About 10 years ago I came across a man called John G Lake. He was a healing evangelist who got such dramatic results that the City of Spokane, Washington declared its self the

John G Lake: Click to go to his ministry site

I heard about Lake through testimonies given by a couple of ministers I knew in America. They would tell such fantastic stories of miraculous healing, which made me want to find out as much as I could about how he did it. For a while, I couldn’t find anything! I asked many people, but no one had even heard about him. Finally I bought a book on-line from a ministry in the States. In due course the book arrived. At the time I was working in door to door sales for Sky Digital. One day it started to rain so much, I had to run for my car. I sat for a while till I realised that is wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. As I was quite a way from home, I decided to sit it out in my car; thankfully, I had brought my John G Lake book with me.

As I read his sermons and his life story, I was utterly overwhelmed. Really, I do not exaggerate. The power of his preaching and the testimony of how God had used him in Africa and the US, gripped me so forcibly that I was shaking with excitement. I was praying for the rain to continue. I had been working in the area of deliverance for some time and saw some wonderful things as Christ set the captives free. But this was power and authority on a whole other level. It increased my faith and changed the way I approached sickness, disease and demonic oppression from then on. My results increased along with my boldness. But there was something missing.

Three or four years passed. For some reason, I picked up Lakes book again, this time I wanted to find out what I’d missed, so, I also started to research Lake on the internet, which is where I came across Curry Blake. Curry’s site was quite sparse at the time, I didn’t get much help at first. So I e-mailed him. Curry was

Curry Blake: General Overseer, John G Lake Ministries

This article could go on too long so I’ll try and get to the point of why I’m telling you this. Curry’s teaching always begins by knocking over some sacred cows. Traditions we have held over the years that have been responsible for making the word of God of no effect. When I started to understand this, it changed practically everything I had learned about healing. I’m only going to cover one of these “sacred cows” in this article; however, I believe it to be one of the most damaging traditions in the church.

It usually comes in a statement like this, “My job is to pray for the sick, but the sick person must have faith in Jesus Christ if they want to see results” Even worse still, “if the person doesn’t recover, there’s nothing I can do, that’s up to God’s will.” Let’s take a look at scripture and we’ll see if this is correct.

Mat 4:23-24 “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.” (Emphasis Mine) KJV Throughout.  Those last 4 words says it all, but there’s more…

Mat 8:16 “When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick.”  But there’s more…

Mat 12:15 “But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all…” One more…

Mat 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”

Question: Jesus healed “multitudes” probably crowds of multiple thousands, if you take the feeding of the 5,000 as an example of a multitude. Did they all have faith in Jesus? Let me quote from one of Curry Blake’s articles on the subject of having faith for others.

"It is generally believed and taught that each person needing healing must have their own faith for their own healing, but let's look at what the Bible reveals.

There is no mention of the Roman Centurion's servant having any faith for healing, as a matter of fact, all attention is put on authority. The Roman Centurion said he knew Jesus could heal because he understood authority. Jesus said that the man had the greatest faith he had ever found. So one aspect of the greatest faith is to understand authority. It is very clear that the Roman Centurion had faith for his servant.

The Syrophonecian woman came to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. There is no indication in Scripture that the daughter had any faith for her deliverance. Jesus said that the woman had great faith and that because of her great faith her daughter was healed. The woman had faith for her daughter.

 Four men were carrying their paralytic friend on a stretcher to Jesus, the Scriptures state that Jesus saw "their" faith. The grammatical structure of the Scripture proves that the "their" Jesus referred to was the four men, not the man being carried. The four men had faith for the paralytic.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead - whose faith was it that did the raising? Who had faith for Lazarus? It wasn't Lazarus. Jesus had faith for Lazarus.

When Peter healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate there was no mention of the man having faith for healing. Peter said "What I have I give you. IN THE NAME OF JESUS. (That is what Peter had.) Rise up and walk." Peter gave an authoritative command. He took the man by the hand and lifted him and the man was healed. Later Peter gave the secret to healing when he said," It was the Name of Jesus that made this man whole and faith in that Name. Who had faith in that Name? It was Peter. Peter had faith for the man's healing. 

Now as to the question "Does a person have to have their own faith for their own healing? The answer FROM THE BIBLE, obviously is NO. But let me add...

Should a person have their own faith for their own healing? Sure. That is a good thing. One reason is because if you do not have your own faith for your own healing, you will always be at the "mercy" of someone else. You will always be relying on someone else's faith, and you can never be sure that they are where they should be in relation to having faith in God for you.

Besides, if you do not have your own faith for your own healing, how are you going to be ready to have faith for someone else's healing? Christians must stop being spiritual hitchhikers and start to have their own faith, not only for themselves but for the others that need help.

Secondly, why would you need someone to lay hands on you or minister to you if it is your faith that is going to do the job?

In James 5:14-15 it clearly shows that the ONLY responsibility the sick person has is to CALL FOR THE ELDERS. That is the extent of the sick persons "faith". Once the elders get there, the responsibility becomes theirs to pray the prayer of faith. Now if they are going to pray the prayer of faith, who is supposed to be having the faith. If you don't have faith, how can you pray the prayer of faith? Notice it does not say that the person's faith will heal the sick. It says that the prayer of faith (prayed by the elders) SHALL SAVE (HEAL) THE SICK. This verse also proves that if the sick person has sin in their life, IT WILL NOT STOP THE FAITH OF THE ELDERS NOR THE POWER OF GOD. The person will be forgiven and healed. (More on this topic later.)

The teaching that each person has to have their own faith was originally thought up by the devil, then passed on to preachers that could not produce the power of God, so they had to have a "Spiritual" reason why the sick person was not healed, and since they could not take the blame or people would lose faith in them, they turned it on the people and blamed them, for not having faith.

But when a minister lays hands on someone and they get healed, see how fast the minister takes credit for having the faith that healed them.

When Jesus saw faith in a person, He commended it, when He didn’t; He merely had faith for them and fixed their problem. The only people Jesus ever "blasted" for not having faith was His own disciples and other religious hypocrites.

When Jesus "blasted" His disciples it wasn't because they did not have faith to get healed, it was because they did not have faith to heal others.

Some would say, “But what about the Scripture that says that Paul saw that the man had faith to be healed, so Paul healed him?"  The Scripture where Paul recognized faith in the man and the Scripture where Peter just healed a man without any faith on the man's part proves my point -

If a person has faith, wonderful, if a person doesn't, you have faith for them.” (Curry Blake, John G Lake Ministries http://www.jglm2.atomicshops.com/jglmqanda.html#45100)

If we can grasp what scripture is saying instead of making excuses, we could be seeing tremendous power and authority in the Body of Christ once again! Please believe me, there is a very good reason why the church isn’t moving in power, we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. After all what is the new birth about? The old man dies the new in Christ, lives. Jesus said the things your see me do you do also…, why? Because we are sons of the Most high God, just like Jesus is! We are not powerless men and women any more. Christ would not have told us we could so the same things he did, if it wasn’t true.

I have JGLM’s healing manual and will be teaching people who are serious about walking in the reality of the ministry of Jesus Christ. This is all about Him, we do not give any man the glory for this, this is real Jesus Christ being ministered to real people with total confidence in the Jesus of the bible.

Neither John G Lake nor Curry Blake have, or had, any “special” anointing, they simply understood what the new birth was and how it empowers the believer to do the things they see Jesus doing in his word. Curry is passionate about one thing, getting this information to as many people he can.

I intend to help him do this in Scotland. Contact me if you want to find out more.

Gordon McGill: Revival Scotland