The Truth About Divine Healing - 2
Today we are continuing our series on healing. Last time we took a hard look at what God’s Word says about healing and concluded the Bible shows that healing is always God’s will. God calls Himself The God Who Heals. God healed people before the earthly ministry of Jesus, God healed people during the earthly ministry of Jesus, and God continues to heal people after the earthly ministry of Jesus. Really, the Bible is crystal clear about God’s power and desire to heal.
However, and unfortunately, not everyone believes what the Bible says. There is only so much we can do about that. But we must decide that we believe what the Bible says. It never ceases to amaze me how Christians don’t let the Bible get in the way of what they believe. Few things bother me more than hearing a Christian say he believes something that clearly disagrees with the Bible.
I remember the first time I encountered this problem. I was speaking with my beloved grandfather. This was fifteen years ago, I was a young Christian, excited about the Word, and for various reasons I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, who has since gone home to be with the Lord. I was sitting at his table in the kitchen talking about when Jesus healed the ten lepers. I made a particular point, which I read directly from the Bible, and my grandfather said “well I don’t believe that.” I didn’t know what to say. My grandfather, a Christian all of my life, was saying He didn’t believe something the Bible specifically said.
My grandfather was a great guy, but let’s not be like that. Most Christians wouldn’t express such blatant disagreement with God’s Word, but the church at large sure teaches a lot of things that don’t line up with the Bible. And for a variety of reasons, the church at large does not believe that healing is God’s will all the time, every time, for everyone. Today we are going to spend a few minutes debunking the most common arguments against God’s power and desire to heal. Then we are going to take last week’s lesson a step further and show you that healing is not only God’s will for your life, but it already belongs to you.
So as we start to look at the arguments against healing, let’s first recognize that most non-Christians don’t believe in divine healing, at least not the way we are discussing it here. That should come as no surprise. Unbelievers don’t believe. But for us it doesn’t matter what non-Christians think about divine healing (and that includes doctors, friends, and family). We aren’t asking them, and we don’t care what they think. We are asking God and His Word what they think about divine healing. Interestingly enough, divine healing is still available to non-Christians. The Bible is clear about that, but we won’t go there right now. If you hear a non-Christian arguing against your faith for healing in any way, or telling you all about what they don’t believe, don’t be surprised. Do not let it influence your thinking or your faith in the slightest. Walk in love, thank them for their opinion, and don’t discuss your medical situation with them again. Your testimony of divine healing will be a great discussion point in the future!
Sadly, many Christians also don’t believe in divine healing. This needs more discussion because it’s very possible you will encounter some of these Christians on your healing journey. If you are sick and you ask some Christians whether God wants you healed, you will probably encounter a variety of answers.
There are some Christians who believe God is not concerned or getting involved in such affairs at this time. That is an unbiblical statement and can be immediately dismissed. If you need healing and someone shares that idea with you, you are talking to the wrong person. Walk in love, thank them for their opinion, and do not discuss your medical situation with them again. Side note, if you are believing God for divine healing, only listen to the right people, especially when it’s a very serious health issue. Psalms 139:17 says “How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered.” Jesus said in Luke 12:7, “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” These two short verses illustrate that God is concerned with every aspect of our lives, and every aspect of our physical bodies. God does care. God does want to be involved, and in this series we will learn how to involve Him correctly in your healing journey.
Other Christians believe any true healing miracles (and really any miracles, other than salvation) passed away with the last apostle. That is also an unbiblical statement and can be immediately dismissed. First of all, that directly conflicts with Jesus’ words in Mark 16: 14-18. It also directly contradicts James 5:14-15, which teaches us that elders are capable of healing prayers, not just apostles. As we will see, you don’t need elders or apostles or anyone with any kind of title other than Christian to receive divine healing, but my point is that the Bible directly contradicts the erroneous teaching that healing miracles passed away with the last apostle. Again, if you hear anyone say this, don’t argue with them, don’t discuss your medical situation with them, just bring them your healing testimony later.
Other Christians, usually well-meaning, will say that God can heal BUT it’s part of His sovereign will as to whether God will heal YOU. So you can pray for healing but you just don’t know. This is probably the most widely held belief on healing in the Christian world. This is also an unbiblical statement, but it’s tough to get too upset about it. All Christians have seen countless sick people, and most of us have seen people tragically die long before their time. If you believe that God controls every detail of the universe according to His will, then you cannot believe that God wants everyone healed, because there are sick people everywhere. Most churches teach, and most Christians think, God controls everything like that, so we can understand why so many people don’t believe healing is definitely God’s will for you.
The Biblical truth is that God does want everyone healed, but divine healing comes the way the Bible says it comes. God is not controlling every aspect of the universe, and God is not controlling every aspect of your healing. Healing doesn’t come automatically just because God wants you healed. Healing doesn’t come because God sovereignly decides to release His healing blessings on someone. I will mention now that I despise any teaching that suggests God would answer one person’s prayers for healing, but not another’s, simply because He willed healing for the one person but not the other. The fact is that divine healing comes when you do what the Bible says to do to receive divine healing. And divine healing will come every single time, when you seek it according to the Bible’s directions.
People are so funny when it comes to thinking about God’s sovereign will. People think we have free will, but they also formulate much of their world view based on the idea that God controls everything. The truth is that only minor tweaks in the understanding of God’s sovereignty will lead us much closer to the truth. To keep it simple, we can agree that God is sovereign and does what He wants. However, He doesn’t exercise that sovereignty constantly and down to the minutia of every single action of every single thing. Rather, in God’s sovereign will He created the world, the Kingdom of God, and His Word, and all of their relevant systems and structures. It is inside of these that we live and have our free will. Many things are available and many things are God’s will, but they are not automatic. And God doesn’t just sovereignly decide for different things to happen in your life.
This is an extremely important point to understand for many areas of your life. We need to learn the truth about God’s sovereignty so we can take the actions and authority needed to see God’s best in every area of our lives, and not just hope it’s in His plans for us. Salvation is the easiest example here. 2 Peter 3:9 says God “does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” Has everyone repented? Has everyone in the world received salvation? No. So we see that what God wants for people is not automatic. Salvation is available, but not automatic.
If we talked about your finances, no sensible person would suggest you could do whatever you want with your money and succeed financially in God’s system. You can gamble, spend a bunch on drugs and alcohol, save nothing, invest nothing, give or donate nothing, don’t tithe, buy whatever you want, and God is still going to bless your finances according to His sovereign will. Hopefully we would all regard that idea as nonsense. Rather, sensible Christians understand that if you tithe, if you give, if you generally honor God with your finances, then you are setting yourself up to operate in God’s economic system, and this will lead to financial increase in your life.
Financial blessings and God’s empowerment to prosper already belong to you as a Christian. However, you must operate in the Kingdom of God’s economic system to see that blessing manifest in your bank account. Similarly, divine healing and health already belong to you, but you must seek and release God’s healing power correctly to receive the manifestations of healing and health in your body.
In the same way that there is a system to cooperate with God for financial increase, there is a system to cooperate with God to receive divine healing. There is also a system to receiving salvation (we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead, Romans 10:9, 10). Very little with God is automatic. We must learn God’s ways from God’s Word and then work within God’s systems to receive God’s will for our lives. That’s how it works. Divine healing and health are available, divine financial blessings are available, personal peace, joy and fulfillment are available, salvation is available, but none of these come only as a result of God’s sovereign will. None of these come as a result of God’s answering one person’s prayers but not another’s. Never mind the fact that no one thinks God selectively answers prayers for salvation, which is by far the greatest thing God will ever do for us, but most people think God selectively answers every other kind of prayer.
So there are Christians who believe that God heals but He only heals according to His sovereign will, and you can never know whether that will includes healing for you. That belief is wrong. The Biblical truth is that, in God’s sovereign will, He wants everyone healed, and He has provided ways for everyone to receive divine healing. Tragically, many Christians haven’t understood this, and we have seen countless people (including awesome men and women of God) suffer from sickness and die before they should.
Yes, some Christians believe other things about divine healing, but generally these are the three views. Either (a) God doesn’t care or won’t do anything / healing miracles passed away (I put those together because they both basically say God isn’t getting involved), (b) God may heal but you never know, or (c) yes absolutely God wants you healed and He will heal you if you will do what the Bible says to do about healing.
In the two and a half years that my wife and I have been studying healing, seeing miracles in her body, seeing other manifestations of divine healing in our home, and learning about the healing others have experienced, we have found that God wants every single person healed of every single ailment and He wants it right now. If you need divine healing, that’s some good news.
We must stop questioning whether healing is God’s will, which is what the devil has made the church do. Rather, we must know that anything short of perfect health is not God’s will.
I told you that divine healing belongs to you as a Child of God, and now I want to explain that to you. I’m going to try to quickly explain a very, very important, but somewhat complicated concept. If this section presents ideas that are new to you, please listen to it a few times because this information can truly change your life and your entire approach to your Christianity.
When you became a Christian, the spirit you had died, and God personally gave birth to your new spirit. That is what it means to be born again. See John chapter 3 and 1 John 3:9. Now you are literally God’s biological child. It’s not the biology of the flesh, but the biology of the spirit, which is more important.
As God’s child, He now sees you as perfect (Hebrews 10:14). You are now the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). You have complete access to God (Hebrews 4:16). In fact, your new born-again spirit is both in your body and also united with the Spirit of God in the throne room of Heaven, and seated in Christ at God’s right hand (Ephesians 2:6,13). In addition to all of that, you are now blessed with all of God’s blessings (Ephesians 1:13), and all of God’s promises are yours (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Andrew Wommack has a teaching series called “You’ve Already Got It.” It’s available for free on his website and on youtube. I encourage you to listen to it several times because it is the most revelatory teaching I think I’ve ever heard. And I want to highly recommend that series to you, but also I want to use the title as part of my explanation for healing. You’ve already got it.
You are already perfect in God’s eyes. You are already blessed. You are already empowered to prosper. You are already loved. You already have God’s presence in you and in your life. There are so many thing that we pray for that, in fact, we already have. We must start understanding that we don’t need to pray for many things, rather we need to understand what we already have and use it. We need to activate and experience what God has already given us, rather than ask God for it.
You already have complete access to God’s healing power. God has already completely released His healing will and healing power into your life. Maybe sickness attacks your body even as I write this. But it doesn’t have to be that way. God’s already done more than enough to deal with any physical ailment you will ever have. But you must do your part. We will talk about how to appropriately release the healing power of God later, but today I want to focus on the fact that healing already belongs to you. I want to show you this from the Word so clearly that you will incorporate this into your mental framework. It needs to be there every time you need to experience healing for you or for another.
Let us first look at the ministry of Jesus, and specifically a prophecy about Jesus from the book of Isaiah. In this prophecy God had Isaiah, many years before the life of Jesus, talk about Jesus and His coming ministry.
(Isaiah 53:3-5 KJV) He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
In this prophecy Isaiah says that Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. People debate what those words mean and whether they apply to physical ailments, but the debate is unnecessary. The Hebrew word which they translated “griefs” appears 24 times in the Old Testament. 20 of those times the word is translated sick, sickness or disease. Only in Jeremiah and Isaiah did the translators use “griefs”. I’m not sure why, but the root word means to be weak, sick, or afflicted. Given this was translated to English 400 years ago, it’s possible the word grief also applied to physical matters back them. The prophecy clearly says that Jesus would bear our sicknesses.
In this extremely important prophecy we learn that Jesus would bear certain things for us, and also that Jesus would literally take punishment for us. His body would be wounded for our sins. However, because of His stripes (when they whipped Him), we can be healed. You may recall we saw part of this prophecy echoed in the book of Matthew last week, let’s look at that again.
(Matthew 8:16-17 NIV) “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.””
We don’t even need to go to the Hebrew words to understand what the prophecy meant. Please note how Matthew regarded this prophecy from Isaiah. For Matthew, who very likely talked to Jesus Himself about this prophesy and what it meant (See Luke 24:45), Jesus healing people’s physical ailments fulfilled this prophecy. He translates the words “griefs” and “sorrows” as physical ailments, literally infirmities and diseases. So this prophecy from Isaiah, which Matthew discusses in light of actually seeing Jesus’ ministry, tells us that Jesus would take our physical ailments.
Now let’s note again the last phrase from the prophecy, “with His stripes we are healed.” The Apostle Peter mentioned that part in one of His letters to the church. (1 Peter 2:24 NLT) “He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By His wounds you are healed.”
People also debate what the word “healed” means and whether it applies to physical healing. The Greek word translated “healed” appears 28 times in the Bible. Of the 27 other instances, 26 of those refer to physical healing, and one refers to mental or emotional healing. None of these instances refer to any type of “spiritual healing”. Furthermore, we don’t get healed spiritually. Spiritually, when we accept Christ, we die and are born again. The healing the prophecy talks about, and the healing Matthew and Peter mention, is physical.
Maybe you are thinking, Byron you convinced me last time that Jesus wants me healed, why are we going through these issues again? What we are talking about today is a very distinct issue, and it’s very important that you understand them separately. Yes, Jesus clearly showed that God wants you healed, and you never need to wonder whether God wants you healed from any physical ailment. But the point we are making today is even better. Not only does Jesus want you healed, but in the eyes of God, Jesus took both your physical ailments, and your physical punishment for your sins, and therefore you are entitled to healing. Healing belongs to you both as a child of God and because of Jesus’ sacrifice for you.
Remember the first Passover feast (Exodus 12). The Israelites were told to kill and eat a lamb without blemish, and to take the lamb’s blood and spread it over the side and upper posts of the house. The blood would cause God, as He killed the Egyptians, to pass over the homes of the Israelites. Of course, this is symbolic for the ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb without blemish, and because of His blood God will never punish us for our sins.
But notice a huge difference between the killing of the lamb and Jesus’ death. God didn’t tell the Israelites to torture the lamb. God didn’t tell them to whip the lamb and beat it so badly that it no longer even looked like a lamb. But that’s what happened to Jesus. Why? Yes, Jesus was taking all the punishment that would ever be needed for every sin in all of time. But the destruction of Jesus’ physical body also provided for our legal entitlement to the healing power of God. By His stripes we are healed. Because of what Jesus went through, including both his death and the extreme torture of His body, we can be healed, and in fact, healing belongs to us. Jesus will never be tortured again. In the same way that He shed His blood once to deal with all of our sins, He took all of that punishment once so that we can experience every possible blessing from God now, in this life, including perfect physical health.
Here is the amazing truth – The God Who Heals, in the greatest act of healing that could ever be conceived, caused Jesus to bear in His body, as shown in the stripes and torture, every sickness, disease, and physical ailment we would ever have. Jesus bore them all for us. Jesus’ body was crushed for us. And now, just like with our salvation, because of what Jesus did, we can live in divine health.
Last week we noted that God did punish people with sickness in the Old Testament. That will never happen again. Yes, there is sickness in the world. There are things that cause injury in the world. But God is not one of them. He is The God Who Heals. He is not The God Who Makes Sick. God never has and never will punish a Christian with sickness or a physical problem of any kind, in the same way God will never punish a Christian with hell. Jesus took your sins and your sicknesses. You deal with sin by praying the salvation prayer and getting born again. You deal with medical issues by taking your God-given authority over the issues and releasing the healing power of God, just like the Apostles did.
I am now going to show you that healing belongs to you another way. Healing belongs to you because of what Jesus did and because by His stripes you were healed. Healing also belongs to you because all of God’s promises now belong to you, including all His healing promises.
Just so you have them handy, some of God’s healing promises (other than the promise that you are healed because of Jesus’ stripes) would be Exodus 23:25-26, James 5:14-15, Psalms 103:2-3, Jeremiah 30:17, and Mark 16:15-18).
You have probably heard that the Bible contains many promises for God’s people. There are promises for every area of life, promises that you can live the best human existence possible, even in this world with all of its problems. That’s a complicated idea, but to keep it simple there are promises that cover your health, family, finances, fulfillment, mental peace, and many other areas. In the past, whether someone experienced those promised blessings depended on their degree of obedience to the law. However, Jesus obeyed the law perfectly and obtained all the promises. Now, whether we experience the promised blessings depends on our relationship with Jesus Christ and our faith in the promises.
(2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV) “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
As a Christian, in Christ, when you go to God for one of His promises, God always answers you “yes.” The question is never your entitlement to the promise or God’s desire for you to have it. Much of the church world, while knowing that verse, thinks we need to beg God for those promises, or earn them. But we could never earn God’s amazing promises, and begging God won’t work either. Jesus earned them. In Christ, we are entitled to them now, and in fact, they are our inheritance.
(Romans 4:13-16 KJV) For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
(Galatians 4:6-7 NLT) And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.
I suppose it’s tough to truly convey these ideas just by looking at a couple of verses. But let’s try. First, you must recognize that you are God’s child now. While the Bible talks about adoption, it’s not adoption as we think about it. We truly become God’s child in every sense, being born directly from His Spirit.
As God’s child, you are His heir, a joint-heir with Christ. But unlike inheritance in the natural sense, we aren’t waiting for God to die to inherit. Jesus died, and His death opened the way for us to become God’s children. Now that we are God’s children, our inheritance is freely available to us.
Our inheritance includes all of God’s promises. Note Hebrews 6:12 which also says the promises are our inheritance. “That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Biblical patience is standing in faith over a long period of time).
Romans Chapter 4 is extremely important and should be studied. God has given us many promises, just like He made certain promises to Abraham. Abraham didn’t earn those promises according to the law, he obtained the promise through faith. Similarly, the promises are given to us as an act of God’s grace, and now faith is the only requirement.
Furthermore, God designed this system specifically so that “the promise might be sure to all the seed.” To put it another way, God designed the grace and faith system so that nothing would stand in our way of obtaining the physical manifestation of God’s promises. God wants us to live in the reality of His promises.
Every promise from God to His people, Old Testament or New Testament, is now yours. You are God’s child and all of His promises are your inheritance. They are given to you as an act of God’s grace. The only requirement is faith. Other than faith they are unconditional. You could never earn them if you tried.
Many people approach God for healing or other blessings like they would approach a banker for an unsecured loan. This is a concept from Pastor Greg Mohr that I really like. When you go for an unsecured loan, you ask the banker to analyze your credits and assets and decide whether you are worthy of the loan. We must stop approaching God that way. When you approach God on the basis of His promises, there is no “maybe,” there is no “later,” there is no “no,” there is only yes and amen.
If God refused to give you something He has already promised, that would be like a bank refusing to give you money that you have on deposit. The promises already belong to you. Healing already belongs to you. In the same way you need to approach the bank according to their system to take what you’ve deposited, you need to approach God according to His system to receive the manifestation of your inherited promises.
Next week we will discuss the concept of faith. We are going to take a hard look at true Biblical faith, and it will open your understanding of faith like never before. Understanding Biblical faith is a master key to living in all of God’s promises, including healing.
People argue against God’s power and desire to heal, but none of those arguments agree with the Bible. Sure, lots of people don’t believe the Bible, but who cares what they think about your healing. I appreciate we may listen to a doctor for a diagnosis or treatment suggestion, but they don’t decide God’s will for your healing. Similarly, we don’t listen to Christians whose beliefs disagree with God’s Word. God wants healing for everyone, all the time, every time. That’s the Biblical truth.
In fact, in the greatest act for your healing that could ever be conceived, God put every sickness, and every physical punishment for sin, on Jesus’ body as part of His sacrificial death. Because of Jesus’ stripes, physical healing belongs to you. You don’t ever have to endure physical ailments again. Jesus’ sacrificed His body so you can live in divine health.
If that wasn’t enough, God has given you numerous promises covering every area of your life, including your physical health. God has already given you the promises as an act of His grace. The promises are your inheritance and only require faith for their manifestation.
Look, I understand that if someone just looks at the world they won’t believe God wants everyone healed or that God already provided healing for all Christians. Sickness and disease fill the earth, especially now with Covid-19.
However, an honest look at the Bible shows God’s will clearly. An honest look at the Bible also shows clearly that healing belongs to all Christians. No Christian should be sick. If a Christian gets attacked with a physical problem, the Bible tells us what to do. Attacks may come, but we can deal with them and the power of God will restore our bodies to perfect physical health.
As my wife and I studied God’s Word for healing for ourselves, and as we listened to people that God directed us to by His Spirit, we learned these truths. These truths about healing were better than anything we had ever been taught. Yes, we believed God wanted Christians healed, but we didn’t know that healing already belonged to us. We didn’t know His healing power was universally available, even to non-Christians. We didn’t understand how Jesus had truly provided the sacrifice for both our salvation and our physical healing. We didn’t understand Biblical faith. We didn’t understand how to see God’s healing power flow into the natural realm. I’m embarrassed to admit these things, but at least we have it now.
I told my wife one day, in the middle of her healing journey, that we were coming out of that situation with great spoil, and that the spoil would be understanding how healing works so that we could share it with others. I’m glad I can share it with you now, and I pray you stick with us as we continue for the next couple of weeks. You’re going to understand faith on another level, and you’re going to understand how to see healing manifest over any kind of physical ailment. God bless you!
However, and unfortunately, not everyone believes what the Bible says. There is only so much we can do about that. But we must decide that we believe what the Bible says. It never ceases to amaze me how Christians don’t let the Bible get in the way of what they believe. Few things bother me more than hearing a Christian say he believes something that clearly disagrees with the Bible.
I remember the first time I encountered this problem. I was speaking with my beloved grandfather. This was fifteen years ago, I was a young Christian, excited about the Word, and for various reasons I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, who has since gone home to be with the Lord. I was sitting at his table in the kitchen talking about when Jesus healed the ten lepers. I made a particular point, which I read directly from the Bible, and my grandfather said “well I don’t believe that.” I didn’t know what to say. My grandfather, a Christian all of my life, was saying He didn’t believe something the Bible specifically said.
My grandfather was a great guy, but let’s not be like that. Most Christians wouldn’t express such blatant disagreement with God’s Word, but the church at large sure teaches a lot of things that don’t line up with the Bible. And for a variety of reasons, the church at large does not believe that healing is God’s will all the time, every time, for everyone. Today we are going to spend a few minutes debunking the most common arguments against God’s power and desire to heal. Then we are going to take last week’s lesson a step further and show you that healing is not only God’s will for your life, but it already belongs to you.
So as we start to look at the arguments against healing, let’s first recognize that most non-Christians don’t believe in divine healing, at least not the way we are discussing it here. That should come as no surprise. Unbelievers don’t believe. But for us it doesn’t matter what non-Christians think about divine healing (and that includes doctors, friends, and family). We aren’t asking them, and we don’t care what they think. We are asking God and His Word what they think about divine healing. Interestingly enough, divine healing is still available to non-Christians. The Bible is clear about that, but we won’t go there right now. If you hear a non-Christian arguing against your faith for healing in any way, or telling you all about what they don’t believe, don’t be surprised. Do not let it influence your thinking or your faith in the slightest. Walk in love, thank them for their opinion, and don’t discuss your medical situation with them again. Your testimony of divine healing will be a great discussion point in the future!
Sadly, many Christians also don’t believe in divine healing. This needs more discussion because it’s very possible you will encounter some of these Christians on your healing journey. If you are sick and you ask some Christians whether God wants you healed, you will probably encounter a variety of answers.
There are some Christians who believe God is not concerned or getting involved in such affairs at this time. That is an unbiblical statement and can be immediately dismissed. If you need healing and someone shares that idea with you, you are talking to the wrong person. Walk in love, thank them for their opinion, and do not discuss your medical situation with them again. Side note, if you are believing God for divine healing, only listen to the right people, especially when it’s a very serious health issue. Psalms 139:17 says “How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered.” Jesus said in Luke 12:7, “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” These two short verses illustrate that God is concerned with every aspect of our lives, and every aspect of our physical bodies. God does care. God does want to be involved, and in this series we will learn how to involve Him correctly in your healing journey.
Other Christians believe any true healing miracles (and really any miracles, other than salvation) passed away with the last apostle. That is also an unbiblical statement and can be immediately dismissed. First of all, that directly conflicts with Jesus’ words in Mark 16: 14-18. It also directly contradicts James 5:14-15, which teaches us that elders are capable of healing prayers, not just apostles. As we will see, you don’t need elders or apostles or anyone with any kind of title other than Christian to receive divine healing, but my point is that the Bible directly contradicts the erroneous teaching that healing miracles passed away with the last apostle. Again, if you hear anyone say this, don’t argue with them, don’t discuss your medical situation with them, just bring them your healing testimony later.
Other Christians, usually well-meaning, will say that God can heal BUT it’s part of His sovereign will as to whether God will heal YOU. So you can pray for healing but you just don’t know. This is probably the most widely held belief on healing in the Christian world. This is also an unbiblical statement, but it’s tough to get too upset about it. All Christians have seen countless sick people, and most of us have seen people tragically die long before their time. If you believe that God controls every detail of the universe according to His will, then you cannot believe that God wants everyone healed, because there are sick people everywhere. Most churches teach, and most Christians think, God controls everything like that, so we can understand why so many people don’t believe healing is definitely God’s will for you.
The Biblical truth is that God does want everyone healed, but divine healing comes the way the Bible says it comes. God is not controlling every aspect of the universe, and God is not controlling every aspect of your healing. Healing doesn’t come automatically just because God wants you healed. Healing doesn’t come because God sovereignly decides to release His healing blessings on someone. I will mention now that I despise any teaching that suggests God would answer one person’s prayers for healing, but not another’s, simply because He willed healing for the one person but not the other. The fact is that divine healing comes when you do what the Bible says to do to receive divine healing. And divine healing will come every single time, when you seek it according to the Bible’s directions.
People are so funny when it comes to thinking about God’s sovereign will. People think we have free will, but they also formulate much of their world view based on the idea that God controls everything. The truth is that only minor tweaks in the understanding of God’s sovereignty will lead us much closer to the truth. To keep it simple, we can agree that God is sovereign and does what He wants. However, He doesn’t exercise that sovereignty constantly and down to the minutia of every single action of every single thing. Rather, in God’s sovereign will He created the world, the Kingdom of God, and His Word, and all of their relevant systems and structures. It is inside of these that we live and have our free will. Many things are available and many things are God’s will, but they are not automatic. And God doesn’t just sovereignly decide for different things to happen in your life.
This is an extremely important point to understand for many areas of your life. We need to learn the truth about God’s sovereignty so we can take the actions and authority needed to see God’s best in every area of our lives, and not just hope it’s in His plans for us. Salvation is the easiest example here. 2 Peter 3:9 says God “does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” Has everyone repented? Has everyone in the world received salvation? No. So we see that what God wants for people is not automatic. Salvation is available, but not automatic.
If we talked about your finances, no sensible person would suggest you could do whatever you want with your money and succeed financially in God’s system. You can gamble, spend a bunch on drugs and alcohol, save nothing, invest nothing, give or donate nothing, don’t tithe, buy whatever you want, and God is still going to bless your finances according to His sovereign will. Hopefully we would all regard that idea as nonsense. Rather, sensible Christians understand that if you tithe, if you give, if you generally honor God with your finances, then you are setting yourself up to operate in God’s economic system, and this will lead to financial increase in your life.
Financial blessings and God’s empowerment to prosper already belong to you as a Christian. However, you must operate in the Kingdom of God’s economic system to see that blessing manifest in your bank account. Similarly, divine healing and health already belong to you, but you must seek and release God’s healing power correctly to receive the manifestations of healing and health in your body.
In the same way that there is a system to cooperate with God for financial increase, there is a system to cooperate with God to receive divine healing. There is also a system to receiving salvation (we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead, Romans 10:9, 10). Very little with God is automatic. We must learn God’s ways from God’s Word and then work within God’s systems to receive God’s will for our lives. That’s how it works. Divine healing and health are available, divine financial blessings are available, personal peace, joy and fulfillment are available, salvation is available, but none of these come only as a result of God’s sovereign will. None of these come as a result of God’s answering one person’s prayers but not another’s. Never mind the fact that no one thinks God selectively answers prayers for salvation, which is by far the greatest thing God will ever do for us, but most people think God selectively answers every other kind of prayer.
So there are Christians who believe that God heals but He only heals according to His sovereign will, and you can never know whether that will includes healing for you. That belief is wrong. The Biblical truth is that, in God’s sovereign will, He wants everyone healed, and He has provided ways for everyone to receive divine healing. Tragically, many Christians haven’t understood this, and we have seen countless people (including awesome men and women of God) suffer from sickness and die before they should.
Yes, some Christians believe other things about divine healing, but generally these are the three views. Either (a) God doesn’t care or won’t do anything / healing miracles passed away (I put those together because they both basically say God isn’t getting involved), (b) God may heal but you never know, or (c) yes absolutely God wants you healed and He will heal you if you will do what the Bible says to do about healing.
In the two and a half years that my wife and I have been studying healing, seeing miracles in her body, seeing other manifestations of divine healing in our home, and learning about the healing others have experienced, we have found that God wants every single person healed of every single ailment and He wants it right now. If you need divine healing, that’s some good news.
We must stop questioning whether healing is God’s will, which is what the devil has made the church do. Rather, we must know that anything short of perfect health is not God’s will.
I told you that divine healing belongs to you as a Child of God, and now I want to explain that to you. I’m going to try to quickly explain a very, very important, but somewhat complicated concept. If this section presents ideas that are new to you, please listen to it a few times because this information can truly change your life and your entire approach to your Christianity.
When you became a Christian, the spirit you had died, and God personally gave birth to your new spirit. That is what it means to be born again. See John chapter 3 and 1 John 3:9. Now you are literally God’s biological child. It’s not the biology of the flesh, but the biology of the spirit, which is more important.
As God’s child, He now sees you as perfect (Hebrews 10:14). You are now the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). You have complete access to God (Hebrews 4:16). In fact, your new born-again spirit is both in your body and also united with the Spirit of God in the throne room of Heaven, and seated in Christ at God’s right hand (Ephesians 2:6,13). In addition to all of that, you are now blessed with all of God’s blessings (Ephesians 1:13), and all of God’s promises are yours (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Andrew Wommack has a teaching series called “You’ve Already Got It.” It’s available for free on his website and on youtube. I encourage you to listen to it several times because it is the most revelatory teaching I think I’ve ever heard. And I want to highly recommend that series to you, but also I want to use the title as part of my explanation for healing. You’ve already got it.
You are already perfect in God’s eyes. You are already blessed. You are already empowered to prosper. You are already loved. You already have God’s presence in you and in your life. There are so many thing that we pray for that, in fact, we already have. We must start understanding that we don’t need to pray for many things, rather we need to understand what we already have and use it. We need to activate and experience what God has already given us, rather than ask God for it.
You already have complete access to God’s healing power. God has already completely released His healing will and healing power into your life. Maybe sickness attacks your body even as I write this. But it doesn’t have to be that way. God’s already done more than enough to deal with any physical ailment you will ever have. But you must do your part. We will talk about how to appropriately release the healing power of God later, but today I want to focus on the fact that healing already belongs to you. I want to show you this from the Word so clearly that you will incorporate this into your mental framework. It needs to be there every time you need to experience healing for you or for another.
Let us first look at the ministry of Jesus, and specifically a prophecy about Jesus from the book of Isaiah. In this prophecy God had Isaiah, many years before the life of Jesus, talk about Jesus and His coming ministry.
(Isaiah 53:3-5 KJV) He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
In this prophecy Isaiah says that Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. People debate what those words mean and whether they apply to physical ailments, but the debate is unnecessary. The Hebrew word which they translated “griefs” appears 24 times in the Old Testament. 20 of those times the word is translated sick, sickness or disease. Only in Jeremiah and Isaiah did the translators use “griefs”. I’m not sure why, but the root word means to be weak, sick, or afflicted. Given this was translated to English 400 years ago, it’s possible the word grief also applied to physical matters back them. The prophecy clearly says that Jesus would bear our sicknesses.
In this extremely important prophecy we learn that Jesus would bear certain things for us, and also that Jesus would literally take punishment for us. His body would be wounded for our sins. However, because of His stripes (when they whipped Him), we can be healed. You may recall we saw part of this prophecy echoed in the book of Matthew last week, let’s look at that again.
(Matthew 8:16-17 NIV) “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.””
We don’t even need to go to the Hebrew words to understand what the prophecy meant. Please note how Matthew regarded this prophecy from Isaiah. For Matthew, who very likely talked to Jesus Himself about this prophesy and what it meant (See Luke 24:45), Jesus healing people’s physical ailments fulfilled this prophecy. He translates the words “griefs” and “sorrows” as physical ailments, literally infirmities and diseases. So this prophecy from Isaiah, which Matthew discusses in light of actually seeing Jesus’ ministry, tells us that Jesus would take our physical ailments.
Now let’s note again the last phrase from the prophecy, “with His stripes we are healed.” The Apostle Peter mentioned that part in one of His letters to the church. (1 Peter 2:24 NLT) “He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By His wounds you are healed.”
People also debate what the word “healed” means and whether it applies to physical healing. The Greek word translated “healed” appears 28 times in the Bible. Of the 27 other instances, 26 of those refer to physical healing, and one refers to mental or emotional healing. None of these instances refer to any type of “spiritual healing”. Furthermore, we don’t get healed spiritually. Spiritually, when we accept Christ, we die and are born again. The healing the prophecy talks about, and the healing Matthew and Peter mention, is physical.
Maybe you are thinking, Byron you convinced me last time that Jesus wants me healed, why are we going through these issues again? What we are talking about today is a very distinct issue, and it’s very important that you understand them separately. Yes, Jesus clearly showed that God wants you healed, and you never need to wonder whether God wants you healed from any physical ailment. But the point we are making today is even better. Not only does Jesus want you healed, but in the eyes of God, Jesus took both your physical ailments, and your physical punishment for your sins, and therefore you are entitled to healing. Healing belongs to you both as a child of God and because of Jesus’ sacrifice for you.
Remember the first Passover feast (Exodus 12). The Israelites were told to kill and eat a lamb without blemish, and to take the lamb’s blood and spread it over the side and upper posts of the house. The blood would cause God, as He killed the Egyptians, to pass over the homes of the Israelites. Of course, this is symbolic for the ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb without blemish, and because of His blood God will never punish us for our sins.
But notice a huge difference between the killing of the lamb and Jesus’ death. God didn’t tell the Israelites to torture the lamb. God didn’t tell them to whip the lamb and beat it so badly that it no longer even looked like a lamb. But that’s what happened to Jesus. Why? Yes, Jesus was taking all the punishment that would ever be needed for every sin in all of time. But the destruction of Jesus’ physical body also provided for our legal entitlement to the healing power of God. By His stripes we are healed. Because of what Jesus went through, including both his death and the extreme torture of His body, we can be healed, and in fact, healing belongs to us. Jesus will never be tortured again. In the same way that He shed His blood once to deal with all of our sins, He took all of that punishment once so that we can experience every possible blessing from God now, in this life, including perfect physical health.
Here is the amazing truth – The God Who Heals, in the greatest act of healing that could ever be conceived, caused Jesus to bear in His body, as shown in the stripes and torture, every sickness, disease, and physical ailment we would ever have. Jesus bore them all for us. Jesus’ body was crushed for us. And now, just like with our salvation, because of what Jesus did, we can live in divine health.
Last week we noted that God did punish people with sickness in the Old Testament. That will never happen again. Yes, there is sickness in the world. There are things that cause injury in the world. But God is not one of them. He is The God Who Heals. He is not The God Who Makes Sick. God never has and never will punish a Christian with sickness or a physical problem of any kind, in the same way God will never punish a Christian with hell. Jesus took your sins and your sicknesses. You deal with sin by praying the salvation prayer and getting born again. You deal with medical issues by taking your God-given authority over the issues and releasing the healing power of God, just like the Apostles did.
I am now going to show you that healing belongs to you another way. Healing belongs to you because of what Jesus did and because by His stripes you were healed. Healing also belongs to you because all of God’s promises now belong to you, including all His healing promises.
Just so you have them handy, some of God’s healing promises (other than the promise that you are healed because of Jesus’ stripes) would be Exodus 23:25-26, James 5:14-15, Psalms 103:2-3, Jeremiah 30:17, and Mark 16:15-18).
You have probably heard that the Bible contains many promises for God’s people. There are promises for every area of life, promises that you can live the best human existence possible, even in this world with all of its problems. That’s a complicated idea, but to keep it simple there are promises that cover your health, family, finances, fulfillment, mental peace, and many other areas. In the past, whether someone experienced those promised blessings depended on their degree of obedience to the law. However, Jesus obeyed the law perfectly and obtained all the promises. Now, whether we experience the promised blessings depends on our relationship with Jesus Christ and our faith in the promises.
(2 Corinthians 1:20 NIV) “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
As a Christian, in Christ, when you go to God for one of His promises, God always answers you “yes.” The question is never your entitlement to the promise or God’s desire for you to have it. Much of the church world, while knowing that verse, thinks we need to beg God for those promises, or earn them. But we could never earn God’s amazing promises, and begging God won’t work either. Jesus earned them. In Christ, we are entitled to them now, and in fact, they are our inheritance.
(Romans 4:13-16 KJV) For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
(Galatians 4:6-7 NLT) And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.
I suppose it’s tough to truly convey these ideas just by looking at a couple of verses. But let’s try. First, you must recognize that you are God’s child now. While the Bible talks about adoption, it’s not adoption as we think about it. We truly become God’s child in every sense, being born directly from His Spirit.
As God’s child, you are His heir, a joint-heir with Christ. But unlike inheritance in the natural sense, we aren’t waiting for God to die to inherit. Jesus died, and His death opened the way for us to become God’s children. Now that we are God’s children, our inheritance is freely available to us.
Our inheritance includes all of God’s promises. Note Hebrews 6:12 which also says the promises are our inheritance. “That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” (Biblical patience is standing in faith over a long period of time).
Romans Chapter 4 is extremely important and should be studied. God has given us many promises, just like He made certain promises to Abraham. Abraham didn’t earn those promises according to the law, he obtained the promise through faith. Similarly, the promises are given to us as an act of God’s grace, and now faith is the only requirement.
Furthermore, God designed this system specifically so that “the promise might be sure to all the seed.” To put it another way, God designed the grace and faith system so that nothing would stand in our way of obtaining the physical manifestation of God’s promises. God wants us to live in the reality of His promises.
Every promise from God to His people, Old Testament or New Testament, is now yours. You are God’s child and all of His promises are your inheritance. They are given to you as an act of God’s grace. The only requirement is faith. Other than faith they are unconditional. You could never earn them if you tried.
Many people approach God for healing or other blessings like they would approach a banker for an unsecured loan. This is a concept from Pastor Greg Mohr that I really like. When you go for an unsecured loan, you ask the banker to analyze your credits and assets and decide whether you are worthy of the loan. We must stop approaching God that way. When you approach God on the basis of His promises, there is no “maybe,” there is no “later,” there is no “no,” there is only yes and amen.
If God refused to give you something He has already promised, that would be like a bank refusing to give you money that you have on deposit. The promises already belong to you. Healing already belongs to you. In the same way you need to approach the bank according to their system to take what you’ve deposited, you need to approach God according to His system to receive the manifestation of your inherited promises.
Next week we will discuss the concept of faith. We are going to take a hard look at true Biblical faith, and it will open your understanding of faith like never before. Understanding Biblical faith is a master key to living in all of God’s promises, including healing.
People argue against God’s power and desire to heal, but none of those arguments agree with the Bible. Sure, lots of people don’t believe the Bible, but who cares what they think about your healing. I appreciate we may listen to a doctor for a diagnosis or treatment suggestion, but they don’t decide God’s will for your healing. Similarly, we don’t listen to Christians whose beliefs disagree with God’s Word. God wants healing for everyone, all the time, every time. That’s the Biblical truth.
In fact, in the greatest act for your healing that could ever be conceived, God put every sickness, and every physical punishment for sin, on Jesus’ body as part of His sacrificial death. Because of Jesus’ stripes, physical healing belongs to you. You don’t ever have to endure physical ailments again. Jesus’ sacrificed His body so you can live in divine health.
If that wasn’t enough, God has given you numerous promises covering every area of your life, including your physical health. God has already given you the promises as an act of His grace. The promises are your inheritance and only require faith for their manifestation.
Look, I understand that if someone just looks at the world they won’t believe God wants everyone healed or that God already provided healing for all Christians. Sickness and disease fill the earth, especially now with Covid-19.
However, an honest look at the Bible shows God’s will clearly. An honest look at the Bible also shows clearly that healing belongs to all Christians. No Christian should be sick. If a Christian gets attacked with a physical problem, the Bible tells us what to do. Attacks may come, but we can deal with them and the power of God will restore our bodies to perfect physical health.
As my wife and I studied God’s Word for healing for ourselves, and as we listened to people that God directed us to by His Spirit, we learned these truths. These truths about healing were better than anything we had ever been taught. Yes, we believed God wanted Christians healed, but we didn’t know that healing already belonged to us. We didn’t know His healing power was universally available, even to non-Christians. We didn’t understand how Jesus had truly provided the sacrifice for both our salvation and our physical healing. We didn’t understand Biblical faith. We didn’t understand how to see God’s healing power flow into the natural realm. I’m embarrassed to admit these things, but at least we have it now.
I told my wife one day, in the middle of her healing journey, that we were coming out of that situation with great spoil, and that the spoil would be understanding how healing works so that we could share it with others. I’m glad I can share it with you now, and I pray you stick with us as we continue for the next couple of weeks. You’re going to understand faith on another level, and you’re going to understand how to see healing manifest over any kind of physical ailment. God bless you!
Comments
Post a Comment