Walking in Healing by Love, Part 2

Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Otz thanking you for tuning in today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Today's message is very important and pertinent to anyone who has struggled with the need of physical healing. Now abides faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love. Greatest Greek word, mega.

We know what mega means. It means superlative love. Because you see, without love, faith fails. And without love, hope dies. Amen. But when you know that God loves you, you will be saved. Amen. It allows you to hold on to your faith and your hope.

Amen. Now, just read the first verse of chapter 14 with me. Follow after love and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you prophesy. So what I want you to see here is he said follow after love. If you've got the right motivation and you're walking in love, then I want you to desire.

I want you to go after. I want you to ask God for spiritual gifts. I want you to ask God to use you.

I want you to ask God to give you faith to pray for the sick and give you faith to speak the Word of God and give you faith to step out in the anointing. And when you've got your love walked straight, you are ready to desire these gifts. Amen. We need that. In order for us to have the right motivation, we've got to be walking in love.

Why? Because what is the first fruit of the Spirit? He's got nine fruit. What's the first one? Love. Galatians 5 22. And now the gifts of the Spirit are love.

Because everything else flows out of love. Amen. And as we said, faith works by love.

So first we're going to look vertically. The love between God and us. Our love for him, his love for us. Amen. When we know how much God loves us, it's easy to believe that he wants to do good things for us. When we are struggling with believing that God wants to do something good for us, somehow or another we have allowed the devil, it might be subliminally, but we have allowed him to say in our hearts, God's not going to do that for you.

As though he doesn't love you like maybe he loves somebody else. Amen. Or that you're not deserving of it in some way because you messed up. Folks, none of us are deserving.

None of us are deserving of any of it. It's because he loves us. Amen.

I don't care. You may look at the strongest Christian. Reverend Wonderful doesn't deserve it any more than you do. It's because God loves us. Amen. So when we face our difficulties and our adversities and losses come into our lives, it's knowing that God loves us that undergirds our faith so we don't cast it away. Amen. And we get out our favorite scripture. What do we get out when something hits us and blindsides us and we do not know where it's coming from? We don't get it at all. Come on.

What's the old favorite? Romans 8 28. And we know all things work together for the good to them that love God and that are called according to his purpose. If you don't have any other scripture to stand on, you can get that one out. Amen. And know that God is working in all things, but we've got to be convinced that God loves us and wants to do good for us.

Let's look at 1 John 4 18. I know you will recognize this first, but I want you to read it with me. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment.

Now here's the part we really need to see. He that fears is not made perfect in love. When you were continually besieged by a spirit of fear, and I speak this by way of experience as well as what God's word says, often if you go to the root of it, you will find that you have allowed doubt to come into your mind and your heart that God truly loves you. Amen. I know those of you that are soldiers of the Lord and you've been saved for decades and you're strong. You would not admit to that, but I'm telling you that I know you can get in that dark hour of the night when you are surrounded by enemy warfare. And in that moment, that thought will come to you because that's the devil's lie.

That's what he'll come with. If God loved you, why? Why did this happen to you? Why are you in this moment? Why are you in this place? Amen.

He wants to turn your thoughts away that somehow God doesn't love you or he would not have allowed this to happen. Amen. But he said, when you've got perfect love, let me say a better way.

When you've got mature love, because Paul said when I was a child, I acted like a child, I fought like a child, but when I grew up, I began to think like a mature adult. And when you've got mature love, it casts out fear. You shut the devil down right away.

Amen. And let me tell you folks, faith can be greatly affected by fear. Fear, I could say it this way, is a faith killer. Not that you lose your faith. I'm not saying you lose your faith, but I'm saying that it weakens your faith and paralyzes your faith.

So that you don't use it. Amen. The thing that was most detrimental to me during the years that I went through the issue with my back, which started in 1992, and for many, many years, I was basically homebound and in bed like 18 hours a day. And many of you know that when I did come to church, I laid down on a bed in the back there.

Amen. And the thing that really was detrimental to my faith in the beginning was I struggled with so much fear. I was so afraid I'm going to get hurt again. I'm going to hurt my back worse. Oh, then I'm going to herniate another disc.

Oh, well, then this is going to happen to me. I had so much fear on me that even when I came to church, I really could hardly get anything out of the service because I was afraid I was going to fall down or something bad was going to happen. It was a constant battle. And the devil was continually feeding my fear with his doubt, his unbelief, and his lies. And his favorite thing was God must not love you. Then he started telling me, you've lost your faith. You've lost your faith. Well, when he did that, I was like, ah, that means I can never believe again. Well, if I can't believe again, oh, my God, I'm never going to get better because you've got to have faith. But I've lost mine. You talk about being so tormented, tormented.

It was a terrible place to be in. Amen. And you see those doubts and lies. That my fears and my fears canceled my faith.

So I was in a vicious cycle that went round and round. A breakthrough came when God gave me a tremendous dream. Now, I know I've been telling you dreams lately. I don't want to make you think that I get these dreams every night, every week, or even every month. The dreams I reserve to tell you in the pulpit is because they are so extraordinary. And generally, it's like one a year.

And maybe not even that often. This is one of the most dramatic dreams with the most dramatic results I ever had. 1997. I was already five years into this daily struggle of living with this horrible pain and this mental spiritual warfare. And it was camp meeting. And I was not here in the services.

I was home in my bed. And do you know how the devil would beat me up and say, yeah, remember when you used to be the manager of the campgrounds? And remember when you used to preach in the services?

And, oh, he would tell me, and look at you now. You can't even go to camp meeting. And what do you think they're doing at church? Oh, they're singing and shouting.

They're having a good time. And look at you. Home in this bed. So the oppression I was going through was terrible. On top of that, I got a phone call from a sister from out of town. She called me real late at night, and it was very late.

It was like midnight. And she wanted me to get somebody to come pick her up at the bus station. And I didn't have anybody that I could call at midnight to go get her. And I told her, I said, well, you're going to have to get a cab because I don't have anybody. Well, after I got off the phone with her, I thought, what an awful person I am.

I'm a terrible person. Here I let this lady from out of town, and she's at the bus station. Oh my God. What if she gets mugged?

What if this happens to her? And it'll be all your fault. And what kind of Christian are you? You're a terrible Christian.

I can't even tell you the stuff he told me. And I took it in my spirit, and I thought, I am such a failure. I have so many faults.

I will never measure up to God's standard. I'm just a loser. That's what I am.

I'm a loser. Now, that's the mind frame I had. I walked in the car. I walked around with that all day long. And then that night, I couldn't go to church. And Benny and Sarah went to church, and I was home alone. And the depression that came on me was so strong that I felt like a weight was on my chest. So I was walking around going, trying to get to breathe because I felt like I couldn't breathe. And there was nothing wrong with my lungs. It was just oppression that was on me so strongly.

Amen? And I was trying to get my mind off of it. And I was sitting in the bathroom, and I heard a voice. I'm not sure if it was audible or not, but it was loud, and it was mocking.

And this is what it said. All day long, the devil had been telling me, God does not love you. God does not love you. If he did, you wouldn't be in this place.

But boy, he knew he had me down, and now he was ready for the last sucker punch. He said, I'm going to go to church. And this voice, loud and mocking, didn't say, God does not love you. It said, God hates you. See, it escalated. It was bad enough God doesn't love you. But when he said it, and he said it in such a mocking way, and he knew the state of mind that I was in, he said, God hates you. It was so evil and so powerful, I almost fell off my seat. And I realized, my God, in heaven, I've got to do something.

I cannot just stay here in this mind frame. So I got up, and I put on some Christian music, and I laid down. I tried to read my Bible and pray and just get through the hours until Benny came home.

And when he came home, of course, he told me all about the service, and we talked about the service, and we talked about stuff. I think I even laughed a little bit. I got a couple little laughs in. So it left me.

It went off of me. And I never told Benny what happened to me. And I felt a little better, so we went to bed, and I fell asleep. But about three or four in the morning, I woke up with the worst pain I've ever had in my life, and it wasn't just in my back. It was all here, and it was like daggers, daggers in my lower body. It was so horrific that I went from a lying down position straight to standing up. Now, you may not think much about that, but I'm telling you, my back condition did not allow me to do that. I would have to struggle to get up.

I would have to get up to my side and get up on a sit and then push myself up. I went straight up because the pain was so great. I felt like my insides were going to just gush out of my body, and I made it into the bathroom. And when I got in there, I sat down, and I immediately jumped back up again because I felt like there were knives in me. I felt a wind of pain start at my feet. I felt it go all the way up. I felt it come in my body. I felt it come in my chest, and it came into my throat. And I knew I was going to die.

I not only felt this, but I saw a black tornado funnel cloud like this over me. And I was thinking, it's going to suck me into it, and I'm going to die. I'm going to sit on this floor right here, and he'll find me in the morning, and I'll be dead.

So somehow I struggled in there to him, and I fell on his chest. I was saying, Benny, Benny, I'm dying. I'm dying. And he woke up. I guess maybe he thought I was an intruder, so he was grabbing me real hard. And I was saying, I'm dying. I'm dying. So he realized it was me, and he started smacking my face and smacking my face.

Who needs the devil, right? And I was getting weaker and weaker, and I felt my voice was getting less. And his voice, he started calling my name, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. And he was getting further and further away, and I slipped out of my body. Now, I fell down on the bed like that.

Meanwhile, inside the bed, I was going to lie to me in the spirit that came from God, the spirit of Sharon that is connected to God Almighty. I was angry. I was angry.

I thought, you know what? This is not the way Christians are supposed to die. If I'm going to die, okay.

I'm not afraid to die, but I'm not dying like this. This is not right. I was so angry in my spirit. I was angry. I don't know if I was angry at the devil, if I was angry at God.

I was just angry. I was saying, this is no way for a child of God to die. And so while this is going on in my spirit, all this anger, finally Benny says, Jesus, Jesus. And when he said that, I heard it. I was saying, yes, yes. Say it again. Say it again.

Say it again. And he kept saying, Jesus. And I was thinking, call on Jesus.

Call on Jesus. And just like that, I was surrounded by these brightly colored laser lights all around me. I saw that black tornado.

That thing was gone. I saw pink and blue, and they were flashing all around me, these powerful laser lights, and I came back into my body. Now, I was like a dishrag lying on that bed like that, but I was back in my body. He got to the phone. He called my folks.

He took like five times before they finally answered the phone because it was about five in the morning by that time. And I just laid there because I couldn't hardly move. They prayed, and as they prayed for me, the pain lifted. And I'm telling you, that in itself was miraculous because if normally, if I would have reached that level of pain, it would take days.

For it to resolve. Whenever I would get in that level of pain, and it was gone just like that. I went back to sleep, and I woke up the next day.

I had no pain. And I was just like floating on cloud nine. And you know why? Because that told me something. It told me God loved me.

That's all I could think of is, you really do love me. And the devil can't destroy me. The Lord used that to show me I love you. The devil is a liar. He loves me. Amen. He loves me.

Sharon Ann Hardy, not. He loves me. You say your name. He loves me.

Say your name. And the next day, all I could do was think about how much he loves me. Amen. And so I'm saying to you that in order for your faith to work, you've got to get your love walk right between you and the Lord and be convinced of it. Because condemnation is a great faith killer. Very quickly, 1 John 3, while we're there, let's look at verse 20. When our heart condemns us not, then we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment that we should believe. Believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment.

Wow. Look how he put faith and love together there. Believe the word of God. Believe the word of God. Believe on Jesus. Believe the authority of his name. Believe the power of his word. And while you're doing it, love one another. Amen. So we can see that in order for our faith to work, we've got to walk in love. Amen. Now why is it that some people don't seem to get their healing?

There is no one size fits all answer. Period. Every case is different. And I'm sure that in this seminar that we're going to be having next month, she will bring out many things. Amen. But there's just no one answer for everybody. However, I am telling you that walking in love is important. You see, it's like a coin. On one side is faith and on the other side is love. Because without a true New Testament love walk, amen, it doesn't matter how strong you are.

If you don't know how strong our faith is, we are not going to have the results. Now what I'm about to say is not for everyone. But for those who it is for, I must say it.

So if it doesn't fit you, then just lay it aside and don't worry about it. But I have to be faithful. Amen.

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Suppose that you've been dealing with a physical illness or condition for quite a while. And even though you have been diligent and minister to your faith in every way that you know, through prayer, meditating on the word, reading the word, and like I've taught in my series, the spoken word, speaking God's word out loud, listening to anointed teaching. Amen. Other people's testimonies that God has healed. And you actually do feel that your faith is getting stronger. You can feel when your faith is getting stronger.

You can. Amen. And you're no longer plagued by that. Oh, spirit of fear all the time. You feel that you've gotten a deliverance from that.

And in spite of all of this, you still have not seen the manifestation of healing in your body. And then the spirit of God says to you, remember, when such and such happened to you, and so and so did something to you, it may even go all the way back to your childhood. Or something happened to you or a bad marriage or somebody in the church. Did you wrong?

Did you wrong? And when you think of that person, you still get that in your spirit. You still feel that uncomfortable feeling in your spirit. And God says to you, if you will totally and absolutely forgive them and cast the rejection and the pain and the resentment on me, you will get well. Would you be willing to do it?

Would you be willing to do it? Amen. Let's suppose that, of course, no one here, but just in case someone else might hear this, you have a tendency to have a critical spirit. And you're very quick to point out other people's faults. Maybe you even point out and discuss the faults of ministers and preachers.

I'm not talking about people that preach false doctrine now. That's another story. Amen.

And you tend to be critical and fault-fine with people. Amen. And if the spirit of God let you know that that could be a stumbling block on your pathway to healing, and if you will repent of that and put a watchman at the door of your mouth and ask the Holy Spirit to keep your lips from speaking malice in your tongue that it speaks no guile, and you will get a breakthrough in your healing, would you be willing to do it? Amen. How many would say I would be willing if that was me?

I would be willing if that were me. Amen. Like I said, it may not fit anybody here, but it happens. It does happen. Because you can walk in faith unless you walk in love. And if you want to walk in healing, you got to walk in faith. And if you want to walk in faith, you got to walk in love. That's how it works.

That's the equation. Love plus faith equals healing. Faith plus love equals healing. How many see it?

Some people say I don't see what that's got to do with anything. Can I just give you one quick Bible illustration? In the book of Numbers, in the 12th chapter, it's a very interesting chapter. Moses' older sister and brother, she was 10 years older than him, and the brother was quite a few years older also. So now they've been out in the wilderness, and God's been using Moses.

He's God's prophet. They got offended. They all of a sudden decided to talk about Moses and speak against him.

That was very strong. They murmured against him because he had married an Ethiopian woman. Now, first of all, he married her when he was 40 years in the wilderness. And now they get this thing going where they murmured against Moses, speaking against him because of his wife. And you know what's so interesting? If you read it in the King James, it says, and God heard it. It's exactly what it says, and God heard it. We forget that God hears it.

Amen? And so when God heard it, God said to Moses, I want you to get Miriam and Aaron, and I want the three of you to meet me at the door of the tabernacle. They didn't know what was coming, so they all met there, and God said, I heard you speak against my servant Moses, and I want you to know that Moses is my servant. And he says, you know, if I have a prophet, I'll give him a dream, I'll give him a vision, but not my servant Moses.

I'm going to speak to him directly. This is my servant. He says, and weren't you afraid to speak against my servant? And then a cloud came down and covered him. And when the cloud lifted, Miriam was standing there covered with leprosy. Now some people say, well, why didn't he put leprosy on Aaron? He did murmur too. I don't know.

Can I speculate? He was the high priest. He was the high priest, and he would have worn the priestly garments, and he would have been anointed as the high priest, and perhaps that gave him some sort of protection. But when she was covered with leprosy, Aaron, he was like, oh my God, his words, alas, alas, Moses, we're sorry. Please ask God. Please ask God to heal her.

We're so sorry. And did Moses say she got what she deserved? No, he said, oh God, please heal my sister.

Please heal her, Lord, please heal her. What an humble man. And that's where you will see in this story, you will hear God say that Moses was the meekest man on earth.

It's in this story that that's said about him. And so Moses begged God to heal her. And God said, you know, if her father had spit in her face, she would have to stay in her room for seven days. He says, put her outside of the camp for seven days. And that meant that the whole nation had to stop and nobody could move and nobody could do anything because they had to wait for her.

And on the seventh day, God healed her. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying God's going to strike you with leprosy or cancer or any other disease.

I'm not saying that. But what I want you to see is that when we use our tongue to speak against God's servants, we are not opening up the windows of heaven for blessings and healing to come down. I'm not talking about you getting judgment for doing something. I'm talking about not getting your healing.

And I can back it up with Isaiah, the 58th chapter, where God said, if you will stop putting your finger out, stop pointing your finger at people and stop speaking vanity. Stop doing that and guess what will happen? Your health will break forth speedily.

That means boom, here it comes, speedily. Your health will break forth speedily and your righteousness as the new day. So all I'm saying is if you're on your way to healing and you're on your way to a miracle, don't leave anything unturned.

Examine everything in your life. I mean, Lord, I don't care if you tell me to stand on my head, I will manage to stand on my head. See, the point is, is don't let anything go.

Anything that might be a hindrance, we want to get rid of it. And you've got to walk in love. Amen? And so how many have learned something here today?

You have learned something. Folks, you know I preach faith all the time because I realize that you can't get anything without faith. But God showed me this years ago. He showed me, Sharon, if you want your faith to work at optimal level, you've got to walk in love. And I used to be quick to judge other ministries and other things.

And boy, I had to learn, uh-uh, you need to leave that alone. Touch not my anointing and do my prophets no harm. Now if someone is preaching false doctrine, I am going to sound the alarm. I have to.

He said, look out for wolves that come dressed in sheep's clothing. Then I will sound the alarm. But just because I don't like their style or the way they do it or how they're doing it, amen, no, no, no, I'm not going to touch God's anointing.

I want to make sure I'm walking in love. Amen. God knows how to discipline his kids.

He knows how to discipline his children. He didn't make me the spiritual MPs in the body of Christ. Amen. I'm going to walk in love. Now, next week, I'm going to preach the second part of this message and it's going to be the desert. So if I stepped on your toes today, get healed all over the week.

Come back next week and get dessert. Amen. Because we're walking in healing. Walking in healing by love. Do you know that in the Book of Acts, the chronicle of the early church, the term love is not used once?

However, the terms in one accord and in one mind are found 13 times in the first few chapters. You see, it was not necessary to have to keep talking about love when they were all walking in love. In his great teaching on the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, Paul stopped midstream to write chapter 13 on the role of love in the operation of the gifts.

He made it clear that unless love is the motivator for the gifts, I am nothing, I convey nothing, and I gain nothing. Not even mountain moving faith can operate fully without love because, and this is the key to getting healed and staying healed, faith works by love. Paul concluded that there now abides faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love because love never fails. But without love, faith fails and hope dies. This is why it is impossible to walk in faith and not walk in love. And it is why some Christians do not receive their healing and or keep it.

Walking in love is both vertical and horizontal. When we know how much God loves us, we believe His word to heal us. And we don't allow fear to paralyze our faith because perfect love casts out fear. We must also walk in love towards others in the body of Christ. So if you have done all you can do to purify and strengthen your faith, and you feel your faith is rising, and yet still you have not received your healing, it's time to check your love walk. Where there is bitterness, criticism, judgmentalism, jealousy, a lack of faith is not the problem, but a lack of love.

I learned all these things on my journey to healing that I still must apply every day. And this groundbreaking teaching is a two-CD set and can be ordered for a love gift of $15 or more for the Radio Ministry. To order Walking in Healing by Love, mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or shop online at soundoffaith.org, where it's also available on MP3s. Until next time, this is Sharon Notzegin, Maranatha.