Wow. I don’t even know where to begin.
This past weekend the elders of our church-family, along with their wives, went away for a weekend of prayer and seeking the Lord, through the Scriptures, regarding His will for healing. As many of you know, this past year has been a journey for me of allowing God’s Word to be the only and final authority on the subject of divine healing, and specifically His will for us regarding various forms of suffering.
I shared a lot during the spring, posting tidbits along the way, trying not to use too many exclamation points and all-caps and italics because this stuff was blowing my mind. I kept reading and re-reading the gospels and walking around like a crazy lady, holding up my Bible and asking whoever would listen, “Have you read this?!”
Who knew? I had already read through the entire Bible 16 times at that point and had never noticed that Jesus healed every single person who came to Him. I never noticed that every time He commissions and sends people out, he includes preaching and healing/deliverance. I never noticed that Jesus spends more time healing and casting out demons than he does preaching. I never noticed that Jesus never tells people to “just be grateful” for their sickness or to “focus only on their spiritual needs” or to “only care about souls.” I never noticed that Jesus clearly distinguishes between suffering persecution for His name (for which we are blessed!) and suffering sickness which He came to heal and bear away, on the cross.
How have we gotten so off track? How have we come to celebrate the evil of sickness as somehow being a gift? Why are we embracing what Jesus bore away on the cross? Why are we encouraging people to stay locked in prison when Jesus came to set them free? Why do we see it as more “spiritual” to endure sickness, and somehow “shallow” or “weak” to ask for healing?
On Mother’s Day I preached a message on this, my journey, including this handout giving verse references for all the places in the gospels and Acts that we see examples or commands for healing. This past weekend we journeyed through many of these passages, allowing the Scriptures to be our authority, asking the Holy Sprit to open our eyes and see afresh the truth of God’s Word. We chose to submit our lives, our experience, our fears and our doubts, to the truth of His Word, and obey, to the best of our understanding, what He commands.
It was an incredible time. For 28 hours we searched the Scriptures, prayed, talked, discussed, prayed some more, laid hands on each other, prayed some more, ate, slept, read the Scriptures, prayed some more, cried, confessed, and prayed some more. God met us. I believe it was a watershed moment for our church, and our individual lives. Although I already fully believed, I came to know His heart for this more than ever before.
Have I seen evidence yet? Well I’m slow to lean on what I see, since faith is believing what is unseen, but I can testify and rejoice in two small “victories” I have witnessed by the power of God.
- First, I can praise God that since preaching that message on healing, and fully embracing this truth, submitting my mind and heart and spirit to God’s Word on this subject, my kids and I have not been sick a single time. That was almost 5 months ago. I praise Him for this!
- Secondly, Jeff has suffered back pain for 21-years because of a broken vertebrae when he was in High School. He always has this pain, especially severe during changes in weather, or when sleeping in uncomfortable situations. Friday night, the elders gathered around and laid hands on Jeff, asking for complete healing in Jesus’ name. He has had absolutely no pain since then. He slept on the floor that night (!) and the weather changed significantly, and he still has had absolutely no pain. We praise God for this as well!
So I simply ask you again: Search for yourself. Listen here, if you like. Click on the links to read along the journey. Download this free ebook. But most importantly, search these Scriptures. Look directly to Jesus and see what He was like. What did He say? What did He do? What did He tell us to do? Just as we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we then act. By His grace, we live out His love and bring His kingdom here, conduits of His healing power, His grace and forgiveness, His truth and freedom. For His glory.
And if you do believe, and feel discouraged at not seeing any of this come to pass yet, please don’t give up. Just as we persevere in trusting Him for our growth and sanctification, for salvation for others, for life-change, we persevere in this journey as well. Don’t give up!
{Happy Monday. May His love be shown and His will be done in your life this week. Thanks for reading.}
9 thoughts on “Returning to Jesus, our Healer”
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As awesome as this is…. as a person intimately connected with those with chronic illness, fatigue and disability… well, it bothers me a little that you threw the baby out with the bathwater. Illness and disability and suffering are not places that God is not present and working. Suffering and illness are not, I don’t think, intrinsically evil. I will think about this a bit. You know my son has Down Syndrome? And was an orphan and suffered for 2 1/2 years in an orphanage before coming home and suffering in new ways? http://www.epm.org/blog/2015/Sep/23/david-obrien is another example. Just… thinking about this.
Hi Rachel, I did not mean to throw out any baby! 🙂 I certainly don’t believe that “God is not present and working” in and through EVERY situation, including sickness, tragedy, victimization, genocide, pain, suffering, affliction, disability. There is no situation on earth where God is not ever-present and working in powerful ways. My husband’s back being broken was the very thing that brought him to salvation! God “used” it in eternally blessed ways, and now, 21-years later, we also rejoice that it’s healed. Also, just because we fully trust Him does not mean that *poof* there is no more suffering and struggling. I do think suffering and sickness are evil (although that word sounds harsh!) insomuch as that they are not part of God’s greatest and best will, i.e. they are not present in heaven, so when we pray “Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we are in effect praying that heaven would come to earth. Certainly, though, we will always be battling our broken bodies, disabilities, syndromes, struggles, as long as we walk this earth, so we pray for God’s power to transform US — both our hearts and souls and bodies — more and more into His perfect image as long as we walk this earth. What bothers me is that so many (myself included!) have completely ignored Jesus’ work of healing and have come to “over-embrace” sickness as somehow being super spiritual, when Jesus never did that. I believe we overspiritualize the gospel and end of ignoring some of the real-life tangible needs right in front of us. Anyway, long response 🙂 , but I appreciate your thoughts, and I pray my words are not hurtful, but that God continues to show us both more and more of His perfect love and will!
I’ve never thought about this before, Kari. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with us your readers! I’m going to have to check out the links you gave.
Oh good! Thank you for commenting, Tara — I hope you find the Scripture passages encouraging and faith-building! Jesus is amazing!
Kari – Mostly a clarifying question here, but I think an important one:
What differentiates an unanswered prayer for healing from an answered one? Faith? Persistence? The Will of God? Should we EXPECT to see healing, or HOPE to be healing? In other words, if I’m not seeing healing, am I doing something wrong, or may God simply have a bigger plan than my temporal well-being?
Hi Lucas! I would say YES, God does have a bigger plan than my temporal well-being, and YES, we can hope and expect to see healing. 🙂 Both! Jesus never pits one against the other in the Scriptures. He does both, and He often works through one to get to the other. We are so prone to divide spiritual issues and bodily issues–but Jesus is always weaving in and out and dealing with the whole person. If we are not receiving healing, Scripture tells us to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, all while admitting our own weakness (I believe, help my unbelief!) and actively engaging in prayer and fasting, confessing sin regularly, and asking God for continued revelation as to what the cause is, what He’s doing, what His timing is. The answer is always to go TO HIM, over and over and over and over. Persistence in prayer is huge! We are so prone to give up so quickly, labeling something as “not His will” just because it didn’t happen right away. Prayer, fasting, persistence, asking for increased faith, confessing sin, all of these are crucially important. I’m on the journey with you, learning as we go! Thanks for commenting and asking questions–bless you, Lucas!
Kari,
Thanks for responding so quickly! And I love that your answer is to turn to Jesus! But the thing I was trying to tease out didn’t get answered. Can I try to ask it a different way?
Is your message for those who are hurting:
“Jesus can heal your body in this life, and will in the next, turn to him and see”, or
“Jesus will heal your body in this life, if you persist, confess, abide…”?
That makes sense, Lucas. I’m not trying to avoid answering the question, I would just say that I’m not the one to make specific promises to anyone, hurting or otherwise. I simply share the scriptures and ask people to pray according to God’s revealed will. I am not going to “diagnose” another person, or make a specific promise unless clearly directed by God because I”m not in a position to know the ins and outs of that persons heart or life. All I know is that Jesus always healed, and He commands us to carry out His works and pray His will. Father Francis McNutt, in his book on Healing, does an excellent job of explaining how we act in faith and yet do not assume the place of God by promising people something or diagnosing why they are sick. I just want to be fully convinced of God’s will and pray in accordance with that. Does that make sense?