The Power of Love in Healing

The past two Sundays we have been praying healing prayers. This week I talked about the power of love for healing.

Love Is powerful.  “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (NIV)

This is new and powerful because we are urged to love each other like Jesus loves us. It takes love to a new level and to a new dimension. This speaks directly to who you are as a person and a Christian. Loving brings health and power into your life and your love brings health and life to those around you. We struggle with all of this because we really don’t understand love. Thousands of books and songs are written on the subject of love each year. But I doubt that we truly understand it. Especially if one looks from a Biblical perspective.

What Is love? Love is not a warm emotion; it is an act of the will. Jesus commands us to love one another. It cannot be commanded if it is an uncontrollable emotion. Like the forgiveness we talked about in my blog last week, we decide to love and then carry out that decision. Love is not how we feel, it is what we do. It is described perfectly in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV). “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

There is not one emotion mentioned here. Love is not an unmanageable emotion, it is an act of the will… a decision we make and then carry out by our actions.

Love and hate are both quite powerful. They can bring life or they can take life. They can strengthen or they can weaken. Love brings faith and hate nurtures fear. The basic nature of God is love and the core of Christianity is love. Scripture speaks to these points. “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16-18 (NIV)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” Matthew 5:43-46 (NIV)

Love is the source of salvation which is the ultimate healing. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13 (NIV) “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8 (NIV)

Love or the lack of love dictates our behavior. Love is foundational to all we do and all we are as Christians. It is through love and with love that we claim all God has for us. “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV2011)

Allow me to share a story of the healing power of love. (This is an excerpt from my book, RENEW YOUR CONGREGATION, HEALING THE SICK AND RAISING THE DEAD.)

Travel back with me in time. It was almost 30 years ago. It was a Saturday night. Really it was the wee hours of Sunday morning. Five of us shared a room. We spent the night together. It was a room for one, but we all managed to squeeze in. We all knew each other. In fact, we are related...enjoy each other’s company...love each other. But not one of us really wanted to be there.

It was an expensive room. My guess is it went for about $2,000 a night. Good view of the city. Nothing else special about it. There was no pool available. No Jacuzzi. The only meals available were at a cafeteria. The room service was nonexistent. The floors weren’t carpeted. I have seen larger bathrooms on a bus. No doubt that what made the room expensive was the equipment: the monitors, IV pumps, electric multi-position bed, oxygen, vacuum pumps, and cabinets of medical supplies. The room we shared was room 466 in the intensive care unit of Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

I had received the ominous telephone call earlier that evening: “Your brother has taken a turn for the worse, and we want his family to come to the hospital.” I used to work in a hospital so I know that the “turn for the worse” line is “medicalese” for “your loved one just died, and we want you to come to the hospital so we can tell you to your face that he is dead.” So I went to the hospital without much hope.

Being hospital savvy and knowing I would be arriving in the middle of the night, I wore a tie and my clergy name badge. Instead of stopping me, the security guard in the ER showed me the way to the intensive care unit. Instead of questioning me, the nurse in intensive care directed me to Mr. McConnell’s room.

Getting there was the easy part. Surprisingly, my brother Bob was still alive when I arrived. Just barely, but alive. My sister Kae, her daughter June, and my daughter Meg, were there staring at the monitor screen. There is not much else to look at, so everyone in the room tends to stare at the monitor. And they were waiting. Waiting for me… Waiting for Bob to die… Waiting for God to do something… Waiting. I arrived, we prayed, and then I joined the waiting.

We took turns sitting in the three available chairs. We were playing a sort of musical chairs without the music. We wrapped up in blankets and complained of the cold. Individually and as a unit, we pursued the hopeless search for a comfortable position. My theory is hospital chairs are designed to be uncomfortable to make one miserable enough to go home and get out of the staff’s hair.

Nevertheless, we stayed and sought sleep, and we resisted sleep. We talked. We talked to Bob, and we talked about Bob. We talked about better days and family and how and what our children and grandchildren are doing and whatever happened to old what’s-his-name and spouses and ex-spouses and what had been and what could have been and what should have been. We stood by the bed and held Bob’s hand and looked into his tired face and listened to his labored breathing and prayed and wept and hoped against hope.

Morning came. Bob was not only still alive, but just a bit better and rallying quickly. His doctor showed up and was amazed to find him alive. The doctor didn’t quite know what to make of it. Temperature—down. Blood pressure—up. Blood oxygen—up. Lungs—clear. It was amazing. The doctor wondered aloud, “How did this happen?” We didn’t know. He held the only medical degree in the room.

I have a theory. A popular Christian song says, “In this very room there is quite enough love for one like me.” I believe in that very room in the intensive care unit of Jewish Hospital there was quite enough love for Bob. Enough love for Bob—for Bob to live through the night. For Bob to recover live for almost 25 years in North Carolina where he was close to and enjoyed life with his children and grandchildren. Ask me, and I will tell you that it is true. You can live on love. Love is powerful enough to work miracles and bring healing. My hope is that we all find a room like that very room I was blessed to spend that Saturday night in. It was a miserably marvelous room. It was a room filled to overflowing with love.

It is in rooms like that room where healing happens.

Copyright © 2015, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Bill McConnell is Senior Minister at Lindenwood Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee and is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press.

He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon