Biblical Healing
He leads me …
A lot of Christians believe that when they pray for someone who is sick, the Lord will automatically heal them. The basis of this is taken from the words spoken by Jesus found in Mark 16:17-18 –
“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (NIV italics added)
They may also believe that based on John 3:16, God says that it is His desire that no one should perish, so it is a Christian’s duty to pray healing for everyone who needs it.
But for most believers nothing happens when they pray for healing. Why? Maybe we do not have enough faith? Maybe there is unforgiven sin in our lives which is stopping our prayers from being effective? Maybe God considers that we have sufficient resources to deal with the sickness ourselves – like chemists, doctors and surgeons?
When we think about the issue of healing we would do well to look at the example shown by Jesus. Consider the following verses -
John 8:28 - So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
John 12:49 - “For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.”
John 12:50 - “I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 14:24 - “He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”
John 14:31 - “But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”
If this is what Jesus did, perhaps we would do well to copy Him.
Let us look at an example of what Jesus did.
When He visited the pool of Bethesda Jesus saw that there, “lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.” (NKJV)
Now if Jesus healed everybody as some people believe he did, He would have prayed for everyone there. After all it could be argued that they all had the faith to believe for a healing, otherwise they would not have been there. But the Bible tells us that Jesus just went to one man. Why? Because He obeyed what the Father told Him to do, as we have seen in the verses above.
What Christians may pray for and what is God’s will can be quite different. In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus did not go as soon as He was called by Martha to go and heal her brother. Jesus waited before He went to Lazarus, and by the time He got there Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.
Martha was really upset with Jesus saying, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha’s sister Mary said something similar, and a number of the people watching said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?”
This is probably what any of us would have thought, but Jesus knew that He was going to glorify His Father by achieving an important miracle in raising Lazarus from the dead. Had Jesus prayed for the healing of Lazarus earlier on, the full meaning of what Jesus did would have been missed.
Maybe as Christians are we likely to frustrate God from doing something more significant if we try and intervene when we think we should, rather than find out what He wants to do?
Should we be praying instead for endurance and perseverance as He helps take us through the adversity, instead of praying that He takes it away? After all we should be the stronger and better person when we come out the other side.
In an article in the Bay of Plenty Times some years ago, Kevin Major talked about having to confront prostate cancer. He was looking at the possibility of five more years’ life because he sought treatment early enough to control the cancer.
Being in his mid-forties the future looked rather miserable, but what changed was Kevin had become closer to his parents, children, step-children and grandchildren. Out of his adversity the family had pulled together as a stronger unit than it was before, and they were all well aware of the values that mattered in life. The survivors would carry that with them for the rest of their lives. One man’s negative experience had affected many others in a very positive way.
We can see that the Lord can use sickness in various ways which we may not understand when we see its effect on the sufferer, Can we really trust God to do the right thing? Do we really trust Him?
The invalid that Jesus spoke to at the pool of Bethesda must have trusted Jesus, because when the Lord said, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk,’ we are told, ‘at once the man was immediately cured and he picked up his mat and walked.’
We can see that there is more to being healed than someone praying in faith for the unwell person to be restored to full health. Maybe the Lord wants to deal with them another way?
