The "How" of Divine Healing - Part 3

Praise can feel like the last thing we have energy for when the body hurts and the mind is spiraling, but we’ve learned it can also be one of the strongest biblical strategies for divine healing. We wrap up our How of Divine Healing series by focusing on three clear avenues: healing through praise and worship, healing through the power of agreement in prayer, and healing that comes from believing and acting on God’s Word. If you’re searching for Christian healing teaching that’s practical, scripture-rooted, and honest about the fight, this conversation is for you.

We dig into what worship actually does when you “fix your eyes” on what’s unseen, and we share a powerful historical story from Dr. Lillian B. Yeomans, the Canadian physician who called it the “praise cure.” Her example, along with the testimony of a missionary who chose singing and praise in the middle of a terrifying diagnosis, highlights a counterintuitive truth: praise isn’t pretending the problem isn’t real, it’s refusing to let the problem be central. We also talk through what persistence looks like, including a real-life practice we use, an improvised Jericho march with Psalms read out loud when symptoms are shouting for us to quit.

From there, we shift to the prayer of agreement (Matthew 18:19–20), why unity matters in the body of Christ, and why the power is in the name of Jesus, not simply in human effort. We close with the discipline of treating Scripture like medicine: reading, meditating, speaking God’s promises, and becoming doers of the Word, including the challenging but freeing instructions of Isaiah 58. We also end with an invitation to pray and respond.

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Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Show

Lynne 0:00

You are listening to Higher Realm with Lynne Little. Our program highlights biblical strategies for moving through life's difficulties and finding your path to healing. We tackle issues particular to those who have experienced painful loss in any form. Lynne is the founder and president of Lynne Little Ministries and the author of Missing Lisa, A Parent Grieves, and Finding God in Death and Life, A Passage Through Grief. Now, here's Lynne.

Final Healing Paths In The Series

Lynne 0:32

Hello and welcome to the final episode of the "How" of Divine Healing. In the last several episodes, we discussed six different paths to healing, including praying for God to reveal our personal path to healing, settling any doubts to believing that God wants us well, asking the elders of the church to pray over us, attending healing services, taking communion, receiving healing through personal faith, and employing spiritual warfare. Today we will discuss three more healing avenues: healing through praise and worship, utilizing the power of agreement for healing, and attaining healing through believing and acting on God's word.

Why Praise And Worship Heals

Lynne 1:28

One extremely effective tool in divine healing is the use of praise and worship. Through worship, we demonstrate our trust in God's faithfulness to his word. We transcend our physical limitations by refocusing our attention, as 2 Corinthians 4:18 admonishes us. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." And finally, we're serving notice to the kingdom of darkness that we will not be bound by our present circumstance.

Dr Yeomans And The Praise Cure

Lynne 2:17

Of the many proponents of divine healing throughout the ages, one person stands out as testament to divine healing through praise. She, in fact, coined a phrase for it, calling it "the praise cure." This person, a Canadian physician by the name of Dr. Lillian B. Yeomans, became a champion of divine healing after she was miraculously delivered from a particularly pernicious drug addiction. She spent the rest of her life in evangelistic work and helping others to receive healing through the application of spiritual principles. She, along with her sister, operated a home for those deemed incurable by modern medicine. Their work was notable for its rate of success. She also authored a number of books and articles on divine healing and taught these principles under the ministry of Amy Semple McPherson. In describing the praise cure in an article of the same title, Yeomans recounted a conversation regarding a cure that a friend of hers undertook in order to try and get well. Keep in mind the article is from the late 1800s, so the language is somewhat dated. I quote, "Well, to begin with, I had to go to Austria for it, for only there is a certain kind of mineral water to be found, which my doctor says my constitution needs. It is horribly nasty, tastes like sulfur matches, and rotten eggs would taste to judge by the smell." She then went on to describe a Spartan experience with limited food, enforced marches to the mineral spring, holding her nose to drink several cups of the healing waters, the exorbitant cost, and making all of this effort to no effect. Yeomans continues. "That's one kind of a cure, and there have been and are many others, such as the grape cure, where patients are allowed to eat all the ripe grapes they can get, but nothing else of any kind, the barefoot cure, where they go barefoot, the hot mud cure, no, they didn't have to eat it, only wallow in it, and etc., etc. Now I am far from saying that nothing is accomplished by these and other methods, but I do say that the cure of which I'm going to speak is the only sure cure. It is the most expensive one ever known, but the price was paid for by another. It was purchased, not with the corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, according to 1 Peter 1:19." She continues, "and the poorest may enjoy its fullest benefits. I call it the praise cure, because it is most readily applied by simply singing yourself into it. As Psalm 104 states, "enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name." Do you know you can sing yourself and shout yourself into and through things that you can't get into or through in any other way? There was a missionary to China staying at Miss Carrie Judd Montgomery's Beulah Heights in Oakland, California. She had the most wonderful healing of smallpox while on the mission field by the application of the praise cure. She fearlessly had nursed a sister missionary who had the disease, though she had not been vaccinated, standing on God's promise that no plague would come nigh her dwelling. Then, a very bad case of confluent smallpox, which was what it looked like to the doctors, came out and on her, and she did not know what to do. So she asked the Lord, and he told her to sing and praise him for his faithfulness to his word. They isolated her and told her to lie quiet. But she said if she didn't praise God, the very stones would cry out. So she sang and sang and praised and praised. The doctor said he feared for her life, that the case was serious and awful complications threatened. But she praised and praised and sang and sang. He said she was evidently delirious, but that he had so little help that he couldn't restrain her. So she sang and sang and praised and praised. They told her that if by any chance she recovered, she would be disfigured for life. And so she sang and praised louder than ever. They said, Why are you praising so much? She answered, Because I have so many pox on me, I must praise God for each one separately. And so she kept at it. The Lord had shown her a vision of two baskets, one containing her praising, half full, and the other, which was her testing, full. He told her that the praise basket must be filled so that it would over-balance the other. So she kept at it. Her songs and shouts were so spirit-filled that they were contagious, and the Christian nurses couldn't resist joining in. So they kept the place ringing. At last, the Lord showed her that the praise basket was full and overflowing. She saw it sink and the testing basket rise in the air, and in a moment, the eruptions and all the attendant symptoms vanished, leaving no trace in the way of so much as a single scar."

Jericho Marching Through Symptoms

Lynne 9:19

When a person spends time in the presence of God, nothing evil can stay. And the praise cure has worked multiple times in my life. I can bear witness to the many afflictions, including flus, colds, diverticular disease, IBS, fevers, pneumonia, a shoulder injury, chronic back pain, ocular migraines, that simply left as I was praising the Lord. It is my weapon of choice. At the very first symptom, my reaction is to praise the Lord, not for the affliction, but in the affliction. The word backs this when it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "in everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." My favorite method is an improvised "Jericho march." I find the longest hallway and, with the Psalms in hand, walk up and down reading aloud, sometimes shouting, sometimes singing, the praises found within. I do this fighting nausea, headaches, body aches, weakness, pain, fever, every lying symptom screaming at me to lie down and accept it. I just refuse. And the battle of the enemy's cruel words of hopelessness, disparagement, and dire prognostications must be fought and won as well. Honestly, sometimes it takes a good while to get free, but it is very much worth the effort. A few hours of persistence to stop illness in its tracks— before it takes up an entire day or week or month or year — is worth it. And in consistency lies the key. The healing is not long in coming, simply because the focus is entirely on the Lord. He graciously comes in with such a lovely presence and in such glory that on occasion I can hardly keep on my feet. This is reminiscent of what occurred in Solomon's dedication of the temple. In 2 Chronicles 5: 13 through 14. "It came even to pass as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord. And when they'd lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endures forever. That then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God." This is what happens because God inhabits our praises. Praise is the Godly shortcut to getting our needs met, because it represents an absolute, adamant refusal to consider anything else other than God. No other stimuli, no thoughts, no symptoms, nothing but God. Abraham had it right. Romans 4:19 explains, "and being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what God had promised w he's able to perform." He did not spend time considering his body because he was busy considering something else. In this case, his focus was on the promise and on his Heavenly Father who gave it. For those who battle diseases that have lingered, the praise cure is an effective weapon if employed in the long term. Again, consistency is key.

Prayer Of Agreement And The Name

Lynne 14:26

Another powerful weapon against affliction is the prayer of agreement. The scriptural basis for this is found in Matthew 8: 19 through 20. "Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I with them." This signifies that with God's help victory comes, and that unity increases the power exponentially. But this is most effective to the extent that we understand that the power and agreement is in the Name. Not in one another, and not necessarily just in the act of agreement itself, but rather in agreement with the power in the name of Jesus. Receiving revelation of the benefits inherent in the name of Jesus is key to answered prayer of all types. There is a wealth of resources to assist us in gaining this understanding. One exceptional resource is the book "The Wonderful Name of Jesus" by E. W. Kenyon. But there are many more to be discovered. When we are confronted with trials, it is a great blessing to employ the help of other spirit-filled, Bible-believing brothers and sisters. The agreement is a powerful thing because God highly values unity in the body of Christ. No one should battle difficulties alone. Jesus modeled this by sending his disciples out two by two, as mentioned in Mark 6:7. Ecclesiastes 4.10 reads, "If one person falls, the other person can reach out to help. But those who are alone when they fall have no one to help them."

Treating Scripture Like Medicine

Lynne 17:00

Finally, healing can come by simply speaking and acting on the word. We can believe and act on God's word by treating scripture as medicine. Reading, listening to, and meditating on it builds faith. And faith is believing God's word over our physical circumstances. We confess healing promises by speaking aloud that we are healed by Jesus' stripes according to 1 Peter 2:24, rather than dwelling on the disease. We should definitely search the scriptures purposefully, finding verses that apply to our case, writing them down, speaking them out. The importance of reprogramming our brains through speech patterns cannot be overstated. For more insight into this topic, consult our series on the Power of Speech. For beyond the spiritual impact of staying in God's Word, there are also neurological phenomena that we can employ. Commanding our nerves, our brains, our lymphatic and circulatory systems, our organs, our blood down to the cell level to come into line with God's plan, and God's will, as reflected in his word, can never fail. The other side of this coin is to be a doer of God's word, obeying God's commands to love others and to forgive, yielding to his will for our lives, renewing our mind in the word, allowing God to work with and shape our emotions, are all reflective of our obedience. And finally, being quick to follow his instructions to help others, to reach the lost, pray for the sick, and evangelize to the extent that we can. Doing what the Bible says in James 1:22, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Isaiah 58 Obedience And Healing

Lynne 19:33

Finally, Isaiah 58: 6 through 9 offers specific if-then instructions regarding conduct for those who need healing. "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cores of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry, and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear." So remember that if you apply any number of these suggestions as the Lord leads, as you pray, He will reveal the path, and we only need to simply obey.

Salvation Prayer And Next Steps

Lynne 21:35

The greatest and most important step to obedience is to receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior and of the Savior of our lives. The word of God says "if we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead we shall be saved for the with the heart man believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Confession begins with a prayer. Would you pray with me right now and mean it? Heavenly father I believe you sent Jesus to die on the cross and pay the penalty for my sin. I believe you raised Jesus again on the third day. I know I'm a Sinner in need of a savior. So Jesus, come into my heart, forgive me of my sins and make me brand new. Today I confess you as my Lord and Savior. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, write to us, lynne little ministries @gmail.com. May God richly bless you and yours this week. Thank you so much for listening. Lynne Little Ministries is a 501c3 whose mission is to assist those who have suffered loss and to help them discover hope, peace, and restoration. For books, resources, or to make a tax deductible donation, go to lynnelittle.org.