One of the things He told me to do was to lay hands on every person that had not received the manifestation of healing. I had rarely ever had a healing line and I had never laid hands on that many people after I had been ministering for three hours on healing. When I had finished, I was so tired I could hardly close the meeting. I had to have someone else do it.

After the next healing service, God told me to do the same thing, but at the end He said, Now rejoice before the Lord. Prior to that, I had said, “Lord, I will do anything You want me to do.” I had not planned to rejoice before the Lord in front of all those people.

But I just turned to the musicians and said, “Let’s rejoice before the Lord.”

Then the Lord prompted me: Now worship Me—spirit, soul and body. Don’t just hold up your hands. Begin to dance before Me. I had never done that and had never intended to do it. I could have thought, I don’t believe I’m ready for that yet. But God said it, and I was so committed to obeying Him that I just began to dance before the Lord. And the people joined in with me! We were caught up in rejoicing and had a good time worshiping God.

In the previous meeting I had been absolutely exhausted after ministering. This time I had ministered about four hours when I began to dance before the Lord, and something happened in my physical body. The Holy Spirit quickened my mortal flesh and all the tiredness left me.

The Lord did not say, “If you will dance before Me, you will be rewarded for it. You will be glad you did. It will change many things in your life and your thinking.” He did not say it was that important. He just said, “Do it.” I was so ready to obey Him that I followed through with it. You know, it has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever known.

In previous meetings I would often be so tired that I could hardly make it to the night service. But when I began to rejoice that day, the Spirit of God refreshed me physically. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” That is what rejoicing is all about. All these years have come and gone and I’ve always had the physical strength to finish the healing service. Usually I’m not even tired!

It also did something else for me. It released me in some way from being inhibited to following after God. I became quicker to obey God in other areas that might seem foolish. It broke an inhibition that I did not even realize was there, and somehow I became freer to follow after God.

Do you know what the dictionary says dignity is? “Self-possession or self-respect.” I do not want to be self-possessed; I want to be Holy Spirit-controlled. But I am sure that my idea of dignity had kept me from being as free as I should be with the Lord.

Freedom happens when you follow your spirit. You do not always know what is at the other end of that act of obedience. Your primary action should be to please God. Everything the Spirit of God tells you to do will work for your good. It is always going to be to your advantage.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Isaiah 53:11, The Amplified Bible says: “He [God] shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His [Jesus] soul and be satisfied.” God would see the fruit of Jesus’ travail and be satisfied! It does not satisfy God to see sickness and disease on believers today. He was satisfied when that sickness and disease was laid on Jesus. Many people think God wants them to stay sick, so He can get glory out of their travail, but that kind of thinking is a lie straight from the pit of hell! To put sickness on you after it was put on Jesus would be a miscarriage of justice! You are not the sacrificial Lamb of Calvary. That sacrifice has already been made—it does not need to be made again. You need to receive His sacrifice made for you and appropriate its benefits into your life.

What was the fruit of Jesus’ travail? Salvation, healing, love, joy, peace— the kingdom of God being born in the hearts of men. Praise God!

From these scriptures alone, you can know beyond doubt that God’s will is for every person in Christ Jesus to be healed and made well. He paid the price, so we could receive it.

Any time a believer has a problem receiving healing, he usually suffers from ignorance of God’s Word, ignorance of his rights and privileges in Jesus Christ. To fully understand your position, you need to realize what took place many centuries ago between God and a man named Abram. God approached Abram with a proposition. The agreement, or covenant, they made together is the basis of the entire New Testament. It was in behalf of this covenant that Jesus came to earth.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

To realize the truth of God’s will for healing, you need to understand the full extent of your redemption. Healing is just as much a part of the plan of redemption as salvation, the Holy Spirit and heaven as your eternal home. To stay sick when Jesus has provided healing would be living far below your privileges as a child of God.

Let’s view the plan of redemption through the eyes of Isaiah the prophet. He describes what was to happen at Calvary—the sacrifice, the pain, the suffering, the death. He gave a very accurate picture of Calvary, by the Holy Spirit, showing exactly what would happen in both the physical and the spiritual world: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4).

Note the first word of this verse: Surely—not maybe, not perhaps.It’s a fact. Surely Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows! The King James Version gives an inaccurate translation of the original Hebrew words. The literal Hebrew translation of the words for griefs and sorrows should read, “Surely he hath borne our sickness, and carried our disease.”

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich is his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief… (Isaiah 53:5-10).

Most modern translations read, “It was God’s will that He be bruised.” It was the definite will and design of God that Jesus take all sickness and disease on Himself for us. His purpose was to free mankind from it.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Jesus did what He said He would do: He preached the gospel, healed the sick, brought sight to the blind and delivered the captives. He taught in the synagogues of Galilee and the people were amazed. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power” (Luke 4:32). Every word going forth from His mouth brought deliverance and healing.

Jesus never turned away from healing anyone who came to Him in faith. He never said, “I can’t heal you. God wants you to stay sick a little longer.” He always responded to the faith of the people.

Acts 10:38 says: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”

God wants His people healed and whole. He demonstrated this through Jesus. You can see His will toward healing expressed very simply in Luke 5:12-13: “And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”

When the leper asked, “Will you make me clean?” Jesus answered immediately, “I will: be thou clean.”

The leper knew Jesus could heal him. The only question in his mind was whether or not Jesus would. This is the key point in receiving healing—the determining factor in acting by faith or unbelief. You know God can heal. The problem comes in knowing for certain that God will heal and that He will heal you! Until you realize in your own heart that God wants to heal you, you will never receive from Him. You can watch other people receive healing and still never receive it yourself.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

To know God’s will about healing, you must first know what His Word says because His Word is His will. John 1:1, 14 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

Jesus of Nazareth was the Word of God made flesh—the total expression of God’s will manifest in human form. This is what He said about Himself:

My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (John 4:34).

He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me (John 12:44-45).

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father (see John 14:6-9).

If you want to see God, look at Jesus.

If you want to hear God, listen to Jesus.

If you want to know God’s will, study the ministry of Jesus.

According to Hebrews 1:1-3, Jesus is God’s Son—the heir of all things, the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of God’s person. Jesus is the very image of Almighty God! Everything He did, every move He made, every word He spoke was an extension of His Father in heaven.

There is no question Jesus came to do the will of the Father. In John 10:10 He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Abundant life is God’s will for the believer. Jesus explained very clearly how He would bring that abundant life into manifestation:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:16-19).

When He had finished reading, Jesus closed the book, sat down and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (verse 21).

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

2 Timothy 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Hebrews 10:23
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised).

Hebrews 10:35-36
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

Hebrews 11:11
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.

James 4:7
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 5:14-16
Is any sick among you? 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 shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

1 Peter 2:24
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

1 John 3:21-22
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in
his sight.

1 John 5:14-15
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

3 John 2
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

Revelation 12:11
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Matthew 21:21-22
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mark 11:22-24
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Mark 16:14-18
Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Luke 6:19
And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.

Luke 9:2
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.

Luke 13:16
And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?

Acts 5:16
There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

You must realize that prosperity is the will of God for you.
Knowledge of His will brings results. Once you know for sure
that something is God’s will, you should not be without it any
longer. If you do not know that healing belongs to you, you
will hesitate, wondering if it is God’s will and never establish
it in your own life. You will never really believe it for yourself.
Many people have been healed through the prayers of other
believers and still have difficulty with their health even after
God has healed them a dozen times. However, once they see
in the Word that healing belongs to them, that Jesus bought
and paid for it at Calvary, that He bore the stripes, then they
will not accept sickness again. Why? Because the Word
becomes established in their hearts and a force rises up within
them—the force of faith. This is also true in prosperity. Poverty
is under the curse of the law, and Jesus Christ has redeemed
us from the curse and has established us in abundance, not
bare necessity!

Stop and think for a moment. What is your heart established
in? Sin or righteousness? Death or abundant life?
Sickness and disease or healing and divine health? Poverty or
prosperity? Faith or fear?

The only way you will establish your heart so that it is
absolutely fixed—concrete and immovable, trusting in the
Lord—is by the Word of God. Go to the Word and feed on it:
read it, study it, meditate in it. Then your heart will be established,
fixed, trusting in the Lord, and Psalm 112 will be a
description of your life in Christ Jesus.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Matthew 9:35
KJV—And Jesus went about all the cities
and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom, and healing every sickness and
every disease among the people.

Amp—And Jesus went about all the cities
and villages, teaching in their synagogues
and proclaiming the good news (the
Gospel) of the kingdom, and curing all kinds of
disease and every weakness and infirmity.

Moffatt—Then Jesus made a tour through all
the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
preaching the gospel of the Reign,
and healing every sickness and disease.

NEB—So Jesus went round all the towns
and villages teaching in their synagogues,
announcing the good news of the Kingdom,
and curing every kind of ailment and disease.

Matthew 12:9-13
KJV—And when he was departed thence,
he went into their synagogue: And, behold,
there was a man which had his hand
withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it
lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that
they might accuse him. And he said unto
them, What man shall there be among you,
that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into
a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay
hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is
a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is
lawful to do well on the sabbath days. Then
saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine
hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was
restored whole, like as the other.

Amp—And going on from there, He went
into their synagogue. And behold, a man
was there with one withered hand. And
they said to Him, Is it lawful or allowable
to cure people on the Sabbath days? that
they might accuse him. But He said to them,
What man is there among you, if he has
only one sheep, and it falls into a pit or
ditch on the Sabbath, will not take hold of
it and lift it out? How much better and of
more value is a man than a sheep! So it
is lawful and allowable to do good on the
Sabbath days. Then He said to the man,
Reach out your hand. And the man reached
it out, and it was restored, sound as the
other one.

Moffatt—Then he moved on from there and
went into their synagogue. Now a man with
a withered hand was there; so in order to
get a charge against him, they asked him, “Is
it right to heal on the sabbath?” He said to
them, “Is there a man of you with one sheep,
who will not catch hold of it and lift it out of
a pit on the sabbath, if it falls in? And how
much more is a man worth than a sheep?
Thus it is right to do a kindness on the sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out
your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was
restored, as sound as the other.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Matthew 8:16-17
KJV—When the even was come, they
brought unto him many that were possessed
with devils: and he cast out the spirits with
his word, and healed all that were sick: That
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our
infirmities and bare our sicknesses.

Amp—When evening came they brought
to Him many who were under the power of
demons, and He drove out the spirits with a
word, and restored to health all who were
sick; And thus He fulfilled what was spoken
by the prophet Isaiah, He Himself took (in
order to carry away) our weaknesses and
infirmities and bore away our diseases.

Moffatt—Now when evening came they
brought him many demoniacs, and he cast
out the spirits with a word and healed
all the invalids—that the word spoken by
the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, He
took away our sicknesses and our diseases
he removed.

NEB—When evening fell, they brought to
him many who were possessed by devils;
and he drove the spirits out with a word
and healed all who were sick, to fulfil the
prophecy of Isaiah: ‘He took away our
illnesses and lifted our diseases from us.’

Matthew 9:18-29
KJV—While he spake these things unto
them, behold, there came a certain ruler,
and worshipped him, saying, My daughter
is even now dead: but come and lay
thy hand upon her and she shall live. And
Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did
his disciples.

And, behold, a woman, which was diseased
with an issue of blood twelve years,
came behind him, and touched the hem
of his garment: For she said within herself,
If I may but touch his garment, I shall be
whole. But Jesus turned him about, and
when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of
good comfort; thy faith hath made thee
whole. And the woman was made whole
from that hour.

And when Jesus came into the ruler’s
house, and saw the minstrels and the
people making a noise, He said unto them,
Give place: for the maid is not dead, but
sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.
But when the people were put forth, he
went in, and took her by the hand, and
the maid arose. And the fame hereof went
abroad into all that land.

And when Jesus departed thence, two
blind men followed him, crying, and saying,
Thou son of David, have mercy on us.
And when he was come into the house, the
blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto
them, Believe ye that I am able to do this?
They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched
he their eyes, saying, According to your faith
be it unto you.

Amp—While He was talking this way to
them, behold, a ruler entered and kneeling
down, worshipped Him, saying, My daughter
has just now died; but come and lay Your
hand on her and she will come to life. And
Jesus got up and accompanied him, with
His disciples.

And behold, a woman who had suffered
from a flow of blood for twelve years came
up behind Him and touched the fringe of
His garment; For she kept saying to herself,
If I only touch His garment, I shall be restored
to health. Jesus turned around and
seeing her He said, Take courage, daughter!
Your faith has made you well. And at once
the woman was restored to health.

And when Jesus came to the ruler’s house
and saw the flute players, and the crowd
making an uproar and din, He said, Go away;
for the girl is not dead but sleeping. And
they laughed and jeered at Him. But when
the crowd had been ordered to go outside,
He went in and took her by the hand,
and the girl arose. And the news about this
spread through all that district.

As Jesus was passing on from there, two
blind men followed Him, shouting loudly,
Have pity and mercy on us, Son of David!
When He reached the house and went in,
the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said
to them, Do you believe that I am able to
do this? They said to Him, Yes, Lord. Then
He touched their eyes, saying, According
to your faith and trust and reliance [on the
power invested in Me] be it done to you.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland