AMAZING STORY
Healed Because He Forgave
By Robert Hull
The 700 Club
CBN.com -In 1997 a snowmobile accident near his home in Alaska left Art Mathais with severe pain in his right shoulder and arm. Over the next several months the pain increased dramatically. A neurosurgeon sent him for an MRI.
Art remembers, “My arm, right arm and shoulder were withering; I was losing strength, getting more and more scared and the MRI on the neck showed that I had three vertebrae, the discs in three different levels, broken and shattered. And there were so much pressure on my spinal cord I should’ve been dead.”
He had surgery to fuse four vertebrae in his neck, which diminished some of the pain but new problems soon emerged.
“I started to have numbness in my right arm and right leg.” Art says, “I was –had tingling. The nerves were starting to die because I kept—I was getting numb. I couldn’t feel anything. The more nervous I was, the greater the pain. It accentuates the pain. So my fears went through the roof, and tied to that, was the pain. It went through the roof.”
He also developed hundreds of environmental allergies and was eventually diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy; a condition similar to MS that kills nerves in the body until it reaches the heart and becomes fatal. Doctors told him he would most likely be dead in two years. Art became fearful and angry.
He says, “I had personal resentment against God because I started asking God, ‘why are You doing this to me? Why do I have all these neuropathies? Why do I only have two years left to live? All I’ve ever wanted to do is serve You!’”
His sister told him that she had been healed of tumors in her breasts through a process of forgiving those for whom she held bitterness and resentment. “And when she first told me, I thought that was the craziest, hokiest thing in the world,” says Art. “’How can that connection be there?’ But I had—at that point, 18 months left to live according to the doctors and I said, ‘well, I’m going to do this.’”
Art searched his memories for painful moments. He forgave his father for abandoning his family when Art was twelve years old. He also released his bitterness towards God for his illness, as well as his fear of death.
Art says, “Fear is an opposite of faith. If I’m in fear and worry, I’m not trusting God. So I had to repent for the fear. (I had to) go back into faith, (and) start believing God’s promises. Then the pain levels would come down, because the anxiety came down. As I got rid of my bitterness, as I got rid of my resentments, as I learned how to forgive and really fall in obedience to the Scriptures; then my fear went away, my physical body settled down, my immune system healed. Then my physical body healed.”
As he resumed a healthy, active lifestyle, word spread of his healing. “Other people started calling me at my business. And says, ‘Art, I need some help. Can you explain to me what happened to you?’ I explained to them, led them through some prayers of forgiving things that had happened in their life. Dealing with bitterness they didn’t even understand they had. And they got well.”
He went back to school and received a doctorate in counseling and started Wellspring Ministries. Through his books and counseling practice, Art is helping people find healing the same way he did.
He says, “The fear of dying, the fear of the future, those types of negative emotions, fears and anxieties, are toxic to our physical bodies. That’s what negative emotions do to you; they accentuate every problem. Forgiving from our heart is a choice. That’s what that means; I purpose and I choose to forgive from my heart.”
“The tormentors are the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the fears, the worries; all these heavy negative emotions that torment us. The only way we can get rid of those heavy, negative emotions is to one, recognize they’re sin and then we shout, ‘hallelujah,’ because God gave us an answer to sin, there’s never a condemnation. Then we start repenting. Repent from blaming God. That opens a door to His healing power.”
“We see literally thousands of people healed every year. As we teach them how to forgive, the immune system is healed and the diseases go away.”
Art says his healing which occurred over fifteen years ago the thousands of healings he has seen since then, came only through obedience to following the teaching and example Jesus gave us in the Bible
“I’m 100% healed,” says Art. “All the allergies are gone. Over 100 allergies, all in multiple chemical sensitivities are gone. All the neuropathies are gone. My right arm is totally normal; all the strength is back. If I hadn’t understood the Scriptures, if I hadn’t become obedient to the Scriptures and done what they said, I wouldn’t be alive today. I did what the loving, kind, heavenly Father told me to do. So I did what He told me to do. And out of His love, and my obedience to do what He said; my belief (is), that’s why I’m well.”
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