“Healing begins with the sanctification of the heart.”

This is the central truth of the upcoming Healing and Sanctification conference taking place in Singapore from 23 to 26 May 2018.

Dr Michelle Strydom, the keynote speaker, is a medical doctor who trained and qualified in South Africa at the University of Pretoria. In 2010, the Lord called her to steward a medical ministry called Eagles’ Wings that deals with diseases by applying the truth of Scripture and medical science to help people in their journey of healing.

But her teaching goes beyond mere physical healing and bodily health. The heart of her ministry is to prepare the Church as the Bride for the coming Bridegroom.

Dr Strydom’s desire is that participants will be changed and renewed as they discover God’s truths about healing, nutrition and rest when they live in total obedience to the Word of God.

In the book, The Bible From A Medical Perspective, Medicine From A Biblical Perspective, she says:

“As a medical doctor, I have learnt to pay serious attention to the Bible because the discoveries of latest medical research are proving what the Bible said about health and disease thousands of years ago … medical schools don’t use the Bible to understand disease, because science only believes what it can see. I’m thankful to science because it allows me to see what God has created.”

The mind-body connection

Various sources of illnesses and ailments are covered by Dr Strydom as she takes care to establish the mind-body connection with an emphasis on the truths found in Scripture.

She explains how pathological fear and anxiety lead to unhealthy stress levels and how that stress affects the human body from a physical standpoint – a direct cause-and-effect relationship between mind and body.

The theory is founded upon Proverbs 17:22 which says: “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” 

Allergies are one example that Dr Strydom uses to show how “the symptoms of a disease develop as a direct result of the thought that you meditate on long-term”.

Allergies are a common ailment and 40% of people world-wide suffer from allergies, both simple and complex. “The medical definition of an allergy is an acquired abnormal immune response to an allergen that does not normally cause a reaction in most other people.”

The key idea is that the effect of a “crushed spirit dries the bones”. Through a systematic approach, Dr Strydom lays out the parts of the puzzle:

• Human bone is made up of the actual bone and the bone marrow within the bone.
• In bone marrow, blood is made; this includes both red and white blood cells.
• White blood cells make up the immune system which regulates the response to allergens.

So when a crushed spirit dries the bones, it is the immune system which is damaged, where “an allergy is a hypersensitivity reaction caused by a damaged immune system”.

By simple logic, Dr Strydom demonstrates the basic framework where the result of spiritual damage done in a person’s life is manifested in allergies. (A detailed step-by-step explanation of how allergies develop based on this is elaborated upon in the book.)

Sanctifying the heart

Dr Strydom is unapologetic about the relationship she draws between sin and disease. She encourages her readers to “listen with an open mind and a teachable heart, because this teaching is designed to change your direction”.

She challenges:

“Take your Bible and read it … study the Word of God and test this teaching against it and see for yourself whether this teaching is true or not.”

As radical as the principles in this book are, the bottom-line remains clear and undebatable: “Healing begins with the sanctification of the heart”. 

Dr Strydom puts it simply:

“I’ve come to sow seeds of knowledge in your heart and take the mystery out of the disease.

“It is not just about healing – our ultimate goal is to draw people into a closer, more intimate love relationship with God and equip the Bride of the Messiah to prepare herself for His very soon return … Basically, our desire is to know Him, to become like Him and to make Him known!”

Dr MK Strydom’s book, The Bible From A Medical Perspective, Medicine From A Biblical Perspective, will be sold at the Healing & Sanctification Conference on May 23 to 26, 2018. It is also available from Alby Resource Centre here.