Gifts of Healings

MOVE — Week 3

We’ve talked about stirring the gift. We’ve talked about the gift that speaks. This week turned to the gift that moves — the moment God doesn’t just say something through a person, He does something through a person. Scripture calls it the gifts of healings — plural, on purpose, twice — and that plural turns out to be some of the best news in the whole conversation.

Somebody reading this has been praying for a body that hasn’t cooperated in months, maybe years. Somebody has quietly decided this gift isn’t real, or isn’t for people like them. There’s no formula here, and no guarantee Scripture never made — but there is truth worth standing on.

It starts with a simple instruction from James:

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 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.” — James 5:13-16 (NKJV)

Notice whose job it is to initiate. “Let him call.” Not the elders going looking. Reaching out isn’t weakness — it’s the first act of faith in the whole process, before a single hand is ever laid on anyone.

Then there’s the woman in Mark 5, twelve years into a condition that had taken everything she had and left her worse, not better. In a crowd pressing in from every side, she reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ robe — not His hand, not His face, just the edge, hoping not to be noticed.

“Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” — Mark 5:34 (NKJV)

Jesus didn’t let her slip back into the crowd unnoticed. He stopped, because she needed to be seen, not just quietly fixed. That’s the fullness of what this gift is reaching for — not a symptom removed, but a whole person restored, with dignity handed back along with the healing.

So why plural — gifts, plural, healings, plural? In the Greek it’s charismata iamaton, a double plural that shows up three times in 1 Corinthians 12:

“…to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit… And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.” — 1 Corinthians 12:9, 28 (NKJV)

This was never meant to be one universal gift sitting permanently on one person like a title. Think of it less like a single medicine cabinet and more like a hospital — an ER for trauma, a cardiac unit, oncology, physical therapy, all under one roof, all pointed at the same goal. The Spirit distributes healing situation by situation, as He wills. That takes pressure off you if you’ve prayed for someone and didn’t see what you hoped for. And it puts responsibility on all of us, because every one of us is a candidate the Spirit might use, any time, in any house we happen to wash up in.

Consider Jesus Himself: every bit the Son of God at twenty-five as at thirty, yet no recorded healing until the Spirit descended on Him at the Jordan. It wasn’t His sonship that was missing — it was the anointing. The same Spirit that rested on Him is available to move through ordinary, willing hands today, including yours.

Reflection

Is there something in your body, or someone you love, that you’ve quietly stopped bringing to God because the answer didn’t come the way or the time you expected? What would it look like this week to call — and to keep calling — instead of waiting to be noticed?

Prayer

Lord, we believe You still distribute gifts of healings as You will, for the profit of all. We believe You’re the same Spirit who hovered over the chaos in Genesis and rested on Jesus at the Jordan. Give me the courage to call instead of waiting to be noticed, and give me a willing heart to be used for someone else’s healing too. In Jesus’ name, Amen.