Where to Turn for Healing
In today's world, many live a very fleshly life even though they are
Christians. Often at some point they become seriously ill and their world
gets jolted. Where should they look to obtain healing that they may be
made well?
Recently, a pastor of a large church became seriously ill and had these
questions hitting home. Many Christians know that God still heals today,
but some have died not receiving a healing (more on this issue later).
That pastor was shown a verse by a doctor in his congregation, in the
Amplified Bible translation:
Proverbs 18:9 "He who is loose and slack in his work is brother to him who is
a destroyer and he who does not use his endeavors to heal himself is brother to
him who commits suicide. "
By this passage, the pastor said "When I read that, God spoke to me, He
told me not to put Him in a box thinking that I will be healed by brother
what's-his-name putting his hand on me, or sending off for the prayer cloth"
I am sorry, but I do not believe that, maybe the flesh said that out of fear
of his future, but God would not violate His own word. It does not seem
God would say "brother what's-his-name" nor "putting his hands on me
or sending off for the prayer cloth", almost making light of healing
Scriptures. One passage supposedly from the Bible and instantly, in the
Pastor's mind, he threw out all the other Scriptures plainly saying we should
turn to God for healing.
The Pastor turned completely to man and his ways and the disease was removed
over a long period of time, making him almost unto death many times through
Chemotherapy. Now he proudly proclaims that God Healed him and then goes
on to glorify what the medical profession and his power of diet did for him.
My question, is it really God's plan for us to undergo these torturous
treatments that may at times damage more than they repair or to be cut up and
parts removed in order to keep us from being sick or does God have a
different plan?
Digging a little Deeper
What about this passage? How is to be taken? Simple, it is not to
be taken at all as it does not even exist. The Amplified Bible included it
because it was in the Greek Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament
Hebrew text). Yep, the part of the above Scripture that is underlined does
not exist in the original text and was added later.
Would it be wrong of a person to get sick and then just lay there and die
when they know that there is a chance for help? Probably so, but that is
not what we are told to do in the Word. In both the Old and New Testaments
of the Bible we are told to seek God for healing with great promises that we
would be healed.
Psalms 103:2-3 ~ "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
who forgiveth all thine iniquites; who healeth all thy diseases;"
If there were no other passage in the Bible that should be enough for us to
trust in God to take care of the issue and to know it is His will us to be in
health. It does not stop there though. There are many Scriptures in
the Bible promising health, power over disease and how to obtain from God
through prayer and faith.
In the New Testament we have a clear passage that says what believers are to
do if they become sick:
James 5:14-15 ~ "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall
raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
Some say that God uses different ways to provide healing. They often
cite the old story of a person trapped on their roof in a flood and the person
who is stranded rejects a boat that comes along and even a helicopter, saying
God will deliver him. Yes, this would be stupid, but what if the Bible
said, “If you are trapped on a roof in a flood, then let him wait there until a
cloud comes along and carries him to safety.” God would have clearly told
him what to do in such a situation and accepting any offers for help would have
been disobedience and he would have missed the opportunity to see God miraculously
power deliver him.
Paul's Thorn
Some have really battled over this passage and come to the conclusion, even Paul was sick
and God said His grace was enough for him and he did not receive a healing.
The passage I am referring to is:
2Co 12:7 ~ "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance
of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. "
I do not believe he was speaking of sickness, but rather of those that came
against him all the time. It was a "messenger from Satan", how would a
sickness be called a "messenger from Satan"? Remember Paul was a learned
man and knew the Scriptures better than most. With this knowledge, he used a
keyword that some do not pick up on today, but it would have been quite clear to
learned Jewish people of that time, which is, "Thorn". This was commonly
used to refer to an enemy that keeps attacking you:
Eze 28:24 ~ "And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house
of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that
despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD. "
Num 33:55 ~ "But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from
before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them
shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the
land wherein ye dwell."
Jos 23:13 ~ "Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive
out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps
unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish
from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you."
Jdg 2:3 ~ "Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before
you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare
unto you."
2Sa 23:6-7 ~ "But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns
thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: But the man that
shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they
shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place."
There are more examples if you dig into Scripture, but doesn't this show a
person such as Paul that was so knowledgeable of the Scriptures, would use that
specific term for a reason and not just throw it out there? It would be
like me saying, "our entire family will get together on Turkey Day". Most
people in the USA would figure I was referring to "Thanksgiving Day" while it
would not make much sense to those outside this country. Paul was
using a word that they must have commonly used when referencing groups of people
that attack them. He had many different groups coming against him along
with one that kept trying to pull people away from the truth and drive them back
under bondage.
The only other passage that I know of, mentioning anyone that was sick and
seemed to continue that way was in 2 Timothy, but it really gives no details so
we have nothing to go on. Perhaps it was unbelief. Maybe he was like
many people today who do not believe they are worthy or that it is not God's
will for them to be healed. Who knows, but there are a large number of
examples throughout the New Testament showing clearly, God's healing power along
with many great promises and the passage in James telling us what to do if we
are sick.
Divine Health
I believe Christians who walk pleasing to God and do not stray, should live
in divine health. There should be no sickness come upon them. Even
the passage in James 5 makes it sound like sickness would not be a common issue
when he says “is there any sick among you”.
There is another point to ponder, there is no reference in the Scriptures
showing Jesus as ever having one minute of sickness. He even touched
those that were sick and never become sick. He walked this earth in flesh just
as we do, but sickness had no power over Him even under the old covenant.
How much more should we walk in divine health under the new Covenant. Remember
He IS our pattern!
So, what does a person do?
This is the basic truth to the entire matter, where is our faith? What
do we really believe? Do we really know God's will about us and how He
wants us healthy? If we are not sure, then we have a couple of choices:
- Study, research, pray and find out in the Scriptures
that it IS God's will for us to be healthy and the sickness is not from God and
He does not want it in our body, thus building our faith to receive, at which
point we will receive.
- If we cannot find the faith on our own, then we need to
find elders who know how to pray for the sick and have them pray over us,
healing and restoring us.
- If we cannot manage either of the above, then our only
hope is to seek man's knowledge and ways, giving ourselves to the medical world
and praying we survive.
Those are about our only options. We use one of the first two and have
God work the promised healing in our body or we turn to man and see what he can
do for us. The first two options do require some faith and if we cannot
muster that faith, we really only have one option, to turn to man's knowledge.
Why does sickness come?
This is a hard one. There are a number of ministers who have received
sickness along with a multitude of followers that have had sickness and even
died from it. How does this happen?
First we must know that sickness does not come from God. He will not
make us sick, but I know of three circumstances where He does allow us to become
sick.
Walking out from under God's Protection
The first is by walking out from under God's protection. Picture God's
protection on our life as a large umbrella with God at the center. The
more we move towards the edge of the umbrella away from God, the more we are
exposed to the elements. If we are half way between God and the edge of
the umbrella, the wind could blow some elements to lightly hit us. If we
are close to the edge, we are exposed to many elements. If however, we
step out from underneath the umbrella, we will be fully exposed to the elements
and thus completely open to sickness and disease along with other troubles from
the enemy.
Remember on the first Passover, when God told His people they must mark their
door posts with the blood of the lamb which would make the destroyer pass over
them? It is much the same way, as long as we stay close to God we are
protected, but like God's people back then, if we go out from under the
protection, we can be destroyed. The only truly safe place is directly in
the center of the umbrella with God.
How do we move out from under the umbrella or more towards the edge? It
may be easier to ask, how do we stay in the center with God, which the answer is
simple, put God first place in our lives and live with God as our
focus. This requires us to spend time with Him in prayer, in worship, fasting
and studying of His word. If we move towards the worldly things of life we
will move closer to the edge. We compromise our values, we move towards
the edge. We let the cares of this life or the deceitfulness of riches
control our lives we move closer to the edge or out from under the umbrella completely.
I hear many people saying they need to be more like the world in order to
reach the world. They say the message has to be more appealing
to the culture of today to reach them. Sorry, but this is a deception of
devils and is a lie to trap you. The truth of salvation is just as
appealing today as it was 2,000 years ago as long as it is presented with
passion and with the power of God. The closer we get to the center of the
umbrella where God resides, the more appealing our presentation of the gospel
will become because we will show more of God and less of our own thoughts.
We can use convincing words, entertain or use emotions to bring people in, but
they will not stay unless the Spirit of God draws them. If the Spirit of
God is drawing them, we only need to inform them and they will receive, it is
not by our power but by the power of God.
It is amazing how distractions of this world can have us walking out from
under that umbrella without even noticing. Life can ebb and flow and at
times it can be a rough fast storm. We need to remain constant no matter
what cycle we find our lives in and if we ever feel a drift, we need to seek
God's face and put Him back as the focus of our lives.
Breach the Hedge
The second way that we can be allowed to have sickness is if we have breached
the hedge that God has put around us. In the book of Job, when Satan
wanted to attack Job, he told God that he could not touch Job because God had a
hedge about him. That was the protection of God, which we can all walk in
if we have a heart after God and seek His face, every day keeping Him as Lord.
Remember, no one can say "no Lord". If you say "no", He is not Lord.
Some may say that God allowed Satan to attach Job with sickness. True,
but why? Did Job do anything wrong at all? I believe so, much like
the third way described below, his heart did not trust fully in God. In
the passage:
Job 3:25 ~ "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and
that which I was afraid of is come unto me."
He worshiped God with offerings all the time because he wanted protection in
his life, but did not fully trust God as he said "the things I feared is come
upon me". He did everything correctly but lacked in trust since he feared
bad things would happen.
Back on topic, there may be things we allow in our life that breach the hedge
of God around us, such as unrepentant sin for example. Many times we do
not even perceive them as sins, such as idolatry, we place something above God,
perhaps sports, careers, vehicles, etc. Maybe it is covetousness,
someone has something better than us and we feel we cannot live without it.
Another may be pride. Some people get so big headed, they cannot see
the errors of their ways.
One of the easiest and often the overlooked breach is unforgiveness or issues
between us and others. There are many places in the Bible that show we
need to forgive if we wish to be forgiven. There should not be a person on
this earth that we hold anything against regardless of what they have done to
us. This does not mean we need to be around them, but we do need to forgive
them. Jesus said that if we do not forgive we will not be forgiven.
If we are not able in our own power to forgive, then we look to God to help us
forgive them.
Any of these things can make a breach in the hedge around us. We only
need to seek God's face and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal a breach to us.
But we need to be prepared to respond once we receive the answer. It can
be easy to ignore or talk ourselves out of the answer when it comes.
Not believing it is God's will to be in Health
The third way we can receive sickness is if we believe it is God's will to
make people sick or confess that we will get sick. For example, how many
people say that cancer or other diseases run in their families and that they
will probably end up with it one day? Most likely they will if that is
their confession and they open a door to the disease. It does not matter if
breast cancer for example, runs in your family or not, you are empowering the
enemy with such statements.
Another example is Dodie Osteen, where she feels her confession allowed a
door for the enemy to attack her with cancer. In her book Healed of Cancer
(which her healing was not by doctors but by only the power of God), she says
she was in such great health that when people would ask how she was doing she
would say "I am disgustingly healthy". She said that after cancer came on
her body, she understood how foolish those words were.
Still another example is how people tend to blame everything on old age when
they grow older. They say things like "my memory just does not work that
good anymore, but you know I am getting older" or "well, I am up in their
in age, the old body cannot get around like I once did". These things
should never come out of our mouth as we are just opening a door.
One of the greatest things we can train ourselves to do is to watch the words
that come out of our mouth. They are what reveal what is in our hearts, so
listen to them and repair your heart through God's Word when it does not line
up.
If we do not fall into any of the above three circumstances, then we should
never see sickness or disease in our life as we are protected. We are
under the wings of the Almighty and are protected!
If some day though we find sickness in our life, we need to seek God's face
and ask the Holy Spirit to show us any of the above circumstances where we may
be failing. He can show us where the source is and we can fix it before
something worse comes.
Why are some not healed?
I do not pretend to have every answer, but I do know that the problem is not
with God, it is with us. We can be sure that God is faithful and shall
honor His promises as long as we believe them. There is the rub though,
how much do we really believe?
For some, they do not believe supernatural healing is for today, that it was
only back in the days of Christ. We can rest assured we will not get
healed if we do not believe in it. God will not force healing on us.
If you feel this way, then do a search on books of people who have been healed
such as Dodie Osteen's book above, these are documented supernatural healings by
God's power and His power alone. Another good book is "Christ The Healer"
by F. F. Bosworth.
Yet others are not sure it is God's will for them to be healed or perhaps
they think it is thier time to go. Yes, it could be our time to go, but we
should not have to leave this world by sickness or disease. If God says
our life is over He can easily stop our heart and take us home or we just fall
to sleep and not wake up. Sickness and disease is from the enemy and we
should not leave defeated. Read the Bible and see how it IS God's will for
His people to be in health.
Some may focus on the healing and not so much on the healer. We really
do not need to seek for the healing as God's promises are clear and stating them
is enough as long as we have faith. Our focus should be on a closer walk
with the healer, God. Once we draw close enough to God, all this other
stuff will fall off. We have to see our God as bigger, magnifying Him
larger than the sickness attacking our body, which clearly there is no
comparison, we just need to remember that fact.
Confession is another stumbling block. Some may believe in God's
healing power but then say things like "if God does not heal me...". That
is not faith and you will not receive without faith.
If we do not feel we have strong enough faith to claim our healing, at least
we should have enough faith to claim God "is healing" us. The first step
is to make our request to God for our healing, having Scripture to backup our
request and if possible have the elders pray over us. From that time on,
we confess the promises of God daily (morning and night) and stand firm on them.
Declare daily that we thank God for our healing and that we are receiving the
healing. For those of less faith it is easier to pray like this that God
"is" healing us over a period of time rather in full at this second. But
it all depends on our faith. We ALL have received measure of faith but we
must use it!
Conclusion
Here is the base line of it all. Jesus said that if we believe when we
pray we shall have what we ask. In another place Scripture says that if we
ask according to His will we know we have for what we asked. In James it
says the elder's prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise us
up, it did not have an "if" clause, it clearly says the believer will be healed,
not just some.
The answer is simple, if we will only believe, not in our head, but in our
heart. For example, I believe God will heal, but one time when I was
praying for a healing of my eyes, I had a thought cross my mind to throw away my
glasses. The thought that rushed into my mind was that I might need them.
See, in my head I believed, but clearly it was not in my heart, I should have
instantly threw those things away. It is easy to have head faith, but
heart faith is another matter. Of course, if we are already under medical care
or on medication and have already depended in man’s ways, it is not wise to stop
until we “know” we have the faith to receive from God.
To build our faith, we need to put more of God's word in our heart and stay
full of the Spirit through worship, praise and prayer, thus bringing fruit from
our heart. Worship, prayer and study are the first steps and should be
part of ever believer’s life every single day forever.
Just remember, God does not want you sick only the enemy does. God has
made provision for your healing, you only have to receive it in faith.
Scripture References
Here are some power scriptures to help your daily confessions:
Psalms 103:2-3 ~ Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
who forgiveth all thine iniquites; who healeth all thy diseases;
Joh 14:12-14 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I
do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my
name, I will do it.
Mark 11:22-24 ~ And Jesus answering saith unto them, have faith in God.
For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but
shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have
whatsoevery he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you
desire, when you pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mat 21:21-22 ~ Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If
ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig
tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou
cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in
prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
John 15:7 ~ If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what
ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
1Jn 5:14-15 ~ And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask
any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
Joh 16:23-24 ~ And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your
joy may be full.
Mark 9:23 ~ Jesus said unto him, if thou canst believe, all things are
possible to him that believeth.
Phi 4:13 ~ I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Eph 3:20-21 ~ Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be
glory in the church by the Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen.
Psalms 107:20 ~ He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from
their destructions
Psa 34:17 ~ The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out
of all their troubles. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken
heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of
the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
Isa 26:3 ~ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Psa 118:17 ~ I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.
Hebrews 13:8 ~ Jesus the Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
Mat 18:19 ~ Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as
touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in heaven.
Jas 5:14-16 ~ Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the
church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall
raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess
your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Luk 10:19 ~ Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions,
and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Jer 1:12 ~ Then said Jehovah unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I watch over
my word to perform it. (asv)