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In the last post, we looked at healing at the Pool of Bethesda, described below;
John 5:14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
From this, we saw that sin can lead to sickness. Worry or drugs or sexual sin, among other sins, can lead to sickness of the body and mind. In case you were wondering, worry is a sin, as in Philippians 4:6;
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Note that this is not a suggestion, it is a command—primarily for our own good. Physiologically, worry and stress raise cortisol levels in the body and can affect blood pressure, sleep patterns and so on. Anxiety and worry cannot coexist with faith. Once they arrive, trust and faith in God departs.
So then, is all sickness the result of sin? Thank God, it is not, or some would be sick every day or week. In Jesus’ day, many believed that sickness was the result of a person’s sin or that of his parents, but Jesus debunked that very quickly:
John 9:1-3 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
So this sickness was not the result of sin by either the man or his parents. Some sickness comes from our being in a fallen world, others from our unwise choices and lifestyles, and yet others by demonic attack. Also, the actions of sinful or malicious people can cause sickness in others, such as parents who smoke.
Note that I didn’t mention God here. He is not the source of sickness. I find it strange that the obituaries of worldly people state that “after a yearlong fight against cancer….”, whereas Christians point to God or “God’s will” for their sickness. Many non-Christians recognize sickness as an enemy of all that is good, an evil that must be fought, while many Christians go on about God’s supposed will ‘permitting’ or causing them to be sick.
If you think this way, tell me this: If it was God’s will for you to be sick, why do you visit the doctor to escape “God’s will”? If it was His desire that your character be perfected in sickness, why do you ask for your name to be placed on the prayer chain to avoid this perfecting? If God wanted you ravaged by illness, why not ask the brethren to pray for you to become more sick, so as to enter His will more deeply? The faith-sapping myths we propagate in the church today are a tragedy.
Why is it that wise Christians cannot tell God’s will until after the event? The person died of sickness, ergo, it was God’s will that they died. The person recovered from sickness, thus it was God’s will that they recover. This is a “que sera, sera” Christianity, a lazy spirituality that tries to infer God’s will after the fact. It has more in common with fatalistic Mid-Eastern and Eastern religions than Christianity. If you know God’s will, tell me before we pray, so if it is not His will, we won’t bother. However, not one of these wise ones ever knows until afterwards—going by sight and not by faith.
I can tell you God’s will for the very sick young man with a heartbroken wife and three young children all crying out to Him. It is for him to be healed, period. That is His will before I pray and that is His will after I pray, whether he gets up or stays down. God’s will for that sick child? The same, of course. Why? Because healing is in His Word and His Word is His will.
Why do tragedies occur then, you ask? There are many reasons, but why on earth wouldn’t they occur when we continue teaching unbelief throughout our churches….because we, as a church do not believe all of the Atonement. As a pastor, you doth protest too much that you believe. It doesn’t matter what you profess in conversation. Do you preach healing? Do you regularly pray for the sick? No? Why not? Because you don’t believe it. I learned a long time ago that people do what they believe and avoid what they don’t believe. Most pastor/teachers don’t believe in the full Atonement. If they want to argue about healing being in the Atonement, fine, we don’t have to bring that up. They just don’t believe in the many healing promises in the Word or in doing the works Jesus said we would do.
Finally, some will argue “why the undue focus on healing? There are other things to preach about, aren’t there?” Yes there are. But let’s look at Jesus, in Matthew 4:23:
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
Jesus focused on healing quite a bit, didn’t He? He didn’t have other things to preach about? Somehow though, our gospel has been transformed into a shadow of that which Jesus and the Apostles preached. It has changed from the Full Gospel to the “Part-Gospel”.
If you are one of few who preach and minister healing regularly, God bless you. May He strengthen you, embolden you, impart spiritual gifts to you, infuse you with the power of the Holy Spirit and may signs and wonders accompany your ministry. Amen.
…to be concluded…
please help me please prayer to me for geting my health
I pray you are restored to full health by God’s Holy Spirit.
We will pray for you. I also pray that this site encourages you to believe God for your healing. Blessings.
I am praying for myself but i also need outside prayers, please pray that god delivers me from my health problems
praise the lord God is grace always i am Baber Rafique, God Give me a very big work, “he say Give Go and give every one how i love with you
please pray and pray
baberrafique@yahoo.com
Psalm 103:2-3
Praise the Lord, O my sould, and forget not ALL his benefits – who forgives ALL your sins and heals ALL your diseases.
First of all, the word ALL does mean ALL.
Secondly, if He is no longer healing all of our diseases then He is no longer forgiving all of our sins. He’s the same God He has always been. You can’t have one with out the other.
Also, John 3:17 – For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to SAVE the world through Him.
Save here is “SOZO” which means to be saved, HEALED and delivered. Salvation for the whole being – spirit, soul AND BODY.
We also know that according to Isaiah 53:5 that “by His wounds we are healed”.
PS: If any of this was posted in another part of this blog, I apologize – I was unable to read it all.
Please answer me this question, if it is God’s will that every Christian be healed, why is their illness and disease in the Church? Is God not mighty enough to do his will? Certainly not.
Does he choose to heal some and not others? Yes. Why?
Because, God never promises that Christian’s won’t suffer and he uses that suffering to mold us and grow our Godly character. He brings us low to lift us high.
My two year old daughter has a serious chronic illness. She is a sweet little baby and God hasn’t healed her. Why? I don’t know. Does it mean that God is punishing her? or me? No. God’s will is complicated, but it is clear to me that God loves us and his grace is more than sufficient.
Dear Josh
First of all, my heart goes out to your daughter and I pray that you find resolution to her ailment quickly. I pray the Lord intervenes to grant her relief.
The “problem of healing” is not with God. He has been very expressive and effusive about what his will is in healing i.e., to heal all.
Is it God’s will for all to be saved? If you answer “yes”, then I could likewise say: “since all are not saved, it is not God’s will to save everyone”.
There is no argument here. The scripture says in 1 Peter 3:9: “Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”. Yet we know that many will indeed perish.
That logic – extrapolating God’s will from observation – does not work and never has. God will is inferred from His Word and His Word alone.
As you will see from the scriptures on this site, it is God’s will to heal all, not some, just as it is His will to save all.
Man’s appropriation of God’s Word is the problem. I really don’t even blame the individual, but the church as a whole, beginning at the top – and mainly teachers, for teaching fatalistic, faith-less doctrine to the now-weak church.
I do appreciate the few – tiny in number, who teach true faith and see results from it. I recommend approaching healing rooms if you have one in your city, for prayer for your daughter.
Blessings
Bay
While I believe that healing is in the Atonement (Is 53) I also recognize that the fullness of that healing will provided for in the atonement is only fulfilled in Heaven where the will of God is done perfectly (Mt6). By making a strict causal relationship between faith and healing you are condemning those whose faith is weak. Jesus never did this. He only saw these moments as teachable to challenge the faith of the sin one. Sometimes he healed in spite of disbelief (mk9.19) and only expressed his frustration regarding unbelief with his ministers. We must be careful to minister faith not condemnation… there is already one who does that.
In love, I say no, no and no. The fullness of salvation is here and now. You and I are 100% saved, you are not going to be more saved when you get to heaven. Healing has also been paid for 100%. We have no need for healing in heaven, we will have resurrection bodies. Healing is promised us here again and again. If you don’t see it often enough, it is not a problem with the Word or the Promiser.
All I can say is look at Jesus. He healed every single time he was asked. Twenty six times, minus mass healings. He never told anyone to go away, that they would be healed in heaven. It is doctrine of this sort that I have found quite frustrating. If a person is not healed, just accept we failed and move on, not tell ourselves stories to feel better.
Second, you’ll find in my email and posts that I put much more of the onus on the minister, not the one seeking healing. Nowhere do I blame the victim for “lack of faith” or the minister for lack of healing. You may have seen this so much elsewhere, you see it here. There is no blame for anyone if healing is not manifest or manifest immediately – we just keep seeking God, we just persist. Why would you blame anyone for doing good – seeking God’s mercy?
If there is any blame, as I say often, it is towards faithless ministers that even avoid the subject of healing, even in congregations where most members are sick. That is the true insult.