The enemy has been very successful in deceiving us when it comes to the matter of God's healing. We are prepared to accept salvation for our soul but we are not prepared for the simple matter of God healing our body. We allow the enemy to convince us that God is somehow glorified in the disease of his saints. God has glorified himself in the salvation of the sinner and he does the same thing with the healing of disease. It is amazing how many Christians rise up against this message when it is brought forward. Yet Paul writes:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
So many people are willing to come up with all kinds of scripture to support their stand against God's desire to heal the body but few are willing to seek the scripture that supports this teaching. What a terrible negative bunch we are, trying to come up with excuses to support our lack of faith. Lots of scripture is flooding to my mind right now but I am going to keep this short and limit the amount of scripture I use to make one small point about the healing authority Jesus has given to us. Let's begin with Romans 5.
People use this verse to point out God's desire to use our suffering for our benefit:
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)
Sounds great and the enemy has used this to keep us blind to the truth. Because we are so weak in our faith and our responsibilities in this world, those of us in North America have no idea what it is to suffer for the Name. So we substitute this suffering for disease and financial problems. Disease is a fact of life in this world and so is financial problems due to our own fault or someone else`s. But this is not the suffering Paul is referring to here that God uses to build us up. Look over at Romans 8 now.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
So again Paul brings up the idea of suffering. Now listen to what is considered suffering for our faith:
Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (Romans 8:34-35)
Do you see it? There is nothing about disease here. Paul is speaking of suffering for our faith, when we actually get outside of our comfortable churches and "do" the Word of God, when we actually live by our faith. Opposition comes and we must persevere and in that perseverance he builds our character and such character houses the hope in us that is Jesus Christ.
Come on now, if Jesus told us that we can speak to a mountain and see it leap into the sea, don't you think that disease is an easier thing to deal with? Do you think he gave us authority over only a few demons and maybe a couple of diseases? Jesus gave us the authority to do all things through him. For man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.
The difficult thing is to have faith to receive. Without faith we cannot receive. Jesus did not heal every illness in the land but he did heal everyone who came and asked. We do not have because we do not ask. We have no expectations so there are no results. We have to change our mind, have it renewed so we are no longer living by the patterns of this world. To God be the glory.
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