Abide in the Vine
When I first heard in 1966 that God heals today, I thought it was the most marvelous discovery I had ever made, and so did my family. But I soon learned that everyone didn’t feel the same way about it. “That doesn’t work today,” people would say. “You can’t be healed today unless it is God’s will, and you don’t know if it is God’s will unless He does it.”
That was the enemy, using well-meaning people, trying to snatch the Word away from me and from my family. The first year after we had begun to live by the faith message, our faith was tested when my father, Doyne Lamb, suffered a broken back. Dad was working at a trucking company one morning when he fell from the cab of a huge cab-over truck. He hit the pavement and was unable to get up by himself. His cries for help were finally heard over the noise of the machine shop, and the shop foreman called Mother and me.
By the time we reached him, Dad had been lying there a half hour or more. The foreman helped us get him into the car and we drove him to the emergency room of Methodist Hospital. The doctor gave him a shot for the pain, then wheeled him off for X-rays. With Dad lying on the emergency room cart waiting for a report, the three of us agreed together in prayer according to Matthew 18:19 that his back would be healed and that he would be released from the hospital.
“Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?”
The X-ray report came back: Dad had a crushed vertebra. The doctor wanted to immediately admit him to the hospital and put him in traction. Dad objected, saying he wanted to go home. Finally the doctor agreed to release him if Mother and I would see that he stayed flat on his back in bed and kept perfectly quiet. We took Dad home and put him in bed, and he asked us to turn on the tape recorder. When we turned on the recorder, Dad heard my voice singing, “Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?” As he lay there his faith increased, and he told us, “I’m getting up to go to the meeting at Christian Center tonight to hear Kenneth Hagin preach. I know God is going to heal my back.”
After staying in bed only a few hours, Dad got up and went to that meeting, and to all the meetings that week. When Satan would come against him with pain, he just rebuked it and continued to claim his healing. He immediately returned to work, and never went back to the doctor. Two years later, Dad was in a car wreck in which his car was completely demolished. He appeared unhurt, but they took him to Methodist Hospital for X-rays just to be sure. The same doctor examined him who had examined him after his fall from the truck. When the doctor read the X-rays he said, “Mister Lamb, these X-rays show the crushed vertebra you had two years ago is perfectly healed, and there is no new injury whatsoever.”
Dad smiled and said, “Well, when Jesus heals, He does a perfect job!”
God Exalts His Word
The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself” (John 1:1, Amplified.) Jesus and the Word are one. We read in Psalm 107:20, “He sent his word and healed them.” And Psalm 138:2 tells us, “I will … praise your name for your loving-kindness and for your truth and faithfulness, for you have exalted above all else your name and your word, and you have magnified your word above all your name!”
That puts a great deal of power in the Word of God! How is it that this Word of God is so powerful in the lives of some believers, and seems to be rather ineffective in the lives of others? I think the answer can be found in Jesus’ parable of the sower:
“And He told them many things in parables—that is, stories by way of illustration; saying, A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and at once they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil; but when the sun rose they were scorched, and because they had no root they dried up and withered
away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them out. Other seeds fell on good soil and yielded grain, some a hundred times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some thirty” (Matthew 13:3-8, Amplified.)
Jesus explained the parable in verse 19: “While anyone is hearing the Word of the kingdom and does not grasp and comprehend it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the roadside.”
Putting Down Your Roots
Most of us have had this experience. Just as you were beginning to hear the Word and get interested in the Bible—just as you got a glimpse of the truth—it somehow slipped away from you. You may have gone home and thought, “What was I so excited about?” We need to grow into the power and knowledge of the Word, so that when the Word is sown the evil one cannot snatch it away. We cannot blame God for the unfortunate things that happen to us—He is a God of mercy and love who watches over His Word to perform it. But we have to be walking in the Word and living by it. We have to put it into practice daily.
A root system on a plant does not develop overnight; the seed has to be planted in good soil and nurtured with water and light. Then the roots can grow deep and become firmly established. We develop our root system by leaning on Jesus through His Word and through experience. In verses 22 and 23 Jesus says, “As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit. As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the Word and grasps and comprehends it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields in one case a hundred times as much as was sown, in another sixty times as much and in another thirty.”
What a tragedy that some people will allow the cares of life and the glamour of riches choke out the Word so it never takes root in their lives. How much better to be so involved with Jesus and His Word that it bears fruit one hundred fold! All it takes is to put the Word of God into practice.
“I Am The Vine”
Jesus gives deeper insight into this matter of fruit-bearing in John 15:5, 7: “I am the Vine, you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much fruit. However, apart from Me—cut off from vital union with Me—you can do nothing—If you live in Me—abide vitally united to Me—and My words remain in you and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.”
Jesus and His Word are one, so this means we must have fellowship with His Word as well as with Him. Another translation of verse 7 is, “If you abide in Me and My words have their place in you, you will pray to the Father and He will create or give birth to the thing you ask for.”
We are beginning to see creative miracles occur in our meetings. We recently reported the healing of a woman whose eyeballs had been removed—all she had were plastic eyes. But God performed a creative miracle, and that woman is seeing more and more every day.
He is a faithful Father to honor and perform His Word. He is faithful in every situation you have ever faced or will face in the future. The victory is yours today. But you have the power to choose whether you give the Word first place and be victorious, or whether you will submit to your circumstances and allow Satan to be victorious. Don’t let the enemy hear you moan and mumble. Instead say, “Thank God, the Word says victory is mine!” Then abide in that Word so that it can bear fruit in your life.