so they give out a piece, and there's another piece taken its place, and so on, and so forth.
We heard from Heidi Baker in Mozambique, and they had a huge number of people to feed, a large number of people to feed, and they looked at the food they had, and it wasn't enough, so they just began to pray over it. Well, they fed everyone, and had food left over. No one knows how they did it. So I've heard a whole number of stories like that, in modern times, of the food just being multiplied. How did it happen? They asked God what to do, just prayed over it and distributed it out, and God did the rest. It was a miracle, a working miracle, so some aspects of miracles are overriding natural laws. Another aspect of miracles is deliverance. Deliverance is the working of miracles, because in deliverance, God displaces a demonic power by the working of miracles, so deliverance is also a working of miracles. There are many examples of these in the Bible. How do we move in it? I think you've got to desire miracles, you've got to hunger for them, and pray for them, reach out to God for them, and I've noticed that most of the miracles take place where there are needs that are being met, by people serving people. I've noticed that's where most miracles take place.