Why Are We Not Healed?

(Note: This article is based on a sermon Paul preached at Mountain View Community Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii on February 5, 2022.)

This morning I woke up and realized that I am feeling the branches. I started thinking about this and remembered that I have discerned branches many times over the years, not fully understanding what they are. If you know your Bible, someone is called the branch:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.[1]

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.[2]

This is Jesus, and I discern Him as The Branch.[3] I discerned branches for years without knowing what they are, but we started getting words about branches, and began exploring scriptures about them. Then we started putting this all together: a branch is connected to a tree, which grows from a root that is in the soil, and the branch produces leaves and fruit. Isn’t that profound? So far, it sounds like an elementary textbook on botany.

On our way to Cranbrook, Canada several years ago,  we’d stopped to spend the night at our daughter’s home in Nevada, and when I woke up in morning, my back was itching something terrible. I remembered another trip many years before:

My back had been itching for days! Was this a new kind of discernment or did I need to go to the doctor? I did not know. All I knew was that my back was itching

I was in Dallas, Texas, in January 2006, leading an Advanced Discernment Training and Exploration School when I had finally taken the itching for as long as I could. I told the school that my back had been itching. Others immediately reported that their backs had been itching too. So, what was this about? I asked the seers what they were observing and they saw what looked like a bramble bush on my back. We began a search through the Word of God, trying to understand what connection a bramble bush might have to issues in our lives and on our generational lines.[4]

Longer story short, we constructed the Prayer for Evangelistic Healing, not knowing anything of the journey still ahead.

This time was a bit different in that my back had itched all night, but I found out later that my son-in-law had taken a blanket from their ‘cat room’ and put it on my bed, forgetting that I’m allergic to cats. All night long, I was trying to rebuke and cast things off when all-the-while I was really having an allergic reaction. Except, when I got to Canada it happened again, and I realized the Lord was teaching me to discern cancer.

To review, this discernment journey, which began in Texas in 2006, continued to Nevada to Canada and now to Hawaii in 2022! Evangelistic healing was first dealt with due to both personal and group discernment of a bramble bush. In Canada, I realized I was discerning cancer; but later on while  praying for someone with a different disease, I realized that I was also was discerning other diseases.

Finally, sometime within the last year, we realized that the combination of root, tree, branch, leaf and fruit is tied to belief systems. The issue for healing is not to have only physical healing take place, but is to deal with what I believe, what I speak, what I think, how I respond, how I talk about myself and how I talk about others. This is all tied to the branches, and the healing is for belief systems; it’s not a matter of just physical healing;, but one of renouncing and changing and what I say, what I believe and how I think.

Many years ago, I had a dream in which my back was against the wall and someone was talking to me; I think it was the Lord. He said, “Your blood pressure is 197, to which I responded, “But I’m not under stress.” His response, “It is about your thinking.” I pondered that for the longest time, checking with several people about what it might mean but no one could help me. Then, I was in Australia when I had my ah-ha moment; suddenly I understood. Job 19:7:

Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.

This is about Job’s thinking, which was incorrect; because there is justice, for God is good and His lovingkindness endures forever.[5]

Then I looked at Psalm 19:7:

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple…

This is correct thinking; and it’s all about our thinking. Why are we not healed? The question is so complex that I will not even try to simplify the answer, but one of the key reasons is because of our unrighteous thoughts. It’s true! How often people come to healing meetings and claim to be healed, but are not; or, some are healed and it lasts for a week or so and then seems to be undone; but it’s not undone because true healing, is true healing. Let’s start being honest, when true healing occurs, it is a finished work, and one no longer must endure that suffering. We attend healing services and expect that someone is going to pray for them and they will be healed, expecting a magnificent encounter with the power of God. But what if we don’t do our part? What if we continue as we always have in our same thinking, “I’m no good, I’m always a failure,” repeating all the negative words parents or others have spoken about us? Such thoughts are like endless time loops, playing over and over in our head, “No one likes me, no one cares about me no one understands me.” Such thinking continues, and goes on and on forever; it never, never, never ends! We think we can be healed, but we cannot because we are actually undoing the laws that God has set forth in His universe. God’s word declares that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.[6] And, do you know what I found out? I was stunned! The heart has around 40,000 neurons, so the heart actually does feel, think and make decisions.

I have so many incredibly profound words from our dear friend, Jana Green, who went to be with the Lord in January 2022. I would sit and listen to her, thinking, “Jana, I don’t understand a thing you are saying.” But I would faithfully type it all out and, over time, much understanding would be revealed. She would talk about the judgments at the gates, but what is a gate?[7] It’s an entrance to something, and Isaiah 45 is all about dimensional gates and doors. What happens is that when we think the way we should not think, or speak the words we should not speak? I may not have understood when Jana spoke of judgments at the gates, but now I get it. When we are disappointed and curse God, others or ourselves, we set up judgments at the gates. Every one of us has declared such judgments; and they are held by spiritual beings called the Holy Ones, which belong to the judicial branch of God’s divine government. In November 2018, Jana said:

Disappointment created a judgment and the judgments repeated time that caused loss. The Holy One will remove the time loops so the recalibration of the spirit of unity was paid at His cost.

The judgements repeat, causing loss and creating a time loop, a repeating pattern. We may become angry at God for those who said we are healed but there was no physical evidence, but what is our responsibility? We understand that the ways of God are for health and prosperity, for He is Goodness; so what is the issue? The issue is another question, “What do I believe about the Lord that is true?” I am stunned, absolutely stunned, by what Christians today believe about God, about themselves, about others and about the Church, because they do not know the Word of God. Modern believers have become unhinged from the Word of God, and are drifting away from it into what we call ‘situational ethics’, making all these foolish statements that are not tied to truth.

I had the most astonishing thought this afternoon; in Proverbs 3:18, it says that wisdom is the tree of life. But go back to Genesis where we find the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. On the one hand the tree of life is right thinking, but on the other is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is wrong thinking. Such knowledge was and is thought to be good because many things sound so good that they must be true. We see this in our government today; many things may seem good, but in reality they are based on man’s wisdom and much of it is actually evil.

What is the tree? It is a belief system. Jesus is the Word; He is truth and life; the Bible is His Word and it too is truth and life.

Jana also said:

The time has come for you to release the responsibility and the guilt. You do not need to carry it any longer. This is the ungodly spiritual reality you have been carrying: you’re guilty, you are no good, you have not done enough, you are not enough. These echoes have become a self-definition, self-judgment and self-rejection, which the enemy has taken and reinforced against you as legal claims and legal reality.

Another relevant scripture:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.[8]

How is your mind renewed? It is not by hearing the opinions of others about who they think God is, what they think about Him, or what they think about this or that! It only matters what He thinks because He is The Branch and The Branch connects to us:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.[9]

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.[10]

Our belief system must be rooted and grounded in Christ. We can go to all the healing services and counseling we want, but if we don’t change our thinking and conform it to the word of God, it is hopeless because we cannot live counter to the laws of God; we just cannot do it! Consider again the admonition that as a man thinks in his heart. Do you know what the word ‘think’ is? It means ‘gatekeeper’, so our thinking establishes the gatekeeper. Do we want an ungodly gatekeeper guarding the dimensions, blocking the heavenly places where we’re supposed to go? Do we want continual judgments as we replay all those old time-looped tapes in our mind? Each of us is the gatekeeper of our own thinking; we have all been, or are, guilty of this; and unfortunately, our thoughts spew out of our mouths and compound the matter:

An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous escapes from trouble. From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.[11]

Jana, once again:

The thrones are circuit boards (these are spiritual beings). Power flows through the thrones; and with ungodly thrones, the power is disrupted. The thrones operate the mechanism from the judgment at the gate. Disappointment is a path created so there is no escape. The gatekeeper protects the decisions made, but a heart that is fixed will create a path for His namesake. Now, a broken and contrite heart I will not deny, even the spirit can be aligned; the belief of betrayal is from a heart that decides. As complex as it is, it is deeper still. Not in the matrix, but in the heart it’s revealed. Abundance to claim in true authority’s name, creation is subject to the creature, and the creature will claim. The paths are established from within, the depths of the heart where sickness begins.

As a train runs on two tracks so does Christianity operate on two tracks, the Power and the Word. I grew up Baptist, and it was all about the Word. I loved and still love the Word; I taught and preached the Word; but I did not understand power until these verses put it in perspective:

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.[12]

He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions.[13]

Now consider:

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.[14]

How is it possible for the tree of life to be in the middle as well as on either side? Because it is a dimensional tree, with twelve fruits produced every month, and the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations. But, let’s look closer at the meaning of Revelation 22:2 in The Pure Word:[15]

In the Middle of its Street, and on either Side of the River, from there on either Side a Tree of Life, yielding twelve Fruits according to each month, yeilding its Fruit one to every person, and the Leafs of the Tree for household Health of the Nations.

The leaves are for the healing of the households of the nations! The fruit is the product of a branch; branches are tied to the tree of life; the Holy Spirit as Wisdom is the Tree of Life. It’s all about our thinking, which needs to be conformed to the mind of Christ, so we must know the Word of God. We must change our thinking in order to receive healing and walk in His freedom.

[1] Isaiah 11:1

[2] Jeremiah 23:5

[3] Discerned in the same place as branches, but far more intense

[4] Paul L Cox, Come Up Higher (Libertyville, IL: This Joy! Books, 2010) 185

[5] Psalm 105, 136

[6] Proverbs 23:7

[7] See an extensive discussion of gates and doors in Exploring Heavenly Places, Volume 3: Gates, Doors and the Grid   http://aslansplace.3dcartstores.com/Exploring-Heavenly-Places-Volume-3–Gates-Doors-and-the-Grid–Paperback_p_568.html

[8] Romans 12:1-2

[9] Colossians 2:6-8

[10] Proverbs 4:23

[11] Proverbs 12:13-17

[12] 1 Thessalonians 1:5

[13] Psalm 107:20

[14] Revelation 22:1-3

[15] The Pure Word is a hermeneutics-based Greek-to-English translation of the New Testament, which is intended to reveal the original meaning of scripture without thought to the imprecise intricacies of the English language. Words that pertain to God’s works are capitalized to clarify the original Greek meaning to the reader.