The Truth About Divine Healing - 1

Today I want to begin a new series on divine healing.  I know I have talked about this before, but I feel God leading me to teach on this subject for a variety of reasons.  I intend to cover this subject from a number of angles, all with the goal of helping you understand divine healing and how you can receive healing for any sickness or injury.  There are many, many things one could say on this subject, and I certainly don’t know everything.  But I know a lot and I’ve been through a lot, and I really want to help people in this area. 

Let me start by telling you how I came to heavily study divine healing over the past few years.  In February of 2019 I was invited to teach on divine healing at my local church.  I believed that God wanted to heal and that God’s healing power was available to everyone.  So I taught and we prayed for people and in general I think it was a good meeting.  However, what I didn’t know is that on the same day my wife’s stomach began hurting. 

Two days later my wife (who has lived in perfect health her entire life) was in the hospital and diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, which had spread to several tumors on her liver.  As we were only 37 at the time, this was a terrible shock.  Today, over two and a half years later, my wife is totally healed, cancer free, and off of chemotherapy for over nine months now.  God used His Word and doctors to bring healing to my wife, and over this time we learned far more about divine healing than we ever knew before. 

I am going to talk about all that we learned from God during this time, and I’m going to show you the truths of divine healing in God’s Word.  Let me start by defining the term “divine healing.”  Different people define that term different ways and I’m not arguing with any of them.  I just want to set a definition that I am personally going to use which I think will be helpful to the greatest number of people.  So I define “divine healing” as working with God to receive healing and restoration from an ailment, including any kind of sickness, disease, injury, mental or emotional ailment. 

I will also discuss several ways in which divine healing can be received. There may be other ways to receive divine healing but these are the ways that we will cover.  (1) The person could have other Christians, including well-known healing evangelists or church elders, pray for them.  (2) The person could, by himself, learn the truth of God’s Word for healing, pray according to God’s Word, and then stand on God’s Word.  (3) The person could pray that God will lead him to the right doctors, and that God will guide the doctors in their treatment plans for complete healing, and that those treatment plans will work.   Many Christians who find themselves needing healing will use a combination of those in their quest for divine healing.  There are various aspects of those three methods of divine healing, and we will cover them in detail.

I know that many in the Christian healing world define divine healing as healing from God alone, without the use of any earthly doctors or medicine.  However, having had my life experiences in this area, and learning from many others who have received healing from God, I am choosing my broader definition, which is fundamentally working with God to receive healing, with or without doctors.  In a later podcast I will discuss in detail how to appropriately work with doctors as you seek divine healing.

At this time I will briefly mention my recommendation to you if you find yourself in need of divine healing.  Start with God’s Word.  Begin reading all of the Biblical promises for healing.  Begin praying over yourself, commanding sickness and symptoms to leave in Jesus’ Name, and trusting that the healing power of God is working in your body.  You will find many good scriptures in these blog posts and podcasts in this series.  These are steps anyone needing healing should take.  From this place of study, prayer and faith, you listen for God’s voice.  Maybe God will direct you to a doctor or a treatment plan.  Maybe God will direct you to have certain people pray for you.  I once heard that God directed some guy to go wash in a fountain singing praise songs, and that person was healed of cancer!

One of the great points from the Bible is that God is going to tell you to do things that often make no sense.  Whatever He tells you to do, do it.  These directions from God aren’t designed to make sense, they are designed to make faith.  They are designed to put your trust in God and create a point of contact between your natural and spiritual worlds to receive from God.  Again we will discuss this in more detail, but remember, whatever God tells you to do, do it.

When we have completed this series, you will understand these ways to receive divine healing.  You will also know how to begin your healing journey if you are ever attacked with any sickness or injured.  You will also know how to pray for others to receive healing.  However, no matter how much you learn, you must always continue listening to God.  You may develop a rock solid understanding of divine healing, and you may memorize all the scriptures, but you must always listen for His directions.  God told Jesus to do many different things as He helped others to healing, and Jesus also gave a number of directions to those He ministered healing to.  We want to listen carefully for any such divine directions for healing.

So in the same way I counseled you a moment ago to begin with God’s Word for healing and faith that God’s healing power is working in your body, we will start there in this study.  Before we can discuss the mechanics of divine healing, I want to make sure you understand that healing is God’s will for you and everyone else.  God’s will is healing for every single person, of every single ailment, right now.  That is even His will for people who are not Christians.  Furthermore, God’s healing power is completely available to every single person for every single ailment, right now.  My friends, I realize those are controversial statements and many people will disagree.  But I don’t care.  I’m bringing you the truth straight from God’s Word.  And one day, God forbid, you may be very glad that you heard this truth for yourself or a loved one.

As we now turn to the Bible to learn about God’s will for healing, let me say that people have written lengthy books on this subject, and we won’t take the time to go through every point that could possibly be made.  What we will do is show you how physical healing is absolutely God’s will for everyone all the time.  There might be different ways to show this from God’s Word, but this way I present here is the clearest way, at least for my brain.  I hope it’s also pretty clear to you as well.

This first Bible verse we will see shortly is the first words that God spoke to the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea.  Please understand, this is very important.  The Israelites didn’t really know God for those hundreds of years in Egypt.  And now, in their deliverance from Egypt, they have seen a powerful being who has rained down horrible plagues on Egypt, killed thousands and thousands of Egyptians, and opened the red sea only to close it and kill hundreds if not thousands of Egyptian soldiers in the Israelites’ final escape.  I’m not suggesting the Israelites were upset about any of that.  But that was the first few months of their renewed relationship with God after hundreds of years with very little, if any, contact with God.  So after all the plagues, all the death, and across the Red Sea, this is the first thing God says to them as a group:

(Exodus 15:26 NLT)  " . . . If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, obeying His commands and keeping all His decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you."

“I am the Lord who heals you.”  Literally in the Hebrew those words could be translated “I am “God Who Heals.”  As you may have heard there are a number of names for God, but most of them are names people gave God (as when Abraham called God Jehovah Jireh).  Here, God calls Himself The God Who Heals.  

I think that’s very powerful, especially when you consider that in Malachi 3:6 God says He does not change.  God was a Healer for the Israelites, and God is a Healer for you.  So when we ask whether God wants to heal, we should first recognize that God calls Himself “God Who Heals,” and that will never change. 

Let’s briefly discuss the condition God that stated for the Israelites’ healing, in short, that they obey all His commandments.  Many Christians believe healing can be earned or that there might be conditions to God healing you.  Those beliefs are wrong.  Even more wrong, that a medical problem is some sort of punishment or teaching moment from God.  As a Christian, God accepts you as having completely and perfectly fulfilled God’s requirement for all time.  You didn’t do it right, but Jesus did, and your righteousness comes from Jesus’ perfect life and sacrifice for you on the cross.  You are now fully entitled to live in all God’s promises.  In fact, they are your inheritance as a child of God (Read Romans 4, 2 Corinthians 1:20).

As a Christian, you can fully know and experience The God Who Heals.  God is a healer and God is your healer.  But the Bible doesn’t just promise that God will heal you when you get sick.  It’s better than that.  In fact, you can live a life that is immune from all the medical worries of this world.  Here is another statement God made to the Israelites:

(Exodus 23:25-26 NIV) “Worship the Lord your God, and His blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.”

God says He will literally remove the presence of sickness from our lives, that in fact He will protect you from your mother’s womb until you die at a nice old age.  Isn’t that amazing!  God’s true will for His people is not just that you can call on Him as your doctor, but that in fact His power would be physically protecting you from conception until death.  That is God’s true will for your physical life. 

God knows there are things out there that would hurt you, and God wants to protect you from them all for your whole life.  Anything that goes against this, sickness, injury, deformity, anything other than perfect health for life, is against God’s will.  And don’t forget, any conditions to this promise were fulfilled by Jesus.  This promise of a long, healthy life is now your inheritance.  So let’s remember this forever because we just read it in God’s Word, God wants you to have a long, healthy life.

Yes, I fully understand that God did make some people sick in the Old Testament.  I think there is actually more to it than that, but let’s not make it complicated.  According to the plain language of the Bible, God did punish people with sickness.  God did kill many, many people for different reasons.  But you must understand the huge changes that happened to all of reality after Jesus died and rose again.  And you must also understand the huge changes that happened to YOUR reality after you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  There is no more punishment for your sins.  Your sins are no longer even being imputed against you.  You are no longer cursed, you are blessed.  All of God’s promises belong to you.  You are God’s beloved child and you are literally perfect in God’s eyes.  That is your reality now.

God will never put any curse or punishment or sickness on you.  He doesn’t treat you according to your sins anymore (Psalm 103:10).  Let me say that again, God is no longer treating you according to your sins!  He treats you according to your perfection which you received from Christ.  I don’t understand how people don’t get this.  I guess it’s because church leaders have taught the wrong things.  People think God is still punishing them when they mess up.  No!  God treats you according to the very righteousness of Jesus Christ.  Your relationship with God, and His treatment of you, is not based on your righteousness.  If it is we all have major problems!  The blessings are yours because you are in Christ.  The curses will never be put on you because you are in Christ.  This is the way God treats you now, regardless of what garbage people have taught you or said about their own situations (“God is punishing me because x, y, z, etc.”)

God is a Healer, and God wants to you to have a long, healthy life.  Literally, God wants sickness removed from your existence.  These are God’s promises to you.  Any conditions to these promises were fulfilled by Jesus and you can enjoy them perfectly.  They are your inheritance as God’s children.  However, they do take faith to be operational in your physical life.  We will come back to that point on faith because it’s very important. 

But we’ve only started to scratch the surface on healing here.  To be clear, the point of today’s teaching is to show you that healing is always God’s will for your life.  Let’s go now to the ministry of Jesus to further show that healing is always God’s will.

To understand Jesus and His Ministry, you must understand that Jesus is the perfect representation of God (Hebrews 1:3), and that in His ministry Jesus did only what He saw God doing (John 5:19), and Jesus said only what God told Him to say (John 12:49).  This may not apply to every single word He spoke (like when he liked a meal) or every action He took (like when He put on his sandals).  But these statements definitely applied to all that He said and did in His ministry activities.  Jesus ministered to people to show them God and teach them about God.  This is the perspective you need to have when studying Jesus’ earthly ministry.  Jesus wanted everyone to see the true nature and heart of God.

Look at the Apostle Peter’s perspective on the ministry of Jesus, after Jesus had already returned to Heaven after His resurrection.  (Acts 10:38 NLT)  “And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”  

That verse is worthy of careful study.  Look at the relationship between God and Jesus’ ministry that Peter is highlighting here.  Peter clearly understood that God empowered Jesus to do good and heal all those oppressed by the devil.  God was with Jesus, and all the love and power that Jesus showed people was emanating from God.  God wants people healed, so He empowered Jesus to go and heal them.  This also showed people God’s true feelings about them, His love and care for them.

Let us look at one example of Jesus’ healing ministry from Matthew 8:14-17.

“When Jesus arrived at Peter's house, Peter's mother-in-law was sick in bed with a high fever. But when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left her. Then she got up and prepared a meal for Him. That evening many demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus. He cast out the evil spirits with a simple command, and He healed all the sick. This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, "He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases."

Jesus first healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and then Jesus healed all the sick people in the area.  Mark’s account of this story says that Jesus healed every sick person in the city.  Jesus healed all the sick people in an area at least several times that we know about from scripture.  In fact, in His entire ministry, not a single person came to Jesus for healing and went away without it.  Jesus healed every single person that came to Him for healing.  Jesus has complete and total authority over all sickness and disease.  Some people were injured.  Some had diseases.  Some had unclean spirits that caused medical problems.  The causes were different, but the result was always the same.  Jesus’ will, instructed and empowered by God, was healing for every single person. 

I’m not sure why people think that has changed.  Jesus walked the earth, healed every sick person who came to Him for healing, died for our sins, and now lives at God’s right hand to forever make intercession for us.  However, now He’s ok with us being sick.  Now sometimes when we come to Him for healing He says no.  In fact, sometimes He actually makes us sick to teach us a lesson or so we will learn something.  How dumb does that sound?  Where did people come up with this stuff, certainly not from the Bible!

(Hebrews 13:8)  “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”  In the same way that The God Who Heals doesn’t change, neither does Jesus Christ.  When we understand that God is a healer and wants His people healed, it makes perfect sense that Jesus went around healing everyone.  I realize there are still connections to make before I can show you that healing belongs to you now, but for the moment we are focusing on God’s will for healing.  God wants His people healed, Jesus wants His people healed, and those truths won’t change.

This healing meeting at Peter’s house was only one of numerous healing meetings that Jesus held.  Jesus was always healing.  Jesus would teach the people and heal the sick.  That was His method of ministry.  Spend time reading about the healing miracles of Jesus.   See His love and healing desires in action.  None of those He healed was even a Christian, as no one was a Christian yet.  None of them was perfect.  None of them earned it.  He healed them all anyway. 

Furthermore, even while Jesus was on earth it wasn’t enough for Him to be the only one in the divine healing ministry.  He empowered at least 82 other people to heal the sick as well.  That’s right, at least 82 other people also ministered healing by the power of God during Jesus’ earthly ministry.  Let me quickly show you that in the Bible.

(Luke 9:1-2, 6 NLT) “One day Jesus called together His twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then He sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick . . . (6) So they began their circuit of the villages, preaching the Good News and healing the sick.”

(Luke 10:1-2, 9 NLT) “The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places He planned to visit. These were His instructions to them: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields . . .  (9) Heal the sick, and tell them, 'The Kingdom of God is near you now.'”

So not only did Jesus empower the original 12 disciples to cast out demons and heal the sick, He sent out another 70 or 72 (depending on which translation you read) to also participate in this healing ministry.  Isn’t that amazing!  While Jesus was walking the earth at least 82 other people were going around showing the power and desire of God to heal people.  I don’t think any reasonable person could question God’s healing will during the ministry of Jesus.

Additionally, no reasonable person could argue that Jesus’ healing ministry ended after His death and resurrection.  Let’s look again at the ministry of the disciples after Jesus returned to Heaven.

(Acts 5:15-16 NLT) “As a result of the apostles' work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter's shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed.”

Once again we see all the sick people who came to God for healing were healed.  The God Who Heals has always been the one healing, but now He is healing through the disciples as they minister to people in the Name of Jesus.  The disciples were carrying on the healing ministry of Jesus in the earth.  In fact, God was healing so many people through the disciples that sick people were lining the streets.  They had faith that they would be healed just by touching Peter’s shadow, and it worked!

Now let’s look at the ministry of the Apostle Paul.  Paul was not one of the original 12 disciples and He wasn’t one of the 72 either.  Paul wasn’t even a believer until after Jesus returned to Heaven.  How did The God Who Heals operate in Paul’s ministry?

(Acts 28:7-9 NLT) “Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. As it happened, Publius's father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed.”

Paul, by the healing power of The God Who Heals, healed every sick person on the island.  That’s no different than Jesus or Peter healing every sick person in a city.  This is the healing power of God.  This is God’s will for healing!  This healing meeting on the island of Malta occurred probably 25 years after the death and resurrection of Christ.  But that should be no surprise when we consider what Jesus said to the disciples before He headed back to Heaven.  I want to be very clear about this next passage because I think the timing is very important.  Jesus was crucified, rose again, and now was with the disciples.  Let’s look at what He said in Mark 16:14-18 -

"Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in My name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won't hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed."

How I wish people would believe what the Bible actually says, rather than what they think it says, or what someone else says that it says, or whatever people have made up to explain what it says.  Jesus said very clearly that future believers, not the original 12, not the 70, but people that didn’t even believe in Jesus yet, would be able to place their hands on the sick and see them healed.  As long as there is sickness and injury in the earth, the healing ministry of Jesus continues.

Jesus healed every single person who came to Him for healing.  After Jesus returned to Heaven, the disciples healed every single person who came to them for healing.  There is no limitation on God’s power to heal.  There is no limitation on God’s desire to heal.  The only requirement is a child-like faith in The God Who Heals.  And we will discuss that faith in detail.

There is no Biblical argument that God’s healing ministry is over.  Yes, people make all sorts of arguments about that, but none of them are Biblical.  There is no Biblical argument that God still wants a single person sick or oppressed with any kind of medical ailment.  The punishment for sin was paid by Jesus Christ.  God wants everyone saved and everyone healed.  GOD WANTS YOU HEALED!

We’ve gone far enough for today because I want to leave that thought with you.  The Bible is crystal clear, God and Jesus want you healed.  God and Jesus don’t change.  In fact, They want you to be healed more than you want to be healed.  They love you more than you love yourself. 

Next time we are going to quickly debunk all of the terrible, demonic arguments against healing, and I’m going to show you that perfect physical health is your inheritance as a child of God, that you are totally entitled to it right now. 

Please let me know if I can pray for your healing.  If you are in a serious medical situation, then I encourage you to dive deep into God’s Word for healing right now.  Get on Google and Youtube and listen to Andrew Wommack, Curry Blake, Audrey Mack, Barry Bennett, and Greg Mohr about healing.  Maybe those aren’t the biggest names in the world, but those are the people that understand God’s power and desire to heal.  That’s what you need.  I love you and I’ll speak to you again soon.