God's Healing Power

Never Give Up
by Pastor Kimberly Lemler

If you have listened to my radio broadcasts, you may have heard me talk about the long battle I had with several terrible illnesses. I want to share my story with you in the hope it will give someone reading this the courage to keep going. So many have lost their hope and their will to live. I hear from people on a daily basis, asking me to pray for them. My heart goes out to all those suffering with an illness and to their caregivers.

For many years I battled Grave’s Disease, Epstein Barr Virus, Fibromyalgia, Cytomegalovirus, CFS, MCS, IBS, MVP, multiple food allergies, a diseased gall bladder, fungal infections, and mini seizures. I remember looking in the mirror one day and seeing a shadow of my former self. I was ashen gray and I realized that I was dying, but in my heart I refused to give up the fight. I knew the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I wasn’t afraid to die, but I had to make the decision for the sake of my young family to fight the fight of faith with everything that was within me. I could have chosen to give up the battle, which was unbelievably tough, but instead I chose to keep hope alive and to believe God that His promises were true. And so I stood on the Word of God for the manifestation of my healing.

Each day of my life was a struggle. I felt as if I had a horrible case of the flu every day for over ten years. Every joint in my body hurt. I couldn’t eat normal meals. I was bedridden most of the time. I had to retire from my teaching career because I wasn’t well enough to get out bed, let alone go to work. The doctors gave me no answers and no hope. People who I thought were my friends abandoned me. My church abandoned me. Some of my family didn’t understand what I was going through. Everybody was afraid of what I had because they didn’t understand it. I felt like I was all alone in the wilderness, except for my immediate family and my prayer warrior best friends, who hung in there with me. Satan had just about closed the lid on my coffin and nailed it shut…

BUT….there was God… who helped to teach me who I was in Christ and what He provided for me at Calvary. Oh, I knew what the battle was all about. Contrary to what well-meaning Christians were telling me, I knew that God wasn’t inflicting any of this on me and that this was a battle not against the flesh, but “against principalities, against powers, against rulers, and against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6). It was almost harder on me to engage in the battle than it was to give up! It took strong will, motivation, inspiration, and whole lot of fearless moxie to face the enemy, but I knew that I knew that God was with me in the battle and would see me through to the other side of sickness, to complete wholeness. I made the decision to NEVER GIVE UP!

Recently I was watching a television program and there were some people talking about the fact that they were dying. The doctors had told them of the dreaded illnesses they faced and that there was no hope for survival. So these people took those words to heart and decided to make it known to the world that they were going to accept what they were told, and try to live the rest of the time they had teaching other people how to die with grace.

There are ministries out there that revolve around teaching people how to live with their bondages and their terminal diagnoses and because they been praying and praying for years with no results, the ministries give them permission to “rest” and accept their “fate”. They teach that although God sometimes heals, most times we must take sickness as a thorn in our flesh and that it’s God’s will to be sick. There was not a thing in their list of help materials on spiritual warfare and how to break free of the bondages. There was nothing offered to teach the truths of the Bible on healing …that Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of satan, who is the true author of sickness and lies and death. They weren’t giving people hope to get out of their present condition. They were giving them the hope to be FREE of hope and that right there was almost enough to admonish those Christians leaders who were clearly not ministering as Jesus did on this earth. Jesus gave people HOPE! He healed! He is our example and there is not one instance where He turned anyone away who came to Him, in faith, for help. He never told anyone to “stay in your present condition” because it was His will. Never, never, never!

I’m here to tell you to never give up hope! I don’t care if you are in a wheelchair, have terminal cancer, are going blind, or have a raging blood disease. It doesn’t matter. It’s all misery and “the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, quickening your mortal body.” (Romans 8:11) Believe it! Receive it! Stand on it! God says, “I know the plans I have for you…plans to give you a HOPE and a future.” He didn’t come to take away your hope…He came to give it to you…

When I was so sick it was tempting to go on all the support websites on the internet and commiserate with others. You want people to understand. You want people to agree with you on how much it hurts, and with the pain and agony you are going through. It’s human nature. But when I was tempted to do this, I remembered that I didn’t need people to agree with all my pain and heartache…I needed someone to pull me out of it. I would call my prayer warrior friends and say, “Speak life to me! Speak the Word of God to me!” I would put on all of my healing scripture tapes and listen over and over again for hours to help build my faith and help me get the truth rooted deeply inside of my spirit and soul.

It’s never too late! You are never too far gone to receive a touch from Jesus. The daughter of Jairus was dead and yet it still wasn’t too late for her. It wasn’t too late for a very dead and stinking Lazarus! It wasn’t too late for the boy lying dead in a funeral procession when he was raised to life. It wasn’t too late for the woman with the issue of blood who suffered for twelve years and doctors said they could do no more for her. It wasn’t too late for the woman in the temple with the spirit of infirmity. It wasn’t too late for all of those people who came to Jesus in faith, trusting in Him to do exactly what He said He would do…

It’s not too late for you! Put the word of God in front of your eyes and in your mouth and fight! God says, “I set before you life or death…choose life!” You have a choice to use the tools that He gave us in order to see your victory. It is not God’s will, no matter what anyone tells you, for you to be sick and die early. That is not His plan for any of His children. Don’t believe the lies out there that if you haven’t been healed by now, it will never happen.

It CAN happen…believe God’s Word, speak it, put action to it, and stand in faith…

“My son, pay attention to my words; Incline your eyes to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.” – Proverbs 4: 20-22

Note: A free audio teaching of this topic is available as a podcast. Visit our website for this and other resources, including “Seven Things You Should Know About Healing”, which includes a special teaching on healing, healing scriptures and specific prayers to pray for many different illnesses.

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