Tom loud2

Chapter 4

The Key of Authority

A demonic spirit manifested from one woman I was ministering to in Seattle. When I told the evil spirit to come out of the woman, it responded, “I don’t have to. I have a right to be in her.” Normally when people encounter such a response, they will start having a conversation with the demon. It usually goes something like this. “What right do you have to be in this woman?” The demon will often say something like, “She used tarot cards when she was younger.” Or maybe, “She did a lot of sexual sins as a teenager.” Whatever the answer, it’s usually based on something the person participated in or maybe somewhere they had been. This kind of conversation can go back and forth for quite a while if you allow it. But there’s another option. When this evil spirit told me that it wasn’t going to leave because it had a right to be in this lady, I let the spirit know who I was and the authority I had. I responded, “You are a liar and you have no rights. You will come out right now without further discussion.” Immediately, the “battle” was over. The spirit left because I understood that Jesus had given me authority over all the power of the devil. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ​— ​Luke 10:19 NIV The demon had to do what I told it to do. No excuses and no bargaining. If you know the Word of God, then you know the truth. The Word of God gives us an indisputable foundation to stand on. We operate with the same authority Christ did when He walked the earth doing ministry. Believe the Word The Word of God tells us what is possible for us, not our past experiences. The Word of God tells us who we are in God’s eyes and explains clearly the authority we are given. Jesus Christ has given us authority over all the power of the enemy. The enemy has something that can be correctly called “power” but Jesus has given us authority over that power. He says that the enemy cannot harm us, and that we will “trample” the enemy. Who does it sound like has the upper hand here? Do you believe the words of Jesus? We don’t have to earn anything. This authority is conferred upon us as sons and daughters of the King. When you are born again, you receive this authority as your birthright. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” ​— ​Matthew 28:18 NIV The Father gave Jesus “all authority” and then Jesus delegated His authority to us. But remember, a prince who doesn’t understand his role in the kingdom—and the authority he has—can easily be taken advantage of by a deceiver. But because I know my authority, I expect things to obey when I speak. When I tell pain to go, I expect it to go. Why? Because my Father has given me authority over pain, sickness, and disease. When I cast out a demon, I expect it to go. Why? Because my Father has given me authority over demons. This is not arrogance. This is simply faith in God. I believe what He says about me and my status as His son. One time when I was about to pray for a man’s injured leg, he told me, “It won’t work.” I asked, “Why do you say that?” “I know it won’t work because I have had a hundred people pray for me before you, and I still haven’t been healed!” In the natural, maybe I could have accepted this as a valid objection. After all, the natural mind says that if something has been tried a hundred times and it “didn’t work” then there’s probably no use in trying again. However, in that moment, I just recalled the authority I have been given. This enabled me to respond in faith. “Well, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been prayed for. I will command it and this time it’s going to happen!” He still wasn’t buying it. He just shook his head, but I took up my authority and commanded his leg to be healed. To his surprise, the leg was instantly made whole! If you don’t know your authority, challenges can arise that can cause you to question your own rights to use that authority. If you question your own authority, your faith will not be very strong and the results you get might not be great. It’s important to get settled on the issue of authority. You have it. The only thing that can keep you from walking in it is you! You Are God’s Plan A and He Has No Plan B God created us knowing the whole time that man would fall. He also knew that He would have to pay the ultimate price to redeem man—His Son’s life. But amazingly enough, He decided we were worth it! In my mind’s eye, I can almost see the Father saying to Himself, “I know it’s going to happen. Man will fall and I will have to come down and save him, but it’s worth it. It’s worth any price because in the end, when My plan is finished, My house will be filled with sons and daughters and they will live with Me forever. I will pour My love out upon them and they will share their love with Me.” That is God’s design—not man’s. That is God’s plan—not man’s. He saved you and me when we were hopelessly lost in our sins, and He gave us His righteousness. He also adopted us as His children. He then gave us eternal life and prepared a place for us to live with Him forever, because that’s what He wants. He wants to spend eternity with you and me. Don’t ask me to explain that kind of love, because the natural (carnal) mind cannot comprehend it. Instead, you will have to believe it in your spirit and accept it as fact because it is written in God’s Word. If you think your sins are too great for the Lord to forgive, then you are giving very little credit to the greatness of God’s love. If your sins are greater than God’s love, then obviously, you can’t be forgiven. But if God’s love is greater than your sins, then your forgiveness is assured. His love for us is one way to prove our authority in Him. He gave no other creature or being the same affection He bestowed upon us humans—His children. His plan A. The Throne of God Did you know that a throne is not just a chair? No, it’s much more than just a chair. A throne is a symbol of power and authority. There is a throne in Heaven and everything must bow its knee before that throne. Here is the most interesting part about that throne as it relates to us: The Bible tells us that we are seated with Christ on His throne in heavenly places, and that we’re seated there with Jesus at this very moment! In Ephesians 2:6 (NIV) the Bible says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Where is Jesus seated? He’s seated on His throne. So if you are seated with Him, where are you seated? You are seated on His throne! This truth was never more evident to me than it was when I met Cam Ward. See, Cam was a two-time world champion in mixed martial arts fighting in his early thirties. Can you imagine the injuries Cam’s body must have endured as a professional punching bag? I can’t. And I don’t want to! At the time, Cam had recently undergone surgery to relieve debilitating pain from his injured L5 disc, S1 nerve root, and back injuries. Damage to the L5 disc is particularly painful—not to mention dangerous—as it represents a transitional region from your lumbar spine to your lower back, and is responsible for helping to transfer the load from the spine to the pelvis. In other words, if your L5 is shot, your entire body is too. And Cam’s was shot. In fact, Cam described his pain as an 8.5—and this coming from someone who endured pain for a living! He couldn’t even bend over and touch his toes. I didn’t know the whole story at the time I prayed for him, but I learned later that his mother had followed me on YouTube and had flown her son in from out of state just to receive prayer that evening. Cam had seen surgeons, physical therapists, and chiropractors, but none could provide the relief he needed to complete daily tasks without extreme discomfort. When I prayed for Cam, I commanded the disc to be made new, and for all of the pain and restriction to go. Then I asked Cam to test things out. All of the pain was gone! Do you know why? Because my commandment came from the same position in Heaven as God the Father and Jesus. Because my commandment came from the highest throne that has been and will ever be. Afterward, Cam tried to do what he had previously been unable to do. He twisted, he bent over, he touched his toes, and all movement and motion had been completely restored. This kind of thing is a common occurrence for us, but Cam came to me at the end of the service to report that he hadn’t been too sure about all the “healing stuff” his mother had been into. But now, he had no doubts whatsoever. That’s the power of our positioning with Christ. If you would like to see some of Cam’s testimony, it can be found on my YouTube channel under the title: World Champion MMA Fighter Cam Ward Healed by Jesus! –Tom Loud The throne in Heaven is a place of power. Since He is in us, and us in Him, we join Him on the throne beside God the Father, sharing in that power. Every principality is under His feet and we are in His body. Every spiritual being that is not on the throne must bow to Him and to you (by extension of His authority in you). That includes angels, demons, principalities, and powers. Things in the physical realm and the spiritual realm must bow to you because you are seated with Christ in the position of ultimate authority. Understanding your positioning with Jesus in the “heavenly realms” is critical to taking hold of the power offered to you through His Holy Spirit. I Have, I Give Let’s take a look at what a healing prayer looks like when prayed from an understanding of our authority in Christ. In Acts 3:1-8 (NIV) the Bible says, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, ‘Look at us!’ So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, ‘Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.” Peter knew his authority as a son of God. Peter did not ask the Father to heal the man. Peter took ownership of his responsibility to utilize the authority that God had given him. Peter said, “What I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” He was saying, “I have, I give.” Then the man who was lame from birth was instantly healed and began to walk and leap for the first time in his life. Peter understood how to function in the authority that he had been given. This ability is not specific to Peter only. Every other healing that was found in the book of Acts that occurred as a result of a disciple’s prayers followed the same pattern. It’s a pattern we can follow too. One day when I was training a brother from our church, I took him to our local bus depot to look for people to minister to. We watched as a bus pulled up and dropped off a woman who was in a wheelchair. We approached the woman to find out whether or not we could pray for her. After introducing ourselves, she said that her name was Maya. I asked Maya what was physically wrong with her. She recounted a severe accident she had been involved in where her car was broadsided by another vehicle, crushing her entire left side from neck to feet. Maya was unable to walk and had pain from top to bottom. I told her that Jesus could heal her if she would let us pray. She said, “Yes, please do.” I laid my hand on Maya’s upper extremities and prayed, commanding every part of her body to be restored to the way it had been before the accident, and for all of the pain to leave immediately. One by one, every part of Maya’s body was healed and all of the pain left. Then, feeling rather bold, I said, “Would you like to try to walk?” Maya said she was willing to give it a try. Moving aside the foot pads on her wheelchair, she braced herself and stood. And she walked! Maya was completely healed and walked away pushing her wheelchair home. If you would like to see some of Maya’s testimony, it can be found on my YouTube channel under the title: “Get out of that wheelchair and walk!” Jesus heals years of pain. I have, I gave. You have, you can give too. When some people hear me pray, they get offended and say things like, “Who do you think you are, commanding God what to do?” They really don’t understand what’s going on. I’m not commanding God. I am commanding everything that has been put under our authority, which includes sickness, demons, and even nature itself. Jesus did these same things and then told us that we would do them. The problem is our unbelief in what the Word of God clearly says. If we aren’t careful, we can have a greater trust and belief in our experiences, the experiences of others, and the traditions that have been taught by others than we do in the Word of God. Ask yourself if any of those things should be put above His authority. No! Read Psalm 138:2 (ESV): I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. Peter said that he had something. He said that what he had he was giving to the lame man, and that lame man received his healing. I have what Peter had and so do you. I received the Holy Spirit who possesses all the power of the kingdom and He desires to demonstrate that kingdom through me just like He did with Peter. And not just me, but every child of God. If the kingdom of God lives in you, then everything in the kingdom can come through you—if you allow it. This is what Jesus told us to do with what He has given us. Freely you have received; freely give. ​— ​Matthew 28:18 NIV You can argue with the Word, but it’s far better to simply believe it. Do I Have the Gift of Healing? There are a few common questions that come up when we are speaking of walking in the gifts of the Spirit as opposed to walking in the authority of the believer. That might sound like an odd distinction, but we must understand that every person in the body of Christ is given certain gifts that they can operate in without much knowledge. However, the power of the Holy Spirit to perform the miraculous can be accessed by any believer as the occasion necessitates—as long as they understand their authority. For example, the gift of healing. Some people say, “I don’t know if I can heal because I don’t have the gift of healing.” I want you to know that if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, whether you have the gift of healing or not, you can heal because you have been given God’s authority. That authority can be used against every work of the adversary, including sickness and infirmity. We are seated with Christ in a much greater position of authority than His disciples had prior to the cross. Jesus was speaking to those pre-cross disciples in Luke 10:19. He said, “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy. You can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you” (My paraphrase). Even before the Holy Spirit was sent to fill men’s hearts, Jesus gave the disciples authority over the power of the enemy! “All” means anything that the enemy can do. Seventy-two of these men were sent out by Jesus. They were amazed that nothing could withstand the commands spoken by them, which included healing and casting out evil spirits (Luke 10:17). So, if a person doesn’t need the gift of healing to be able to heal, then what is the point of having that gift? Think about that. It’s a very valid question that deserves an answer. I have a theory on that. Imagine that you see a person playing a complex Chopin composition on the piano. The person at the piano is 35 years old, and they’ve been practicing for 20 years. You could easily understand that because of the long and diligent practice they’ve put in, they’ve become very accomplished. Their accomplishment can be attributed to a lot of hard work. Now, suppose you see a person playing the same Chopin composition that is only four years old and they’re playing it flawlessly—perhaps even better than the person who has practiced for 20 years. The most experience that a four-year-old could boast would be one or two years. That would mean that they had accomplished that level of competency in an amazingly short period of time. What would you say about a prodigy like that? Most would say, “They have a gift.” Such a gift goes far beyond any natural level of learning. In fact, it could be called some kind of innate, almost superhuman ability that many would say was from God. I have found that occasionally I discover some individuals who indeed have the gift of healing. Without any training and knowledge at all, they step right into it. They are praying for people and seeing miraculous healings that they simply can’t explain. If you have been given the gift of healing, it will probably be something that you will discover by accident. One day you will pray for someone, they will be healed, and you will be as surprised as they are! In these cases, God has given an individual a supernatural gifting that works as if it were a natural reflex that required no conscious effort or thought. It seems to come naturally to them. If, however, you don’t have the gift of healing, you could pray the same way that the person with the gift prays, and yet you might get no results at all. That’s where knowledge comes in. With the proper knowledge, you can skillfully utilize the authority that God has given to His children and the same results can be accomplished. I used to read books on how to heal the sick by some of the most famous healing ministers, and yet their methods didn’t work for me. I believe that when certain people have success in healing miracles, they write books about how to perform them, but they do not understand that what comes naturally to them doesn’t come naturally to the rest of us. Because they are unaware of this fact, they say things like, “All you do is pray and have faith!” The problem is that they do not realize that those of us without the gift need to understand how to apply the correct principles—principles that these gifted people have never had to employ because they possess the gift. For the rest of us, we will need to get the method straight before we can see the miraculous occur. We need to get a clear understanding of our authority and how to properly apply it to get the results we desire. We need to be trained before we can effectively use the powerful tools God has given to each of us. Know that regardless of whether or not you have the gift, you can reach out to people and heal, deliver, and demonstrate the kingdom of God whenever you choose to. Your Authority Is Enough Another common question regarding our gifting is: Does anyone have all the gifts of the Holy Spirit besides Jesus? Well, I’ll tell you that none of us has all of the gifts in their full proportion, but everyone has access to all of the gifts at any time they are required. This is possible because the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. The Holy Spirit, who lives within every born-again person, has all of the gifts of the Spirit with Him at all times. There are times that I’ve been used in things that aren’t my primary gifting. Healing is one example. Healing is not my primary gifting, but I can operate in healing through my authority as a son of God when it’s necessary. I’ve been used in prophecy, words of knowledge, and working of miracles at various times. However, none of those are my primary area of gifting. If someone needs healing, Jesus can be the healer. He can do that through you. You don’t have to wait for someone to come along that has the gift because they are not always present where the need is. When the need is there, God through His Holy Spirit meets the need through anyone who is submitted to Him. People will also ask me, “What about fasting?” Some people think, “I’m going to need to get myself really holy and really sanctified and in this very special place before I can walk in authority on these things, so I better start fasting.” There is, of course, nothing wrong with fasting, praying, or sanctifying your life to the Lord. But that doesn’t buy you any more power than you were given at the new birth. Some like to point at things like that time Jesus’ disciples tried to cast an unclean spirit out of a young boy and they couldn’t do it. Then the father of the young boy brought his child to Jesus and said, “I took him to your disciples, but they couldn’t cast the spirit out.” And Jesus said, “Well, it’s because of their (your) little faith. But this kind comes not out, but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:19-21, my paraphrase). Now, you might think that this demon is of a particular type that you’ve got to really fast, pray, and get yourself all straightened out before you will be powerful enough to cast out. More fasting would not have gotten them more authority, but it was prescribed to these disciples to address the root problem—their flesh. Jesus was saying that the apostles’ flesh was getting in the way. They were not being spiritually minded, but they were operating from the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh. Fasting is not for the purpose of weakening an evil spirit, because it doesn’t do that. Rather, fasting is a way to get our flesh under subjection to the Holy Spirit. Once you get your flesh out of the way by weakening it a bit, your spirit moves without further hindrance. That’s all it does. It doesn’t make you a more powerful person. It just makes the flesh a less powerful influence. The Source of All Authority Jesus demonstrates to us how the Son of God applies His authority when it is required to accomplish God’s will. In Mark 11:27-28, the scribes and the Pharisees approached Jesus as He was going through their town. He was behaving as if He had authority. And, of course, He did. These men didn’t understand how Jesus possessed this kind of authority, so they asked Him, “Who gave you this authority? By what authority do you do these things?” That’s something that is important for us to answer. We need to know by what authority we do these things. For example, when healing the sick, by what authority are you doing it? We must recognize how authority works—that someone with a higher level of authority has the right to give or delegate that authority to anyone they choose, and Jesus has chosen you and me. There have been times when I have been doing marketplace ministry and I have had the opportunity to lead the lost to the Lord. Sometimes, these are people who have previously had no knowledge of God and knew very little about the supernatural. After leading some of these people to Jesus, I have taken the person, who is only minutes old in the faith, and instructed them on how to pray for their friend standing right next to them. Time and time again, these people who knew almost nothing have prayed for their companion and witnessed a miracle through their own hands. I know how it works, even though they don’t. But by simply doing as I instructed, the miracle manifested for them immediately. Let me give you an example. I was invited to come to the Detroit, Michigan, area to teach marketplace ministry to a church that wanted to begin walking in the miraculous. I taught the first meeting on a Friday night, and the next day I was going to take groups out into public to pray for people. At the end of the meeting, I thought that I was going to my hotel room, but the pastor had another idea. Before I could dismiss everyone, a church leader came up to the front and asked, “Who in here needs healing? We are looking for the impossible case so that Tom can demonstrate to us what he just taught.” No pressure there! In the back of the room was a gentleman who raised his hand and said that he was certainly the worst case in the building. His name was Will, and all eyes were on me to perform the fantastic miracle. I really felt on the spot. Within my heart I said, “Lord, you’ve got to come through for me here!” Will enumerated a long list of medical problems having to do with his heart, respiration, mobility, etc. Then Will told us that he could not walk more than ten feet without becoming completely exhausted and out of breath. Then I found out one other interesting thing about Will—he thought that healing was not for today. Will’s boss had dragged him to the meeting after work and Will wasn’t really interested in going. I had a huge challenge in front of me, but I couldn’t back out. I prayed for Will, commanding complete healing for his heart, his lungs, and everything else that was wrong with his body. There was no lightning from heaven, no dramatic display. In fact, nothing on the outside appeared any different. All eyes were watching. Everyone was wondering, “Had God healed Will?” I told Will to walk around the church. He walked 10 feet, then 20, then 30 . . . no signs of exhaustion. I then said, “Run up and down the front steps of the church.” And he did. Then Will decided he would walk around the whole city block where the church was located. All of Will’s pain had vanished, his fatigue was gone, and his energy was restored. The next day I personally took Will with me to do marketplace ministry. Will walked miles with me, and not only was he without any signs of fatigue, but he also was praying for people and seeing miracles at his own hand! Will—the man who hours earlier had confessed his belief that healings were not for today’s Christian. Faith Through the Faithless Here is something else that will come as a great challenge for some to believe, just as it was for me when I first witnessed it: There have been times when I have chosen a person who was not yet a believer to operate in healing. I have instructed them to pray for their unsaved friend and the healing miracle occurred without them knowing Jesus as their Savior. I know that sounds impossible, but some things are only impossible because we don’t have the faith to believe for them. The reason that I can instruct an unbeliever to pray for their friend and then see a miracle is because of delegated authority. This is possible when someone who actually has authority directs someone else to carry out an action by following the orders of the one who legitimately has the authority. A president can order a corporal in the army to arrest a man of higher rank, such as a colonel. It is not the superiority of the corporal’s authority that makes this possible, but the authority of the president who is giving the command. In the same way, I can ask somebody to do something under my authority—just as Jesus did—and the miracle will occur. Do you remember when the disciples were fishing and Jesus appeared and asked them how they were doing? Let’s look at John 21:4-6 (NIV). It says: “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, ‘Friends, haven’t you any fish?’ ‘No,’ they answered. He said, ‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.’ When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.” The disciples didn’t have faith for what was about to happen, but they carried out the instructions of Jesus, who had the authority. And the miracle occurred. Where do I get my authority? From Jesus, of course! When I pray for the sick, I am simply following the instructions that Jesus gave me, so the miracle manifests. What am I talking about? When did Jesus tell me to pray for the sick? In Matthew 10:7-8 (BSB) the Bible says, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Don’t ever let anyone talk you into believing that the miracles of God—the same miracles that manifested at the hands of Jesus’ early followers— have passed away. Also, never get stuck in the trap of believing that this power was only for the 12 apostles, because that simply is not true. That power is available to all who believe. In Mark 16:16-17 (BSB) the Bible says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name, they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.” Who was this passage written about? “Whoever believes.” Where do Todd White, Pete Cabrera Jr., or Tom Loud get their authority?” From Jesus. Jesus gave us all the same authority. When He said all His believers can lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover, that’s what He meant. I live in the Seattle area, and in the summer, I like to go to the “Seattle Center” and do marketplace ministry. This is the location where the 1962 World’s Fair was held, and where the famous Space Needle still stands today. I like to look for challenges to stretch my faith and force myself to get out of my comfort zone—to grow my own faith. One beautiful August day I saw a group of young people out on the lawn in front of the great fountain practicing for their ballet performance. I walked right into the middle of about eight young people and introduced myself. I asked if any of them had any pain because Jesus would like to heal them. I had a number of young people come forward and see the power of God and many were healed. One in particular was a young woman named Haley. This is a different Haley from the one that was my first miraculous healing. “Haley Two” was a case of particular interest because she had absolutely no faith in God—God’s healing power had never even entered her mind! Haley had been born with severe scoliosis of the spine. In fact, she could not even stretch her right arm diagonally across her body. The scoliosis caused pain and restriction in movement—especially troubling for a young ballerina and aspiring professional dancer. Up until that point, doctors had been unable to offer Haley any hope at all. I asked Haley to demonstrate the restriction until it hurt. She did, reporting that the movement caused a pain level of nine. I didn’t even touch Haley—I just held my hand over her back and commanded the scoliosis to go. That’s right—I demonstrated the authority I had in the son of God by using a shadow to pray a miraculous healing over Haley’s back. I prayed, commanding the back, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and vertebrae to be healed. After a moment or two, I told Haley to do what she could not do before. Haley then stretched her right arm diagonally across her chest all the way to the other side of her torso without any restriction at all. “It’s like a zero!” she said of her pain level. The look of surprise on her face was priceless. This was the first time in her life she was able to move normally! Haley grinned from ear to ear and said, “The doctors were never able to do this!” Then I told Haley that Jesus had healed her because He loved her, and I asked her if she would like to receive Him as her Savior. She said, “Yes,” and I led her and two of her friends in a salvation prayer that very day. If you would like to see some of Haley’s testimony, it can be found on my YouTube channel under the title: Youth Ballet Troop Healed, Saved, Blown Away!!! – Tom Loud So, all of the disciples of Jesus (that’s you and me) have been told to go and heal the sick and injured. The authority we have through Him is so great that we can even use a shadow to transfer its power. Because He has given us this command, He has delegated His authority to us. It’s absolutely true! You and I can all do these things because we all have been given authority by Jesus, who is the highest authority of all. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ​— ​John 14:12 NIV 5 The Key of Overcoming the Carnal Mind You’re probably wondering how and when you’ll be able to make the switch from carnal thinking to spiritual, demonstrating God’s power—the power you’ve been so abundantly given through His Holy Spirit. That is coming up very soon, but first I want to share a few stories that may help give you context to the process. Todd White is an evangelist that you may have heard of. He has had a very impactful ministry involving the demonstration of healing miracles and words of knowledge. Though many people have been healed and saved through his ministry, Todd prayed for something like 500 people before he saw his first healing! I could have never persisted that long. If I prayed for 10 people and saw no results, I would have concluded that I just did not have what it took to pray for someone’s healing. Then there’s my friend Pete Cabrera Jr. Pete was inspired by the videos Todd had posted about his ministry, and Pete began praying for miraculous healings just like he saw Todd doing. Much like with Todd’s testimony, Pete prayed for around 300 people before he saw his first miracle. Again, I would have never lasted that long. In fact, Pete got so frustrated in his pursuit of praying miraculous healings that he issued a challenge to God. He said, “Lord, I’m going to pray for somebody just like Todd did, and if there isn’t a healing, I’m done!” The next day Pete encountered a man with a back problem. Just as he’d seen Todd do, he approached the man and asked if he could pray for him. In his mind, Pete reminded himself that this prayer was his last-ditch effort to see if anything would happen. Pete figured nothing was going to happen. When the man agreed to let Pete pray for him, Pete didn’t put much heart or effort into it. In fact, he wrote Todd’s prayer on his hand and just read it over the man. When he was finished, Pete asked the man to test out his back. With a bewildered look on his face, the man said, “The pain is gone!” But do you know what happened next? Pete didn’t believe him! Pete said, “Come on, man. Don’t play with me. I’m serious about this!” The man said, “No, really. I’m not kidding. The pain is gone!” He had been healed of his back pain. This was the breakthrough Pete needed. Since that day, thousands have been healed through Pete’s prayers, and tens of thousands through Pete’s students. The Day I Learned Nothing My story of miraculous healings is entangled with Pete’s, as he is the one who unknowingly showed me how to take hold of the key to the spirit mind. One day I was in my office and my secretary asked me to look at a video that she had stumbled upon while searching the internet. In this video, I saw a man I had never heard of named Pete Cabrera Jr. This man was doing something that appeared really wild, and outside of the realm of anything I had ever witnessed before. Pete ran a soup kitchen at the time, and many people came in with a variety of physical problems. One day a man and his wife came into Pete’s office and the man was complaining of a severe back problem. Pete had the man sit down in a chair and put up his feet on a coffee table. Then Pete handed the camera to this man’s wife (who, by the way, was an atheist) and asked her to video what he was about to do. Pete instructed the man to sit up straight in his chair and extend his legs out until they were sitting on top of the coffee table. This couple had only just met Pete and had no idea what he was about to do. As the man rested his legs in a fully extended position on the table, it was obvious that one was significantly shorter than the other. Pete then pointed to the shorter of the two legs and said, “Come out, come even!” Without a moment’s hesitation, the shorter leg grew out to match the other one! I was surprised, but the atheist wife that was filming was shocked to her core. A growing leg would have been enough for me to wonder if it were real or a hoax, but then things got even weirder! Pete pointed at the leg that was originally longer and commanded it, “Come out! More, more, more.” To my amazement, the leg grew out about three inches! Then Pete told the man to stand up and walk. Having one leg three inches longer than the other, the man had a difficult time. At this point, the wife was completely freaking out and so was her husband. Pete had the man sit down again and alternately grew and shrunk back both legs, apparently at will. When the whole exercise had come to an end, the man’s back pain was gone. The wife wasn’t so sure about her atheism anymore. The man was completely healed and I was completely dumbfounded. I questioned what I saw. I wondered, “Could this be real or just a clever fraud? Who is this Pete guy? Is he legitimate or a fake?” I began researching Pete Cabrera Jr., and at the time, he was relatively unknown. There was very little information about him available. I decided I would watch the video in slow motion, frame by frame, to see if I could detect any tampering or deceptive editing. I found none. I then began to watch other videos of his, and I eventually determined that he was genuine and the people he was praying for were not actors. I had to find out how he was accomplishing these miraculous healings, many of which outshined anything I had ever seen, even at the hands of the world’s most famous “faith healers.” In these simple, unedited videos, people were being healed of every kind of sickness and infirmity that you could name. Sometimes, Pete would heal with a spoken word, and other times, he would heal with no words at all. Sometimes, he would touch them, and at other times, he wouldn’t touch them. But regardless of what he did, it seemed that people were getting legitimately and dramatically healed. I wanted to know what his secret was, because I had been praying for people for a very long time and had not experienced that kind of success. I could find no listed number or email for Pete, so I tried to contact him by sending messages to him through his YouTube channel. I waited, waited, and heard nothing. Then one day months later, out of the blue (and long after I had given up hope for a response), I got a phone call from Pete at my office. I answered the phone and he said, “Hi, is this Tom Loud? This is Pete Cabrera Jr. I’m at Walmart right now buying some milk. What can I do for you?” I said, “Wow, I’m really honored that you called me, Mr. Cabrera. I have a question for you.” He said, “Shoot.” The video I asked Pete about was one where he prayed for a woman’s shoulder. In the video, Pete prayed a simple prayer for her: “Father, I thank you for this woman. In Jesus’ name, I speak to this shoulder and rotator cuff and I tell it to become whole.” The woman lifted her arm out to the side. While she had more movement than she had before the prayer, it was still not operating in full range. Pete said, “Let me pray again.” He took hold of her hand and then touched her shoulder. Then, Pete just looked at her shoulder. He stood there not doing anything else for several seconds before saying, “Try it again.” This time, the lady was able to hold her hand high in the air—she had complete mobility. But, wait. What had happened the second time he prayed? Had he actually been praying at all? When I got Pete on the phone I said, “I’ve got to know. At the times you’re not saying anything during your healing prayers, what is it that you’re doing? Are you imagining the healing as a done work? Are you praying silently in your head and heart? I want to know what’s going through your mind at those moments.” Here is what Pete said back to me: “Tom, I was thinking nothing.” “Nothing? You were thinking nothing?” “I wasn’t thinking or praying anything.” I said, “Is that your answer? Is that it?” He replied, “That’s it. That’s my answer. I was thinking nothing.” I was more than a little bit let down. It was like the air in my balloon had suddenly leaked out and I was completely deflated. He gave me nothing to take hold of. His answer was basically no answer at all. None of it made any sense. I felt like one of the androids in the Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk said, “I always lie.” That statement is impossible to understand using logic. If you say, ”I always lie,” then that, too, must be a lie, meaning you always tell the truth. But if you always tell the truth, how can you say you always lie? At that point, the evil android’s brains were fried, and as they began to smoke from their ears, they said, “Does not compute! Does not compute!” What Pete had said did not compute. He was praying and then the healing occurred, but he was saying nothing, thinking nothing, and feeling nothing! In a fit of great frustration, I prayed to the Lord and said, “Jesus, what does that mean?” I was determined to find the answer to that question, whatever it took. I mean, how can you be praying for somebody and not even be thinking about it? That made no sense at all to me. And it wouldn’t until much later. There’s something else I want you to know about Pete Cabrera Jr. Pete spent two years studying an extensive course in healing taught by Curry Blake. It’s called Divine Healing Technician Training, or DHT. He also prayed for many people, but still never saw healing and couldn’t figure out why. After studying DHT and then stumbling upon Todd White’s videos, Pete stepped out to pray for people to be healed, but after having no success, he began to get frustrated and was about ready to quit. Just before throwing in the towel, Pete watched one more Todd White video, and he noticed how Todd prayed so simply and effortlessly, and as a result, people received their healing. Pete began to get a little upset. In his heart he said, “It can’t be that easy! I’ve been stepping out in faith and praying my guts out. This guy just walks up to somebody and says, ‘Hey dude! Want to see something crazy? Watch this!’, and the person is healed!” But I have good news for you—you don’t need to wait as long as Todd and Pete did to experience the miraculous. You can start seeing miracles the first time you step out and pray. It’s all about having the correct keys. The Beauty of Nothing I saw what Pete was doing, but I didn’t know exactly how his process worked. I heard his words and I saw the results, but there was something that I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see what was going on inside of Pete’s head or heart, and I was convinced that the answer to that question was the key that I was missing. Before I let Pete off the phone, I asked another question. I said, “In the shoulder video, how did you know how long to wait before telling her to try it again?” Pete said, “I don’t know. I just gave the Lord time to work.” I got off the phone with Pete feeling as if I’d just learned nothing new. But then the Lord brought Romans 8:7 to mind. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. ​— ​Romans 8:7 NKJV The word “carnal” here is the Greek word sarkos, which simply means “flesh.” The carnal mind (natural, fleshly mind) is enmity against God. The word “enmity” used here is the Greek word echthra, which means “hostile.” So your natural, fleshly “carnal mind” is not only incapable of understanding or receiving the things of the Spirit, but it is actually hostile towards God and unable to accept or believe God’s Word. You might say, “Hostile? That’s an aggressive word. I don’t think my natural mind feels hostile toward God.” Let me explain. In school I found myself saying, “I hate math,” in a completely hostile way. But why would I be hostile towards math? I was hostile towards math because when I got to a certain level, it frustrated me that I was not good at math. Someone began mixing the alphabet with numbers, and suddenly, I found myself frustrated in the attempt to understand the lunacy. I got frustrated trying to understand that which did not make clear sense and this frustration made me angry. I said, “I am trying my best to understand this, but I just don’t get it!” That’s what happens with the carnal mind when God says, “Believe this,” and the carnal mind says, “But how is that possible? I just can’t accept that.” If it doesn’t make sense, the carnal mind will not receive it. But you have to understand that the mind of Christ in you speaks differently. It says, “I don’t need to think about it. If God has spoken it, it’s simply fact.” Romans 8:7 teaches us that the natural, carnal mind is “not subject to the laws of God, neither can be.” So, what exactly does this tell us about the attributes and limitations of the natural, fleshly, and carnal mind? It tells us that it is not subject to God’s laws. The word “subject” here is the Greek word hupotassó, meaning to submit and to put into subjection. In other words, the natural, fleshly, carnal mind is not submitted to God’s Word. You may have been told that in order to overcome your mind’s natural hostility toward God, you must renew your mind. The problem is many people have defined the method of renewing the mind incorrectly. I did it for many years also. I had been taught that renewing the mind was a process of reprogramming the old mind—the carnal mind. I was taught that it was a process of filling the mind with so much of the Word of God that it finally comes into subjection and under the control of God. I had believed that someday, if I just tried long enough and hard enough, my mind would come into a state of faith and in full agreement with the Word of God. However, Romans 8:7 tells us that this is simply not possible. Your carnal (natural) mind will never agree with the Word of God because it is incapable of doing so. Back in those days, I read the Word, meditated on the Word, and repeatedly declared the Word aloud. I practiced positively confessing what it said for over thirty years in the hope that faith would just all of a sudden fill my heart, and I would have no more doubt. But that never happened. It was a good and profitable exercise, but it never removed doubt from my mind when I prayed. I would pray in faith and that little voice in the background would always be there saying, “But what if it doesn’t work? What if you don’t have enough faith?” Instead of thinking of the process of renewing your mind as a process of fixing up your old, carnal, and natural mind, begin to think of it as renewing the method of how you process information. We must begin to retrain ourselves in the way we do our thinking. When we are operating in the realm of the physical world, we engage our natural (carnal) mind, but when we are operating in the realm of spiritual things, we disengage our natural mind and utilize the mind of the spirit. We must begin to operate in this new way and establish new habits. Our carnal mind can only believe what it can see. It cannot understand the spiritual realm, nor discern what the Spirit of God wants or desires. Instead of praying and then waiting to see what would happen, worrying and begging God to move, I learned to lay my hands on people and say, “In the name of Jesus, be made whole.” Then, to pause and think nothing. During this time, I’m quieting my carnal mind. There are those voices that want to say, “What if this doesn’t work?” I tell them to be quiet and sit in the corner. I don’t need my carnal mind’s help. I’m busy working in the spiritual realm. See, we have been given the mind of Christ. And it’s with this mind that we need to operate from when praying a prayer of healing for someone. We need to understand scriptures using that mind. Move in the spirit without worrying about what we’re thinking. What you’re thinking is of no importance to you. Say what God would have you to say, then leave the rest to God and watch Him work. Take the carnal mind completely out of the equation. Disengage it. It cannot help you. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “the flesh profits nothing.” It cannot help you. It can only get in the way. So shut it off. When the Lord gave me the answer I was looking for, I went out that very same day and prayed for people and saw miraculous healings immediately. I did not need to pray for a thousand or even a hundred people. That one revelation gave me all I needed to open the vault to God’s miraculous power. Since that day, I’ve seen thousands of healings on an ongoing basis, and I have had the privilege of training countless Christians just like you, who have never previously seen a firsthand miracle, to immediately see miracles occur at their own hands! All I had needed for the miraculous to manifest was to change a thought. The whole time I was searching, that’s all I had to do. I didn’t have to get any supernatural visitation from Heaven—no special anointing. I didn’t need to have a prophet with the gifts of healing lay hands on me. All I had to do was change my perspective, my way of thinking, and my way of seeing things. You pray and then . . . think nothing. Everything began to change for me once I understood the difference between operating from the carnal, natural mind, and instead operating from the mind of the spirit. All of our doubts, our fears, and our unbelief reside in our natural, carnal mind. If you are like me, you thought that with enough study and discipline, you could take that natural mind and change it into something more spiritual. You can try, but what you are attempting to do is utterly impossible. But fortunately, that’s not the end of the story. In the same way I learned from Pete Cabrera, we have to go forward with the mind of the Spirit. Not just in prayers for healing, but in all operations involving the Holy Spirit. You may ask yourself, “Do we really have access to a mind that is without doubt and unbelief? Is that really possible?” 1 Corinthians 2:16 (NIV) says: “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?” We don’t tell God what He’s capable of—He tells us. Put Your Carnal Mind in the Corner It is essential to learn to put the carnal mind out of the room when you begin to operate in faith. If you are not diligent to do this, it will attempt to rise up and interfere, hindering the results you receive when you pray. We cannot pray in faith if both minds are engaged. That’s what the Bible means when it tells us not to be “double-minded.” Here is what being “double-minded” will produce in prayer: But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. The man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. ​— ​James 1:6-7 NIV God’s Word says that if you lack something, you can ask God and He will give it freely. But a double-minded man wavers between the faith that is in his spiritual mind and the doubt that is in his carnal mind. Remember, the carnal mind does not have faith. It only has doubt, so it has to be disengaged. When you start trying to figure out how God is going to do something, or how something could possibly happen by faith, then you are engaging your carnal mind. You’ve become double-minded. This creates a condition of instability where it becomes impossible to truly stand in unwavering faith without doubting. What this Scripture also clearly demonstrates is that it is indeed possible to be double-minded and you can’t be double-minded unless you have two minds. A double-minded man is a man that tries to have faith in God’s Word while engaging his natural and carnal mind in the process. It cannot work. Faith and the carnal mind do not mix together successfully. These verses tell us that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways—all of them. So, we have to learn how to operate out of the right mind, the mind of the Spirit. We have to learn to put the carnal mind in its place, and keep it out of the way of our spiritual endeavors. We have to learn when it is appropriate to operate out of the carnal mind, and when we should be operating out of the mind of the Spirit. The mind of Christ does not have the capacity to doubt His father. In the same way, there is no room for uncertainty when you are operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Bringing your carnality under control is the only way to move toward single-mindedness, and by extension, toward effective prayers of healing. You do this by pushing those thoughts to the edge of your mind. Ignoring them. Telling them to go away, and leaving your mind clear for God to speak and work. When I grasped this, I put it to the test on Haley (Haley One), who I have mentioned before as the first person that I prayed for and saw a miraculous healing. I used my authority to tell Haley’s arthritis and pain to go, and then I paused and stilled myself. I “rested” in the Lord and did not allow my mind to speak at all. After a few moments, I asked her to test things out. She was completely healed! One of the principles that will be key to moving in the realm of the miraculous is to remember that we have two minds. We have a “spiritual mind” and a “natural mind.” Only those who have been born-again of the Spirit have their “spiritual mind” available for access. Those who have not been born-again of the Spirit have only the earthbound, natural, physical, and rational mind as their source. Bringing Your Carnal Mind into Subjection When we can begin to recognize that our carnal mind is the one that has been sitting on the throne for most of our life—and that it is the one that has led us in many directions that have nothing to do with the Spirit—then we can understand where the problem lies in our attempts to walk out a Spirit-led life. The truth is that many of our problems have their root in our carnal mind, which has not been put under subjection to the Holy Spirit. We must begin to learn how to discern which thoughts are of God and which thoughts are of the carnal mind, and then order our steps accordingly. This is what the Bible means when it tells you to take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. ​— ​2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV Taking something captive doesn’t imply a negotiation. There’s no discussion. We don’t go back and forth reasoning with the carnal mind to get it to agree with God. As soon as we detect a thought from the carnal mind, we take it captive. We put it under subjection. So, dear reader, I’m going to do my best to show you how to discern when the carnal mind is speaking and when the mind of Christ in you is speaking. When you learn the difference, you can put Christ on the throne of your heart and you can listen to the thoughts of the Spirit. Then you will be able to do the right things at the right time, unlocking the doors of God’s kingdom to you. Let me give you an example of a day when my carnal mind was on the throne and I almost robbed myself, the Lord, and an individual in need, of a miracle. One day I wasn’t in a good mood at all. I didn’t really feel like praying for anyone. In my carnal mind, I said, “I don’t want to go out ministering today. I’m tired and irritable. God probably couldn’t work through my bad attitude anyway.” As soon as this thought entered my mind, my spirit rejected it. That thought was filled with doubt and fear—neither of which are from the Lord. I decided to use the situation to prove a powerful point. The point was this: Being a son of God is who we are when we feel spiritual and when we don’t. And the miraculous is always possible simply because children of God carry authority. Being a child of God is a fact, whether you fasted that day or not. Whether you felt the presence of the Holy Spirit or not. Feelings have little to do with the facts when it comes to being spirit-minded. I took out my GoPro camera, looked into the lens, and said, “I am really not feeling very spiritual right now, but I am going to do what I was made to do anyway. I was made to do the works of Him who called me out of darkness and into the light, on my good days and my bad days.” I proceeded to drive to the local bus depot. I was looking for my first opportunity like a lion looks for a limping gazelle. Yes, my attitude was poor, but I still carried the power and authority of a child of God. Then I saw a man with a leg cast. I approached him and introduced myself and asked him what had happened. His name was Duane. Duane had been a pedestrian in a crosswalk and he was hit by a car. I asked Duane if he had any pain, and he began to tell me of every spot on his body that had been injured. The list was quite long. His foot had been broken in a dozen places, his leg had been smashed, his left arm had been broken so badly that it was put back together with screws and rods, his back was in great pain, and he didn’t look much happier than I did that day. I told Duane that if he let me pray for him, God would heal everything. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye with that look of sizing a person up, trying to determine if they are crazy or not. I wasn’t terribly subtle, telling him that he had nothing to lose. He allowed me to pray. I asked his pain level on a scale from one through 10 for each injury and then I spoke healing over them one by one. I prayed for his arm—it could not freely move in every direction and it was in great pain. I spoke a few words over it and he tolerated me with a scowl on his face. Then I said, “Now test it out. Look for the pain.” He scoffingly began to go through the motions, and then his countenance changed. It was as if a wave of surprise went over his face and suddenly, he was lit up with excitement. He exclaimed, “It’s gone . . . I feel no pain!” He was so excited that he could hardly wait for me to move on to the foot, the leg, the back, and a few other places. One by one each area was healed. I asked him if he would like to take his leg cast off and see if he could walk without pain. He did, and he was completely healed. He went from having a scowl on his face to smiling from ear to ear. If you would like to see some of the video of this encounter, it can be found on my YouTube channel under the title: Hit by Car – Healed by Jesus!!!! If I had not practiced bringing my carnal mind under the Spirit’s subjection, I may have believed its lies—that I could not heal anyone because of my own foul mood. But once the Spirit revealed Himself to my spirit mind, moving me to action, God showed how very little I have to do with His healing power. My First Experience Thinking Nothing Some of my problem came from the teachings of certain faith preachers that I listened to during the 1970s. There was a teaching that was prevalent back then, and it was based on Romans 12:2 (NKJV): “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” The Word of God is always true, but sometimes the interpretation of what the Word says can be misconstrued. The teaching from this verse concerning “renewing the mind” became a staple of the faith movement in the 70s. The practical application of this verse went something like this: If a person would read God’s Word, and then speak, or declare it aloud with their mouth repeatedly, eventually, the Word would “drop down into your spirit” and suddenly become unshakeable faith. Well, that sounded like a reasonable concept, so I did it, as you know, for over 30 years! I prayed out powerfully with faith-filled words and declared healing over people, just like I do now, but nothing happened back then. Not only did nothing happen, but that voice was still speaking in my head, loud and clear, “What if it doesn’t work? I will feel like a fool. I sure hope something will happen!” Renewing the mind is indeed a biblical principle, but I no longer see the method that those preachers taught as a valid application of that verse. It really has nothing to do with a process of making your carnal mind line up with the Word of God. All that I have explained in this book so far—about turning off the carnal mind and operating out of my spirit mind instead—came to me in an instant. Along with this revelation came an understanding about how this concept applies to praying for the miraculous. At the moment I received the revelation, I understood what I needed to do. At that point, it was still in the realm of theory, but it was an exciting theory. Before I could tell others about it, I would need to test it for myself. I needed to see if Pete’s answer of, “I wasn’t thinking anything and I wasn’t feeling anything,” was going to make sense. What was communicated to me by the Holy Spirit was that the natural (carnal) mind needed to be set aside (disengaged) when it came to the act of praying in faith and without doubt. I saw that what Pete was doing, and without even being aware of it, was shutting off his natural mind, thus removing it from the act of praying. When he said he “wasn’t thinking anything,” he was actually disengaging from any thought process for that moment. But how does one do that? How do you stop your mind from thinking? Well, it was time to find out. It was time to see if I could actually pray without allowing my natural mind to get in the way. Up to this point, I had never approached a stranger in public and asked if I could pray for them to experience a miraculous healing. I was determined to give it a try because I had a new perspective on the matter. I got up from my desk, climbed into my car, and drove off looking for my first candidate. I decide to stop at a strip mall and see if I could find someone that was in need of prayer. Finally, I saw my chance. It was a young woman about 30 years old coming out of a Dollar Tree and she was using a walker. As it turned out, this was Haley (Haley One), who I mentioned a couple of times previously as my first healing miracle. I want to give more detail now so that you can get a full, practical picture of how God moved to put this principle into practice in my life. I could see that Haley was having great difficulty walking, so I approached her and said, “Hi, my name is Tom. I pray for people and God heals them. Are you in any pain?” Now, actually I had never prayed for anyone this way before, but it seemed like the words jumped out of my mouth before I had the chance to stop them. The young woman told me her name, and that she had been crippled with osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and constant pain that doctors were unable to cure. She also had a large lump on the back of her neck that had been there for a long time. I asked her what her pain level was on a scale from one to 10. She said she was an eight. Then I asked her if she had any restriction of movement. I found out that she could only bend forward far enough to touch her knees, and that was only with great pain. Then I found myself asking her if I could pray for God to heal her right then and there and she said, “Yes.” This was it. This was my big chance. It was a big plus in my mind that she was a stranger because that meant if it didn’t work, no one else would know. I put my hand on her and told her to just relax and let me pray. I prayed like this: “Heavenly Father, I thank You for Haley. I know that You love her and You don’t want her to be in any pain. Right now, I speak to this arthritis. I command you to leave Haley’s body now! Every muscle, tendon, ligament, and nerve, be healed now! Now, I speak to the pain. All pain leave, now!” Then came the most critical part of the test. Immediately after finishing the prayer, I stopped all thought and simply rested and let God work while I kept my hand on her for a few moments. When my natural mind would begin to say things like, “What if it doesn’t work?” I would tell it to shut up before the full thought could be formed. I paused, I rested, I hushed all thought, suspended all of my senses, and simply rested. After a few moments of not thinking, and of holding back my thoughts whenever they tried to engage, I took my hands off, looked at her, and said, “Touch your toes.” She looked at me as if I were crazy and said, “I can’t do that!” I heard myself saying, “You can now!” She could tell that I was serious, so against every instinct, she bent forward all the way to her toes and then stood up and said, “It’s gone! All of the pain is gone!” I was shocked but excited. I said, “Please, be honest. Give it a test and look for the pain.” She could find none. She could move like she hadn’t moved in years and the lump that was on her neck went away too! I had that aha moment like the man who just discovered the cure to a rare disease or like the man who solved the mystery that revealed the location of a vast, buried treasure. I said to myself, “If this works for me, perhaps this is the breakthrough piece of knowledge that will cause many others to be able to see miracles at their hands also.” I got a call from Haley three months later. She was still completely free from all of the pain and infirmity that she had when I first met her, but she wanted to tell me that she had now been in an accident and wondered if I could pray for her again. She was my first dramatic healing miracle, so of course I was glad to pray for her again. I arranged to meet her immediately. She informed me that she had broken her collarbone on the right side. She could not move her arm much and could not raise it above the height of her shoulder. I prayed for her in the same manner I did the first time. She started to say, “That’s weird. As you were praying, I felt things reattaching inside my chest and shoulder and all of the pain left.” I had her raise her arm and it went right over her head without any problem and without any pain! Since that first day when I tested the theory out for myself, I have seen the Lord heal thousands of times, using this very same method. I am not simply saying that I discovered something that worked just for me, but in fact, I have taught this same principle to people around the world, and it has worked for people everywhere. It has even succeeded in places where the miraculous works of God had never been seen before. Silencing the mind is the restraining of free-flowing thought. It is telling the carnal mind to “shush” when it would like to speak. This isn’t really all that difficult, but you will need to learn to keep a tight leash on your thoughts because there will always be that temptation for your mind to jump in and say, “But what if it doesn’t work?” In those times, I just say to it, “Shut up! I’m not listening to you right now!” As I learned to shut out all thought for those few brief moments, it’s almost as if I held my breath and just suspended time for a moment, without engaging any feelings, senses, or thoughts—just nothing. In the process of doing nothing, I’m actually getting myself out of the way so that God’s Spirit can do what He does—the miracle of healing. When I prayed for Haley that first time, do you know what I felt when I prayed? Did I feel fire, tingling, or electricity flowing through my hands as I placed them on her in faith? No, I honestly felt nothing. The only thing I needed to do was get my mind out of the way. This is the way you’re going to get activated and begin to do the miraculous through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the way it’s all going to start. It’s all going to start when you learn how to put the carnal mind in its place. You’re going to learn how to firmly say to your carnal mind, “Just shut up and be silent right now. I’m going to let God do what He does.” You don’t have to focus. You don’t have to think. All you need to do is speak in authority and then get out of the way. The Carnal Mind and the Enemy When we can effectively quiet our carnal minds, we will stop believing the lies that have taken root there. We will also stop listening to its doubt and unbelief concerning the things of the Spirit. Understand that the carnal mind isn’t trying to lie to you. It just is incapable of understanding the things of the Spirit. In fact, the carnal mind is so spiritually blind, that it is extremely susceptible to the thoughts and suggestions of the enemy. The carnal mind doesn’t think, “Oh, these thoughts are from the devil, so I should just ignore them,” because the carnal mind cannot fully believe in the things that it cannot see (like the enemy) or understand them without physical evidence. It’s easy for an enemy to fool you when you don’t even believe he exists. The realm of the natural mind is not equipped to fight in the realm of the spirit. Fighting the devil with our carnal mind is like going to a gun fight armed with a pea shooter! Your enemy loves to fight you in the realm of the natural because you have no supernatural strength or power when fighting from the resources of the old, natural, and carnal mind. One instance where I really had to push the carnal mind aside while praying for someone’s healing happened in May of 2015. I had the privilege to pray for a man named Jerry. Jerry was not only a non-Christian, but he was an atheist. He held no belief in God’s existence at all. I came across Jerry and a few of his friends hanging out at the Seattle Center, and I asked if any of them had any pain. Jerry reported that he’d recently injured his knee running, and that the pain level was about a five resting, and a seven when he applied pressure on it. I prayed for Jerry, following the same pattern of the keys described in this book. After my first prayer, I asked Jerry to place weight on his knee. His response? “It’s a little better. Maybe.” I could see that he was still visibly favoring his opposite knee. I asked him to tell me honestly if there was still pain and he said yes. While I’m not ever opposed to praying for the same healing twice, this particular situation required all of my mental strength to force out the carnal mind. “Come on,” it said. “This guy’s unbelief is getting in the way!” “Shut up,” I told my mind. “Go away. Now.” Just like a spirit fleeing, silence flooded my mind. Then I prayed again, commanding the pain to get out now. Within seconds, a smile broke across Jerry’s face. “It’s kind of ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t even believe in God or anything.” “You don’t believe in God, but He loves you,” I told him. Jerry couldn’t find any pain in his knee. See, the enemy can plant thoughts in our minds if we let him. He will watch our interactions with others and design a scheme against God’s will using our own thoughts. Those lies must be harnessed and stopped so God’s Spirit can lead the way. Embracing Christ in You The first thing we must understand in unlocking the power of the kingdom is that we need to accept, affirm, and fully embrace without wavering that we are who and what God says we are. We need to know who and what we are according to God’s Word. Let me say that again, because it cannot be over-emphasized. Not only are we who God says we are (regardless of anyone else’s opinion), but we are also what God says we are. Let’s look now to God’s written Word, the Bible, and find out exactly who and what that is. In the end, your opinion and my opinion don’t really matter. It is God’s opinion alone that will stand. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ​— ​Galatians 2:20 NIV The Bible makes it very clear: We are fully redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our human weaknesses and imperfections have been washed away by the blood of our Savior. When we are thinking and living through His Spirit, it is as if we no longer live at all, but Christ is acting, thinking, talking, healing, and loving through us. Isn’t that a beautiful promise? Conversely, when we operate from our flesh, we make ourselves vulnerable to those same weaknesses and imperfections that Christ sacrificed to remove. Imagine that you have a three-year-old son. He might have the best of intentions for you, but you probably wouldn’t take tips from him on how to invest your money because he doesn’t yet have a firm grasp or knowledge about how financial investments work. In the same way, you should never take spiritual direction from your carnal mind because it has no concept of spiritual things. Knowing who you are and what you have is the solid rock of confidence that gives you the courage to step out in faith and do the miraculous. When you pray for big things, go all in. Your spirit mind can handle it. Your spirit mind can believe whatever God says. Don’t compromise or settle for anything less than God’s supernatural power. After I pray, I can give God time to work, shutting down the carnal mind and waiting on God. Then I must be brave enough to have it put to the test and honestly assessed for the results. When you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then all of the keys to the kingdom have been given to you. They are accessible within you right now. Because we have connection and access to the mind of Christ right now, we are able to agree with the Word of God right now. That agreement is key to operating in the power of God’s Spirit. 6 The Key of Walking in the Spirit Mind If you were to attempt to wash your hands in a bucket of mud, it would be impossible for them to ever get free from the dirt you are attempting to remove. In the same way, if you are trying to pray from your spirit while allowing your natural, carnal mind to participate, you will be believing with one part of your inner-man while doubting with another part—completely ineffective. The only answer is to learn to tell the carnal mind to, “Shut up and be silent.” You have been given authority to speak over natural things as well as spiritual things. In the Bible, Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered from its roots upward. His disciples marveled that He had this kind of power by just speaking words to the tree. Jesus told them that this was not something that was unusual to those who operate from the spirit, but that they also could do these same things if they just had faith. So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast into the sea,’ it will be done.” ​— ​Matthew 21:21 NKJV Don’t miss the little truth that is contained in what Jesus said. When we read it, we usually just pick up part of the message that Jesus is saying. Jesus did not say, “If you have faith.” Jesus said, “If you have faith and do not doubt.” Faith wasn’t His only focus. Having an absence of doubt was just as important. Then Jesus said that you can speak to a mountain and it will obey you. That’s pretty far out there, but if Jesus said it, I agree with it. If you think about it, your natural, carnal mind is a thing that is of this earth just like the mountain is. You have the authority to speak over that natural mind and command it to be silent and it will obey you. Mind, Submit to Spirit Once I was training a group in Montana and I was talking about quieting the carnal mind. After a break, a group of women returned to the meeting and asked if they could share something. One of the women said, “We are women, and we just can’t stop our carnal mind from speaking. But we had a breakthrough during the break and we actually experienced silence in our minds for the first time!” I asked them if they would share with us how they accomplished this. It was really quite simple—they used their authority to speak to their natural mind and command it to submit. This is what they said to themselves: “Mind, submit to my spirit. Spirit, take me to the Father.” In that very moment they were instantly transported into the presence of God and their carnal minds were completely silent. You should try this for yourself. I have seen it help about 80 percent of the people who were having problems with silencing their carnal mind. Your carnal mind will always be ready to reason with you about why God won’t do a miracle. Your mind will tell you that the circumstances are not exactly right, or it isn’t in His timing, or you aren’t holy enough to wield such power, or that you have never heard of this kind of miracle happening before. It is the carnal mind that interferes with the performing of miracles, and until you address it, the miraculous will be stifled. Take 18-year-old Taylor’s story, for example. Taylor’s mom phoned our church office and made an appointment to come in and have me pray for her son. Taylor is very tall and athletic, and as I recall, he had sustained his injuries while playing football. Taylor’s mother had watched some of my YouTube videos, and after seeing them thought that rather than having extensive surgery, perhaps the Lord could heal Taylor miraculously. One morning Taylor and his mother arrived at our church, and after introducing themselves, told me the specifics about Taylor’s injury. Taylor had torn the labrum in both hips, was in constant pain, and was unable to participate in many physical activities. The only solution was to have surgery to rebuild each hip, and this would be followed by a long process of rehabilitation. Taylor told me that he was famous on YouTube for doing amazing feats of memorization, and that if I filmed him, he would prefer that I did not use his stage name. I said, “Of course,” and then I asked him to tell me what his pain level was. Then I had him demonstrate the limitations in his mobility. His pain was about an eight out of 10. I prayed for Taylor using the method that the Lord had shown me, as described in this book. I prayed once and asked him to move the areas of the body that would normally cause him pain. He did, but there was still some pain. He was not fully restored. In this moment, my carnal mind threatened to make its presence known. I could sense it at the edge of my spirit, and I pushed it away, silencing it. Instead of letting doubt creep in, I leaned in to the Spirit of God and prayed again. After praying again, I asked Taylor to look for the pain. There wasn’t any! Then I told Taylor to give it the full test, so he moved and jumped around. All of the pain was gone. Taylor and his mother left and I didn’t hear from him again for about two months. Taylor had a surgery scheduled that was supposed to take place about a week after the time I prayed for him. The surgery was canceled because Taylor had been completely healed by the power of the Holy Spirit! There are several YouTube videos of Taylor’s healing on my page. Here are the titles in case you want to check them out: Taylor gets Total Spiritual Overhaul – Jesus Heals! – Tom Loud and Taylor’s Testimony of Healing 2 months later; The follow up!!! – Tom Loud. Cleaning Out the Closet The devil cannot touch the spirit of a believer, but he certainly can drop thoughts into the carnal mind—doubts. Like he did in my earlier testimony involving Jerry. It is these thoughts that are your Achilles heel when it comes to operating in faith and demonstration of power. When I discovered this truth, I began to pray with authority and then put a gag on my carnal mind so that all was quiet. I started to rest for a moment in God’s presence. Sometimes, before we will be able to discover what we really have, we will need to take on the task of figuratively “cleaning out the closet” of the wrong beliefs that are still stubbornly lingering in our natural, carnal mind. What I mean by that is, you often don’t realize what you have within you until you discover it by intentionally evaluating and testing your thought patterns. This is how you learn to walk in the mind of the spirit—the same way you learn and develop pretty much any other ability—you go out and put these things into practice. It was a discipline I implemented when I met a man named Rodrick with pain in his right knee. He’d torn his ACL and also had a chipped kneecap. I told Rodrick that I was going to pray for him, and not only was the pain going to be healed, but the chip was going to go back into place. Rodrick said, “No way.” But I knew better. With my carnal mind disengaged, my spirit mind was in control. My spirit mind knew that God would completely restore Rodrick’s knee. My spirit mind simply accepts what God says as true. It does not question the reality of God’s plain statements of truth. I hadn’t started my healing ministry with that mindset. I set out on this journey knowing that God could provide complete restoration, but not knowing with confidence that He would. I told Rodrick, “This is going to happen.” “Nope,” he said. My mind, now clear of doubt, never wavered because the carnal mind was disengaged. I didn’t need to reason out how or why this was going to happen. I didn’t need to think through all of the probable outcomes. This was going to happen simply because God said it would happen. He said He gave me authority to heal, and then He commanded me to go and heal. My born-again spirit is perfectly connected to and in tune with God’s Spirit. My spirit does not question what God says. Rodrick’s pain level was about a seven when he moved his knee around. I told Rodrick I would pray for him and all he had to do was relax. “Heavenly Father,” I prayed, “Thank You for Rodrick. Thank You for who You are. I know that You love Rodrick and You made this appointment for him today because You don’t want him in pain. I pray for this knee. I pray for the chip to go back into place right now. I command a new kneecap, muscles, tendons, and nerves. I command complete restoration right now—everything back into place like it was before the injury.” I paused a moment, with no engagement of the carnal mind, letting the Spirit work. Then I asked him how he felt. “Nothing,” he said. “Test it out,” I said. “Look for the pain. Tell me honestly how it feels.” He walked around a bit and looked confused. “No pain,” he said. “None.” “Do you know how that’s possible?” “The good Lord.” Rodrick already knew Jesus as his Savior, but that day, he met Jesus as his healer. The Natural Mind versus the Spiritual The natural mind is something that not only has man been given, but that even animals possess. Their natural minds aren’t as capable as ours, but they do have them and use them to operate in this world. The natural mind is guided by what it can see, sense, and rationalize based on the physical and natural world. People like the scientist Stephan Hawking develop their natural, rational, “carnal mind” to such a degree that they are able to look into some of the most complex scientific questions and theories of the modern age. But make no mistake about it, Mr. Hawking was absolutely oblivious to the things of the spiritual realm. The word “carnal” as it is used in many translations of the Bible, simply means “flesh.” If all you have to work from is the platform of your flesh and blood brain, then you will only be able to grasp the things of the natural and physical world. However, if you desire to understand the things of the invisible realm of the spirit, you are going to have to tap into the resources of the spiritual mind. This is not simply a mindset, as some believe. As a born-again believer, you actually possess a mind that can operate in the spiritual realm and can receive input and information from the very mind of God. It’s critically important that we understand the difference between “human” thinking and God’s thoughts. When we can begin to recognize when the carnal mind is speaking and differentiate that from the mind of the Spirit, then we can begin to walk in the realm of kingdom power. The problem with many of us is that we’ve let our natural mind take over the rule and control of our entire lives. We have allowed our natural mind to be seated on the throne of our heart, allowing the natural mind to make all of our decisions and rules. Therein lies the problem. This is why we are not walking in kingdom power as we should. Walking in kingdom power has absolutely nothing to do with the “carnal” mind. The Bible says this in Romans 10:10 (KJV): “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” We must note that this verse says, “. . . with the heart man believes.” It does not say, “. . . with the mind man believes.” This is because it is not with the mind that we have faith for salvation, but with the heart or “spirit.” God has given us a body, a soul (which relates to the function of our natural mind), and a spirit. When the Bible talks about our “heart” in this context, it is not referring to our natural mind, but our spirit. We “believe” with our spirit (or “heart”), not with our natural mind. I think you can begin to recognize in these verses that your natural, carnal mind has a different agenda in life than your spirit does. You also need to know that until you put your natural or “carnal mind” in its place (in subjection to the Spirit), then it is going to oppose you in everything you endeavor to do in your pursuit of walking in kingdom power. God’s Promises Are Right Now Many of us have unwittingly held on to an Old Testament perspective on some things. Those beliefs and mindsets have covered up what Christ has already done for us and what He has already given us. Sometimes, we cling to beliefs that move all of the promises of God into the future. This places us into the unfortunate position of waiting for God to give us something that we have already been given. Prior to the cross, many of the promises of God were in the future tense. But we must recognize that after the cross, many of those promises have already been fulfilled and we are no longer in the position of waiting for them. They are in our possession right now. We can tell when we don’t really believe we have these promises already, usually by the fact that we keep praying for God above to rain something down on us. We act like these are things that we are still waiting for. This points to the fact that we don’t really believe that we have already received. We pray for God to send down the anointing. We beg God to send down revival. The problem is that it doesn’t work that way anymore under the New Covenant—the Covenant God made with us in the blood of His Son, Jesus. God is no longer sitting up in yonder heaven, far out of our reach and view, but God is in our hearts and we are ever in His presence. The thought of God being way up yonder and far away is an Old Testament perspective. But that shouldn’t be our perspective today. One day I met a man named Carlos while he was out pouring concrete for work. Carlos told me that he had been in pain for twenty-five years in his back due to four bulging discs. He was in constant pain every day at a level of about seven or eight. I placed my hand on Carlos’ back and spoke to the pain there. I spoke to the discs, the vertebrae, the spine. I told all of it be made whole and free of discomfort. “I felt something,” Carlos said as I finished my prayer. I asked him to test out his back—the back that had kept him from living a normal life for almost three decades. I told him to be very honest and look for the pain. He said, “I don’t know . . .” He moved a bit more. “There’s no pain.” I told him God loved him. “I’m about to cry,” Carlos said. And if you could see Carlos, you’d understand just how remarkable his reaction was. He was not a small man. Tough from days working manual labor. People were walking by as tears streamed down his face. “I am not ashamed,” he said. Then, the greatest miracle of all, Carlos accepted the Lord as his Savior! We don’t need God to send us anything. Everything we need—and more—has already been provided. What we need is to accept what is already ours. From the Footstool to the Throne In Isaiah 66:1, the Lord says that Heaven is His throne, and the earth is His footstool. To the people of Isaiah’s time, it was appropriate to pray gazing up into Heaven saying, “The heavens, Oh Lord, are your throne and the earth is your footstool.” This kind of imagery causes us to picture, in our mind’s eye, the person who is offering the prayer as being way down here on earth (on the footstool), praying to a God way up in heaven, seated on an unapproachable throne. But that perspective has changed. Everything is different now since Jesus died on the cross. Today, God lives within us and is seated on the throne of our hearts, and there is no distance or division between us. Not only is God living in our hearts, but as we’ve learned, we are seated with Him in heavenly places right now at this very moment. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His Kindness to us in Christ Jesus. be done.” ​— ​Ephesians 2:6-7 NIV Today, in this post-cross era that we live in, our perspective isn’t from the footstool (looking up to the throne). Rather, our view is from the throne looking down upon the earth (the footstool). As we see ourselves looking from the throne down to the earth, all the things we had previously considered as giants start to seem more like ants. That’s the way God wants us to see things today—from that “throne” perspective. So, we’re going to have to change the way we think and we are going to have to align our view to reflect the New Testament, post-cross perspective. In fact, I’m going to tell you the truth—everything you think you are lacking in the realm of the Spirit—it’s already yours. Claiming Your New Mind As I have stated previously, you have all of the keys to the kingdom already, but the problem is that you may not know how to use them. If you don’t know how to use the keys, they are of no benefit and are useless to you. You will continue to live your life as those who don’t have the keys at all. Our minds are not bad, they’re just not of the Spirit of God. The carnal mind has a legitimate function in our lives. It was given to man so that our bodies could properly function in the natural world. The natural and carnal mind maintains the functions of the blood flow to your heart and it operates all the vital systems in your body. It is also useful for figuring out problems that arise within the physical realm. Your natural mind is what you utilize to work out mathematical problems and mechanical problems. It is good for figuring out how to fix your car, refrigerator, and washing machine, but it is not designed to perform spiritual tasks. But now that you understand that the greatest blockage or hindrance you have when it comes to walking or flowing in spiritual power is the blockage between your ears, you can make that critical change. In Corinthians 2:14 (NASB) the Bible says, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” That doesn’t need to be a problem for us, however, because we remember this important truth: “But we have the mind of Christ”(1 Corinthians 2:16b), and that mind is a spiritual mind that discerns and accepts the things of the spirit realm. The fact of the matter is that once you become born-again of the Spirit, you get a new mind. When I say you get a new mind, I’m not saying the old mind is no longer present, because obviously it is. And the challenge is that the old mind is still objecting and interfering with the things of the Spirit. I am not saying that once you receive Christ, your natural mind is done away with. Instead, I am saying that when you receive Christ into your heart, you get a new mind. You can choose to use that new mind in your spiritual walk or you can allow your natural mind to continue to run your life, just as it did prior to your salvation. If you allow your natural and carnal mind to remain in control of your life, it will keep you walking out your born-again life without faith and power. The result is that you will be living a life that looks no different from anyone else born into this natural world. When to Stop Praying It’s time to ask yourself this question: “Did Jesus or His followers live a normal life that looked no different from the rest of the world, or did they lead lives marked by the miraculous, the unexplainable, and the remarkable?” The problem with many believers is that they don’t have any of their own real-life, personal experiences of seeing God move in a powerful, supernatural way. They don’t have the experiences that those who followed Christ had in the New Testament. It is apparent that those early Christians experienced the miraculous quite frequently in their day-to-day lives. The reason many Christians don’t have these types of supernatural experiences is largely because they are operating only out of their carnal mind and not out of the nature of the “new man” (Ephesians 4:22). In order to identify your old nature (your old way of thinking) and begin to think in a new way, let’s look at a few scriptures together. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Think of it this way: We find ourselves sometimes praying, “Lord, please give us this gift, give us that blessing, give us this revelation, and give us this ability,” and God is saying, “Wake up, it’s already in you!” It’s kind of like we are saying, “God, send us the download,” and He’s saying, “You already got the download, just open the file!” Once you “open the file” (acknowledge what you have already been given), then you will find everything in it that you need. When you begin to recognize what you already have, then you’ll stop praying for it. The Mind of a Zebra I often ask people if they have ever seen someone riding a zebra. The answer is usually no. The reason behind this is very important. While a zebra looks like a horse, the two are very different. A wild horse can be captured and an experienced rider can “break” that horse. Breaking a horse is a matter of breaking its will so that it will submit to being ridden. When the rider gets on the back of the wild horse, its instinct is to try to buck off the rider immediately. After a while, the horse surrenders and submits itself to the rider. A broken horse is now a servant to man and not just an uncontrollable, wild beast. Zebras may look like horses but they are not the same. A zebra cannot be broken. A zebra will never submit to a rider, but will buck and buck until it drops dead. You can’t break a zebra and you cannot make the carnal mind yield or submit to God’s Word. What you can do is switch over to the spirit mind instead. You could try to ride the zebra of your carnal mind for the rest of your life, but it will never submit to functioning in obedience to God’s Word or to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Maybe this word picture will help the next time you’re in a situation where you need to disengage your carnal mind and walk in your spirit mind instead: Get off of the zebra. Get on the horse. What is Spiritual Warfare, Really? All of the issues and difficulties we have in trying to walk in the Spirit-filled life are related to the lack of control we have over our carnal mind. Take fear for example. God did not give you the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). All of these wonderful things exist in the mind of Christ, the mind of the new man and not in the carnal mind. Could it be that we are not winning these spiritual battles because we’re doing it all wrong? Because really, if we were doing it the right way, shouldn’t we have succeeded by now? Have you ever wondered how much good our spiritual warfare is actually doing? Some of us have been wrestling against the same problems for several years and are yet to overcome them. I want you to look with me at the Scriptures concerning the fight, war, and the conflict that we have in this world—the fight that we face against our enemy, the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. ​— ​Ephesians 6:12 ESV We wrestle not against flesh and blood. However, we do wrestle. So what is it that we do wrestle against? “. . . but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” It is plainly expressed here that our wrestling match is not one of flesh against flesh, but our wrestling opponent is a spirit. And if we are to effectively fight against this spirit, we need to learn how to fight from the spirit and in the spirit. For far too long people have misunderstood what spiritual warfare actually looks like. Let’s find out what it’s really all about by looking at 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 (NKJV): “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” This passage tells the believer that we do have weapons and we do have warfare, but it says the weapons of our warfare are not natural or carnal, but they’re mighty through God. So, we know we have an enemy. We know we have weapons and we know we are engaged in warfare. That is all very plain, isn’t it? We are all going to have to fight the devil, and fortunately for us, our weapons are mighty. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? We are also told our weapons are so mighty that they can pull down strongholds. That sounds great, doesn’t it? So, with all of that in mind, now you can begin to see yourself armed with these awesome weapons, and with them you can slice and dice devils right and left. That’s how we typically interpret these words, right? But listen again to what it really says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they’re mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” And what are these strongholds that we’re pulling down? Imaginations. What? The weapons we have are designed not to destroy demons, but to destroy imaginations? Do you mean the imaginations that are in our natural mind? Let’s continue on and see what else these weapons can powerfully accomplish through our warfare. “. . . and every high thing that exalts itself above the knowledge of God.” These mighty weapons destroy the strongholds of a type of knowledge which places itself above the knowledge of God. That’s the kind of knowledge that’s in your head. This knowledge is the kind that has been placed there by man’s teaching that goes contrary to God’s, and by the lying suggestions of your enemy—the devil. Teachings such as “man evolved from the ape”—that false knowledge is taught in schools as a fact and as a scientific truth. But that kind of knowledge stands in opposition to God’s knowledge, as expressed in His Word. The knowledge that is found in God’s Word tells us that God created man in His image and likeness. God is certainly not an ape! Man often places his own knowledge over God’s, but only one can be true. Well, these mighty weapons of warfare that have been given to us are for the purpose of casting down all of that false knowledge which has been implanted through false teaching and now resides in your natural (carnal) mind. Let’s go a little further in this verse and see what else these “mighty weapons” are capable of doing. “Bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ.” Once again, these weapons are battling against and taking captive thoughts. And where do these thoughts reside? They reside in the carnal mind, the mind of the old man, and the mind of the flesh. The big wrestling match that you are facing is in your head, and we need to learn how to step out of the arena of the carnal mind because that’s where the devil fights his battles with you. Instead of fighting against a malevolent spirit with the weaknesses of the natural mind, we need to learn to step into the mind of Christ, where the enemy has no power due to the fact that in Christ, you have been given the ultimate authority over your enemy. When you put on the mind of Christ, there’s no longer any fight. The fight is over because in Christ, you are already the victor. In the mind of the spirit, (the mind of the new man), you are already an overcomer and your enemy has no power. In fact, he’s been put under your feet. Godlike Faith Have you ever wondered what kind of faith God has? Is it like our faith? It’s not like our faith at all. But we can have Godlike faith. In Mark 11:22 (NKJV) Jesus said, “Have faith in God.” Upon closer examination of this verse, some scholars note that it could more accurately be rendered, “Have the faith of God.” In fact, some modern versions such as the Young’s Literal Translation and the Douay-Rheims Bible render it that way: “faith of God.” God has His own brand of faith and I don’t want a knock-off. I want the kind He has. Don’t you? I want you to consider something right now. God has never had a new thought. Think about that for a minute. You and I have a creative process with our thoughts. That process has a beginning and an end. It takes time. God has no such process. He has all knowledge immediately. It is not hinged on time, and no process is necessary. Sometimes we think about our Creator and we picture God as if He was just like us. In reality, He’s quite a bit different than we are in the way He thinks and operates. We picture Him as someone who, perhaps in eternity-past, was just sitting all alone in this place of emptiness and one day said to Himself, “Hmm, what should I create? Perhaps I’ll create . . . Umm, let’s see. Some planets! Yeah, that’s it! And I’ll put some people on them, and animals and trees. That’s a great idea. That’s what I’ll do!” Nothing like that ever happened because everything that has ever come to God’s mind has always been in God’s mind. Nothing has ever been a new thought to Him. He has known everything from the beginning. There is no process that His mind needs to work through. It’s all simply knowledge to Him. He knows what’s going to happen a million years from now and He knows what happened a million years ago. It’s all the same to Him. He stands outside of time and everything in His mind is simply truth. Knowledge. Fact. When you learn to operate from the mind of the Spirit, you don’t need to learn everything. You just need to know what the facts are according to God’s Word. If we could accept God’s Word as fact, then it would not be necessary for us to try to believe or have faith for it. I have been taught that there are radio waves in the air right in front of me, even though I cannot see them or sense them. I don’t try to believe in them. I simply accept them as facts based on my trust in the word of scientists who have fully researched the subject and proven it. I didn’t do the research myself. I just accepted their word for it. When I first learned about radio waves, I didn’t have to try to believe for it, I just counted it as a fact. So why do we have to try to believe God’s Word? Why can’t we just count it as fact based on the reliability of the one who said it? Real faith (God’s faith) is not a matter of a process. It is a full acceptance of what God has said as being an absolute fact. Childlike Faith The Bible talks about something that is called “childlike faith” and it can be found in Luke chapter 18. This is a kind of faith that is powerful and effective. It is pure and doesn’t have any doubt mixed in. This is the kind of faith that can receive the things of the kingdom. So, what does the faith of a child look like? It looks like this: A parent tells his child that there is a fat man in a red suit who flies around in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer. He also goes on to say that once a year, this man carries a bag big enough to deliver gifts to every child in the whole world and he is able to accomplish this task in one night. The child believes it without question. Why? Because the child looks up to their parent and trusts that they know what they’re talking about. They believe that their parents’ words are trustworthy. They believe this outrageous story without needing to have explained to them any of the obvious problems and impossibilities, such as the lack of aerodynamics of the sleigh, the lack of thrust of the reindeer, or the impractical immensity and weight of a bag large enough to carry toys for every child on earth. The child requires no explanation. The fact that it was told to them by their parent is all the proof they need in order to believe. In this analogy, there is an obvious problem. Parents can be wrong and parents can lie. Later in life, the child learns of the fallibility of their parent and then begins to ask questions rather than blindly believing everything their parent says. However, this shouldn’t be the problem that we have with believing what our Heavenly Father says to us in His Word. It shouldn’t pose a problem because, unlike a human parent, God the Father has never lied and has never been wrong. The Father wants us to believe His Word like a little child would. We believe what He says without need of explanation because we have complete confidence in the One who said it. This is childlike faith. It is pure, unwavering, and incredibly powerful. I met a Seventh Day Adventist once named Josephine. Josephine preferred I not lay hands on her. Because I had faith that God could heal her regardless of whether or not I touched her, I shrugged and said, “He will still heal you.” Josephine had pain in her shoulder due to a slipped disc in her neck. Her pain at the time I met her was about a five. I told her I would use a shadow to pray for her and that God was going to remove the pain. I stated it as fact because it was a fact. I spoke to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and vertebrae to move back into the correct place. I commanded that the pain leave at that moment. When I was finished, I asked Josephine to test out her neck and shoulder. “What did you do to me?” she asked. “The pain is gone.” “What do you think about that?” I asked her. “Is it psychological?” she asked me, trying to logically deduce how the pain had left her body. “No,” I replied. “Josephine, Jesus told the apostles they’d do greater works than He did. You don’t know it yet, but since you have Jesus in you, you could do this too. All that is required is faith.” The natural mind has issues with believing God’s Word. This is because it has a hard time accepting as fact things that it cannot see or sense. It has a problem with the things that have been declared to be true in God’s Word when they cannot be seen or sensed by the natural senses. Just like the radio waves, whether you believe it or not, God is real, alive, and present. And His Word is true. Here’s the difference between trying to believe the things of God with the carnal mind and actually believing them with the mind of the spirit. When you work out of the spirit mind, you don’t have to wrestle with things such as, “Oh, how does that work? Let me get a full understanding of how that works. Let me decide how that can be possible. I mean really, how can that possibly happen?” When we think in this way with the carnal mind rather than the mind of the Spirit, we find ourselves getting stuck in the quagmire of trying to figure stuff out before we can accept, receive, or believe it. That just isn’t the way it works for God—He just knows. Can you imagine this kind of faith, where you begin operating in the mind of Christ and that mind completely agrees with the Word of God? The mind of Christ has no argument or disagreement with the Word of God whatsoever. Rather, it is complete and unquestioning agreement with God’s Word because the mind of Christ understands that the Word of God is simply fact and not theory. It is not opinion or wishful thinking. It is just unquestionable fact. Can you imagine if you operated out of that mindset? Imagine that you could just look at the Word of God and say, “Oh, the Word says this. It’s just fact and there’s no process necessary. I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to think about it.” It’s as if you had a math test and all of the answers after the equal sign were already filled in and you didn’t have to work through them. You just read the equation out loud, “Two plus two equals four. There it is. That’s settled.” That’s what it looks like when you are operating in pure faith. Godlike faith. Pure faith is simply operating from the mind of Christ that is already in complete agreement with the Word of God. 7 The Key of Calling In 2 Corinthians 9:8 (NLT) the Bible says, ”And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” I would call healing people a good work. I would call delivering people a good work. God’s Word says that we have already received everything we need to abound in every good work. But first, we must believe that not only is this calling ours, but that this calling is possible. You Have Been Called Jesus preached the truth, but He wasn’t the only one who came claiming to be the Messiah. Why would people believe Him over others who preached different “truths”? Because Jesus was able to back up His words with actions—miracles, signs, and wonders. Here’s what Jesus said about miraculous works: ”But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10:38 NIV). The gospel that we are supposed to declare will not be believed by many if our gospel is simply words. As Jesus demonstrated, the words should be accompanied by the demonstration of God’s power. Some are called to be apostles, some are called to be pastors, some teachers, and others are called to be evangelists. But all are called to be ambassadors who have been authorized to carry God’s power wherever they go. His kingdom is not just demonstrated in words, but in signs and wonders as well. Here’s what Paul had to say on this subject: “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4 NIV). We may not share in a specific calling such as teaching or evangelism as being the primary gifting and anointing God has for us, but we all share the calling to be disciples. And this is how a disciple demonstrates the validity of God’s Word: “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it” (Mark 16:20 NIV). So, who is called to perform these types of signs and wonders? You are! We are all called to do good works in the name of Jesus. A New Creation in Christ You may say, “I’ve done some really bad things in my life. I’ve ruined my ministry. I can’t be used now.” But this is not biblical. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ​— ​2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV When we were born-again from above, we became a new creation. In fact, if you look up the word for “new creation” found in 2 Corinthians 5:17, you will find that it is the Greek word, ktisis, which is translated as “creation.” It literally means, “A new creature, always of divine work.” Did you hear that? We became a new creature—a different type of creature than we had ever been before! You may again argue that the unfortunate sins holding you back from doing good works are sins that you committed after salvation. But you’re talking about your flesh—a flesh that can be forgiven by leaning into the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, man was originally made in the image and likeness of God, but then man fell. When man failed to keep God’s commandment, that perfect and glorious image which he had been given became tarnished. Its glory was damaged. But that all changes when we are joined to Christ. When we repent from our old life of sin and disobedience, turn to Christ, and invite Him to make His home in our heart, that image of fallen man is restored. We experience a wonderful transformation. We don’t simply become a better person, but a different person. We become brand new! When He restores that image we were originally designed to carry, the old man passes away and a new man rises up to take his place. You are not “too far gone” to be of use in the kingdom because the power of the living God is within you. His mind is within you. His heart is within you. This is who you truly are—God’s redeemed child. Through the power of God, the sins of the flesh vanish when we repent. This miraculous transformational power of God’s Holy Spirit instantaneously makes us a new creation, a new man. The new creation is the kind of creation that carries the same spiritual DNA as our Heavenly Father. This new creation is no longer like that of the old, fallen man, but in fact, is divine in origin. We who were once sinners separated from God have now become sons and daughters of God. God’s Own Heart Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. ​— ​1 Peter 1:2-4 NKJV This verse tells us that we are “partakers of His divine nature.” That means that instead of having the nature of fallen man, we have the nature of our divine Father. This new man has new desires. This new man has a new heart. Without having God’s divine nature, I would have never been able to minister to a pair of friends I met at a skate park—both named David! The first David I spoke to told me he had severe pain in his left ankle that was at about a level eight. Instead of touching his ankle, I placed my hand above it, casting a shadow over the area that hurt. When I finished, I asked him to look for the pain. “It’s totally gone,” he said. “What do you think about that?” I asked. “My mind is blown,” he said. Judging from the astounded look on his face, I believed him! After praying for his ankle, I prayed for his kneecap too. Of course God healed that as well. David hopped back on his skateboard and raced away. His friend, the other David, had been watching the whole time. “Hey, I’ve got pain too.” After praying for his ankle, he actually took his foot in his own hand and bent it every direction. He laughed. “Man, it’s gone!” Believe it or not, a third skater came up to us and lifted his pant leg. “Can you heal this?” he asked. “Yes,” I told him. “God will heal you.” This third guy’s name was Elijah—what a great name! Elijah had a busted kneecap. I prayed for him and then asked him how he felt. “I don’t know,” he said, eyes closed as he tested his knee for pain. “It sort of feels peaceful.” “Be really honest,” I told him. Elijah gave it the ultimate test—popping a few tricks on his skateboard. “It’s fine now,” he said. “No pain?” “No pain, lots of gain,” he said and skated off. I went on to pray for several more of their friends that day. This is all made possible by me having God’s divine nature living right on the inside of me. The Bible says you have it too! The Bible says that in these last days, God will take out our heart of stone and give us a new heart. In Ezekiel 11:19 (NIV) the Bible says, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” We have a new heart—a heart after, or like, God’s heart. It’s a heart that loves the things that God loves and hates the things that God hates. We must begin to embrace the reality that we are made in the image and likeness of our Heavenly Father. To say otherwise is to call God a liar. What You Are Made to Do Two questions that have plagued philosophers for thousands of years are these: What is the meaning of life? and What is the key to true happiness? The key to happiness cannot be found in this world because it is not from this world. The key to happiness is found when we become who God created us to be, which includes doing the things that God has called us to do. You will never find happiness or fulfillment in life until you are doing the things you were made to do. Let me give you this analogy. Suppose you take a racehorse and you harness him up to a plow and force him to pull the plow. It’s a lot of work for him because he was not bred for that kind of work. He may be able to do it, but it’s very hard labor and a real struggle for him. Another thing that will soon become apparent is that the racehorse doesn’t particularly enjoy the work—he wasn’t bred to pull a plow, he was bred to run fast. Now suppose you take a plow horse and put him on a race track and try to make him run as fast as he can. This will be a challenge for him because he wasn’t bred to run fast, he was bred to pull a plow. On the other hand, let’s talk about that racehorse again. If you take the racehorse and you put him on a track and you make him run all out, do you know what you will discover? Though he is covered with sweat and has expended a lot of energy, he loves to run fast. He loves to run because that is what he was made for. It suits him, and he can’t wait to get out on the track and run like the wind. This principle also applies to the new man. It applies to the sons and daughters of God. The new man is made to be like God. You were made to carry out God’s plan in this world. You were made to carry out God’s will. Only when you are doing what you were made to do will you find true fulfillment, purpose, and happiness. When you continue to live the carnal life of the old man, it is impossible to find peace and satisfaction. You don’t put new wine into old wineskins or they will burst. When you try to live the old man’s life through the new creation reality, you will be struggling against your new nature. Pain and disappointment will be your reward. Many of us only remember our past. We remember the person we were before we got saved and we think, “The old me only likes this or only likes that.” But when you pursue those things, you find out they no longer satisfy you. This is because your heart has been changed—you have been rewired. The things you used to desire in the past are no longer able to satisfy you. Now that you have been made a new creation, things that you wouldn’t have even considered doing before are actually the things that get you excited. What kind of things? Things like going out and praying for people, witnessing to people, doing the good works that Christ demonstrated and told us that we would do also. The New Ways of the New Man Those scary, foreign, and strange activities that you are sure God has called someone else to do will actually bring you an amazing degree of joy, excitement, and passion for the things of God. The new you is made for these things, and if you will resist the mind of the flesh which is controlled by the old man, you will discover that you can thrive in doing the good works you were called to do. When you are doing what you were made to do, fulfillment is your constant companion. You might be saying to yourself right now, “I don’t think doing those scary, radical, and extreme things will really make me happy.” That’s your problem. You’re “thinking” again. The new man is led by the Spirit, not by the natural, carnal mind. Go ahead, give it a try! You will never know if what I am saying is true until you have actually tried it for yourself. I take people out all the time who say, “I don’t know if I can approach people. I don’t know if I can pray for people.” Let me share a story with you that speaks to those doubts. I take people out to train in marketplace ministry every week, but on this particular day, I took a skeptic with me. Often, I take trainees to a bus depot nearby because there are so many people there who have nothing to do but wait. It is easy to begin a conversation with the idle! I suspect my skeptic friend felt that spending his day at a bus depot praying for people did not sound wildly entertaining. Boy, was he wrong! We approached a young man named Brandon, and I asked him if he had any pain in his body. He said, “Yes, I always have pain.” Then he told us his story. Brandon had been born with an unusual birth defect called lumbar vertebra defect. He explained to us that this meant he was born with an extra vertebra in his spine, causing great pain. In fact, he told us that he had never experienced a single day in his life without pain. I informed Brandon that we would pray for him and that God would heal him—removing all pain. This of course sounded impossible, but he knew he had nothing to lose. I instructed my skeptical friend to put his hand on Brandon’s back and to repeat the words I spoke to him. He complied and did exactly as I instructed him, then removed his hand. I then asked Brandon to move about and search for the pain. Brandon began to bend and twist and had a puzzled expression on his face. I asked, “Is there any pain”? He said, “No!” Then I asked, “Is this the first time in your whole life that you have ever experienced having no pain?” He said, “Yes!” I then asked him if he knew why that happened, and he said he did not. So I told him it was because God loved him and wanted to be part of his life, and then we continued to talk to him about salvation in Jesus Christ. As for my skeptical friend? He was no longer a skeptic! In fact, he continued to accompany me on many trips to the bus depot after his interaction with Brandon. He had no idea how much he would enjoy performing the miraculous works of Christ until he tried it for himself. My formerly skeptical friend is not the only one. I’ve taken many doubters or hesitant people out to pray for others. I don’t listen to their initial protests anymore, because I have been through it so many times before. I realize that before they go out, they just don’t know what they don’t know. After they go out and experience these things, they often turn to me and say something like, “Wow! I never realized what I have this whole time! This is fun. This is exciting. This is fulfilling.” And that is when they begin to realize what they were made to do. The new man is made to do the good works of God that Jesus modeled to His apostles. The new man is made to minister to others. He is made to reach out to the lost and the hurting, and to demonstrate the love of the Father to them. That’s what the new man is made for. That’s the way that Jesus reaches people today—through average believers like you and me. When you start doing what you’re made to do, you find fulfillment and happiness. Watch out, because you just may get hooked! Who Am I Called to Heal? It’s much harder to see anyone healed without compassion. Do I mean that you have to have a warm feeling in your heart for the person that you’re praying for? No. Do I mean that you have to experience a certain emotion for the person you’re praying for? No. I mean that if you don’t have compassion for other human beings, you will stay at home and do nothing. Compassion gets you moving! It is a wonderful honor to lead someone into relationship with Jesus. Regardless of everything else you’ve accomplished in ministry, introducing someone to the Savior is the ultimate highlight. As you watch my videos on YouTube, you’ll notice that often the people that I’m praying for are surprised at the results. In fact, they are often in shock! I love to see the surprised look on their face because that’s what tells me that they weren’t expecting it. If they weren’t expecting it, then it cannot be a matter of their mind simply believing something. That is to say, it cannot be the power of suggestion at work. I’ve actually prayed for people that said they don’t believe in Jesus or healing, and much to their amazement, they were healed anyway. People ask me the question: “Can you pray for somebody who says they don’t believe?” Absolutely! God shows Himself powerfully so that the unbelieving will realize who He is. There is an erroneous teaching out there which has been taught for years. It says, “If the person you are praying for has any doubt, the healing won’t occur.” That is patently false! That teaching is taught by those who have provided themselves a way to escape when things don’t work out. For example, they will pray in faith for someone to be healed, and when nothing happens, they say, “That’s because you didn’t have enough faith!” Jesus never did that, so I never do that. I have prayed for atheists who have challenged me, telling me that nothing would happen, and still, they have been healed. I don’t need their faith to help me because mine alone is enough. It doesn’t matter who has faith in any healing as long as there is at least one who has faith.