Hello Friends -
Martha Smock wrote three books regarding her struggle with cancer. You can hear Richard Billings share her story here.
So when it was one week before Christmas in 2016 when I heard from a friend that cancer had returned, I thought perhaps the words of Martha Smock might help my friend to, as she put it, "do a Myrtle."
May the words of Martha Smock be a blessing to my friend and to all who happen upon this page.
Audio
Transcript
001 You have healing power
You have healing power. Most of us do not think of ourselves as having spiritual power, as being able to heal or help ourselves or anyone else. When a need arises, we turn to someone whom we think of as spiritual, as a man of God, as a minister. If there's no one to turn to, if we find ourselves forced to meet some situation alone, are we helpless? Are we without power?
Think of how the disciples of Jesus felt when he was no longer with them. He had told them that they should do the things he did and even greater. He had told them he would be with them always. He had instructed them to ask in his name that the father might be glorified. Without the actual presence of Jesus, the disciples must've felt small and inadequate. Indeed, they must have wondered how they could carry on the great work, how they could fulfill the vision Jesus Christ had given them. They did not realize the power that was with them until they used it, invoked it, called it forth.
3:1Now Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.3:2And a certain man that was lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3:3who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked to receive an alms. 3:4And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John, said, Look on us. 3:5And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something from them. 3:6But Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. 3:7And he took him by the right hand, and raised him up: and immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received strength. 3:8And leaping up, he stood, and began to walk; and he entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. Acts 3:1-8
Peter and John spoke the word of faith and healing in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They knew that the power to heal was not in their human efforts but in God. They knew also that this power could be called forth through faith and that they were the men of faith needed at that particular moment.
002 When we pray in the power and the name of Jesus Christ
When we pray in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ, is it the mere pronouncement of the name that heals, that transforms, that blesses? No, it is what we experience when we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." When even one person prays in the name of Jesus Christ, he invokes the living presence of the loving Christ. We're not alone when we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. He is with us. His presence and power are with us. The power that is of God flows through us.
It is said that certain of the disciples were so conscious of the Christ with them, that even the shadows they cast had healing power. They did not claim the power as theirs, they did not claim personal glory for they knew as Jesus knew and had taught them, that God is the power. If you had longed for more light, for more spiritual power, for a truer realization of God's presence, invoke the power that is in you by calling it forth in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ. Do not think that you have to wait until you have more faith in order to help another or to heal another. The power is not personal power nor personal might. The power that lies in you is God power. This power is released through faith. Every time you pray, every time you look past the appearance and see God at work, you are using your faith and God acts through your faith. God needs you to say:
This can be healed, all things are possible, there is nothing incurable.
God's work is done by the faithful and the fearless. You are one of these for you are a child of God. He has put his spirit in you and he has poured out his power upon you.
003 True healing is of God
True healing must not depend on time. In a very real sense, we are renewed continually, mentally, physically and spiritually. Sometimes just to realize this truth is all we need in order to be healed and set free. We may understand that we can think new thoughts and that we can attain new spiritual insight but we may not be able to accept the idea of newness for our body. We think of it as being subject to physical laws. If we have some condition that is termed chronic, we often fail to think in terms of newness and healing of the condition. We more often pray to be able to live with it.
When Jesus healed he did not differentiate between the kinds of illnesses he healed. He healed the mind, he healed the body, he healed those who had suddenly become sick and he healed those who had been ill for years, those who had been blind from birth, crippled for years. He healed the woman with the illness of longstanding, who had the faith merely to touch the hem of his garment.
True healing is not determined by time as we know it. True healing does not depend on the nature of the disease or it's duration. True healing is not limited by the pattern that has always seemed to run true with a particular condition. True healing is of God, from God and is the return in a flash, in an instant in the eternity that is God's time to the perfection in which we were created.
004 We proclaim and affirm life
When God made man, he breathed into his nostrils and man became a living soul. God looked on his creation and saw it as good. He still looks on us and sees us as good. He does not see the illness, the hurts, the imperfections. His love sees only the perfect child of God. The creative spirit that breathed us into life in the first place is continually pouring life through us, is continually renewing us, is continually healing us if we're only aware of it.
We do have faith in life whether we know it or not. The fact that we are alive, that we live and draw breath is faith in action. With every breath we draw, with every beat of our heart, we are proclaiming life, we are affirming life, we are saying God lives in me. I live in God. What we need to get rid of to let go of entirely are our old ways of thinking that are limited, that are fearful, that are anxious, they're filled with belief in the power of disease that give power to some condition other than God. We need to get rid of our old ways of talking about ourselves and others.
Sometimes we find that a person is still talking about how he felt, how he suffered, how he was at the mercy of some disease years and years ago. We like to dramatize ourselves and our experiences. We like to command attention and sympathy of others and sometimes we attempt to do this by reminding ourselves and others continually of the things that happened to us in the past. We're creatures of habit. We do not always realize the kind of thought habits we've formed, the kind of speech habits we've formed. We need to watch our thinking and our speaking and guard against any stress on the old, the negative, the morbid, the sad.
We are living children of the living God and we can rise up in newness of life and light. We can enter into a new and vital way of life. This new and vital way of life is what we really want for it is our nature. It is our destiny as children of God to be free, to be marvelously and wonderfully alive, to be aware of the light, the power, the love of God filling us and moving through us.
005 A healing treatment
A healing treatment. All healing is spiritual. All healing comes from God. Jesus emphasized again and again that our part in healing is faith, belief, receptivity. We increase our faith, our belief, our receptivity through the practice of prayer. Prayer brings us into the presence of God. Prayer opens our entire being to the inflow of divine love, to the inrush of healing life, to the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are many ways of prayer, not method but willingness of heart and spirit is what is important in prayer. There are no set formulas for effective prayer, no rules that must be followed in order to achieve results for prayer is not a form but a force. It is the need in us to find and know the healing, the answer, the reason for our being to know ourselves in God, to know God in us.
The following healing treatment is presented for you who are seeking help in increasing your faith, your belief, your receptivity, those who are seeking to lay hold on a spiritual life force that flows freely and ceaselessly from God the father.
006 Step 1 - Relax - Be Still and Know that I am God
A healing treatment. Step one. The first thing to do is to relax. Before beginning this treatment sit quietly with your eyes closed and relax. Unclench your firsts, let go of tension, relax. Sit quietly for a few minutes and then say to yourself,
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am God. God is with you right now, right now you are in his presence. Right now his love enfolds you. Right now his peace surrounds you. Be still. Say to yourself,
Relax and let go, underneath are the everlasting arms.
Relax and let go, underneath are the everlasting arms. Your mind, body and emotions will feel the soothing effect of relaxation. This is the first step toward receptivity.
007 Step 2 - Denial of disease
Step two. The next necessary step to realizing healing is the denial of belief in illness, disease, negation of any kind. The best kind of denial is a sweeping one, the denial that says to negation, you are nothing, you have no power that says in the face of disease there is no disease, that proclaims there is no pain, denial is a washing away of your belief in appearances and pain in disease. It is the house cleaning that makes ready for newness and healing.
True denial is not negative but positive. It it a positive declaration of your faith in life, in God, in perfection. Denial is a way of saying to your doubts, your fears, your belief that disease has power.
I do not believe it. I do not believe it.
008 Step 3 - Affirmation of Truth
Step three. To use denial to sweep your mental house clean of belief in negation is necessary but it should always be followed by strong, bold affirmations of truth. Denial prepares the way, affirmation carries you forward to a new awareness of life, of power, a new awareness of the presence of God in whom you live and move and have your being. After denying the reality of disease, affirm the reality of God. You can make your affirmation along lines such as this,
there is only the life of God flowing freely through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, cleansing, purifying, healing, vitalizing, renewing, restoring me. There is only the life of God flowing freely through me from the top of my head to the soles of feet, cleansing, purifying, healing, vitalizing, renewing, restoring me.
This life stream, this life force is mighty in the midst of you. Everything in you works toward life in wholeness when your mind is free from fear, when you are an unobstructed channel through which God can pour his spirit. When you affirm God's power, you identify yourself with it. When you affirm God's life you identify yourself with it. When you identify yourself with God, you enter into the healing Christ life. You become one with the very life and substance of God. His word becomes flesh and dwells within you, life of your life, breath of your breath.
009 Step 4 - Realization
Step four. Relaxation, denial, affirmation, these are followed by the fourth step which is realization. Realization goes beyond thought, beyond words, it is the incorporation into your being of God himself, the incorporation into your body of the living substance of spirit.
It is the bread and wine made flesh and blood. It is the inner knowing that comes to you, the glory that shines through you with realization comes a radiance, an inward glow. You do not wonder if God has heard your prayer, you know. You stand in the light of his presence. Your eyes are opened to the truth and new life surges through you, new faith carries your forward.
010 Step 5 - Thankfulness - Giving over your life to God
Step five. The great amen to every prayer is a welling up of thankfulness in your heart. You're not thanking God for favors requested or favors granted but you thank Him over and over for what He is, for what you are. Thankfulness is more than saying thank you God. It is the giving over of your whole self, your whole life to God. It is the joyous abandonment of self will, the relinquishing of the little self, the petty life and ways, to the larger will, the happier ways of spirit. Your thankful heart praises God with every thought, with every word, with every act. Like the psalmist you say
103:1Bless Jehovah, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Psalms 103:1
