God’s Will to Heal
See Part One of this series, Why Healing?
Faith begins where the will of God is known. Faith is not based on our own wishes and desires, but on the certainty of God’s will. We need to know not just what God can do, or even what He wants to do, but what He will do.
The only authoritative source of information we have is the scripture.
We cannot go by experience, unless that experience mimics example and precedent in the Word of God. I.e, “Aunt Jane had everybody at the church praying for her, but she died. Therefore it must not have been God’s will to heal her”. This is wrong believing!
We should let the whole Bible teach us what God’s will is, and not let isolated portions of scripture distorted by tradition determine our beliefs. E.g., Paul’s thorn in the flesh, Job, the man born blind.
If you want God’s Word to work for you, you have to be convinced of it yourself and not just because pastor says so. Ultimately we are responsible for what we believe, and we will receive what we believe.
God’s Will to Heal All
Most every Christian believes that God will heal under certain circumstances (i.e., sometimes). Any Christian that believes that God never heals is blind, ignorant, and foolish, and accuses a lot of people of being liars.
To believe that it is God’s will to heal sometimes is not sufficient as a basis of faith.
If you believe this way, then every time you need healing you’ll be asking questions like “Am I one of those whom it is God’s will to heal?” or “God healed me last time, but is it His will to heal me this time?”
The result of this type of thinking is that you don’t know what God’s will is, unless He gives you a specific revelation that this time it’s His will to heal you. When people don’t know what God’s will is, they often attach “if it by Thy will” to their prayers. Any prayer with “if it be Thy will” in it is not a prayer of faith.
This is where the rubber meets the road in faith for healing: you must believe that it is God’s will to heal always.
Leper Theology
Mark 1:40-42 40 Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”
42 As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
Many Christians have “leper theology” – “I know that He can, I just don’t know if He will.”. Notice Jesus had no hesitation in His reply: “I am willing”. He didn’t have to think about it, or pray about it.
I AM
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). If He was willing to heal then, He is willing to heal now.
Exodus 15:26 and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”
Jehovah-rapha, I am the Lord that healeth thee. One of the seven redemptive names of God, these names reveal the character of God and His relationship to us. God has not changed His name to “I WAS”.
Psalms 103:2-5 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
3 Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,
4 Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things,So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
“But that’s Old Testament”. Hebrews 8:6 says that we have a better covenant founded upon better promises. “Better” means that is has everything the old one does, plus more. Would it be better if it didn’t? Like the commercials for “new and improved” products.
God’s Medicine
Proverbs 4:20-23 20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
22 For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.
23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
His words are health – literal meaning medicine – to all our flesh. If we have something wrong with our body and the doctor prescribes medicine, are we faithful to take it as directed? We should be just as faithful to take our spiritual medicine – take your Gos-Pills daily!
“… they are life to those who find them…” “Finding” something means that it was lost or hidden in some way. The Word of God is not lost, and God does not hide it – but it can be hidden from our hearts by tradition and unbelief. Because it is not enough just to know something in your head and agree with it (although you must begin there) – you must believe it in your heart. It takes some effort – some seeking and searching – to get the Word of God to travel that distance from your head to your heart. This passage is encouraging us to make the effort to put the Word of God into our hearts, and then guard it and protect it.
Matthew 8:16-17 16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmitiesAnd bore our sicknesses.”
This quotation is from Isaiah 53:4-5, the redemptive chapter.
1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
Jesus Healed ALL
Jesus demonstrates the will of God in action. (John 14:9) “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” What was Jesus’ attitude towards healing? Did He heal a select few, or everybody? Did He ever turn people down for healing? If we can see His attitude towards healing when He walked the earth, we can be assured that He holds that same attitude today, and that it reflects the attitude of the Father.
Matthew 4:23-24 23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.
Matthew 8:16-17 16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”
Matthew 12:15 But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.
Matthew 14:13-14 13 When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities.
14 And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.
Matthew 15:30-31 Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them.
31 So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.
Here’s something that we pass over without knowing the significance. Do you know what maimed means? It means missing a body part. Here were people missing arms, or legs, or hands – and Jesus prayed for them and their limbs grew back!
Luke 4:40 When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them.
Luke 6:17-19 17 And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases,
18 as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed.
19 And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all.
Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
The Sovereignty of God in Healing
We’re taking some time to establish through the scriptures that God’s will is healing. But some people say “But God is sovereign”; in this case meaning He’ll decide who He wants to heal and who He doesn’t.
The dictionary definition of sovereign means “independent of other governments, supreme ruler or having ultimate authority.” It means no one is your boss.
God is sovereign. There is no one higher, there is no one He must answer to. However, God is also faithful to His Word, and once He has said something, He will not break it. We can say God’s sovereignty is limited by His Word. God is sovereign in what He chooses to say, but once He has said it, He cannot deny Himself by going against it.
Example: I have a ten dollar bill in my wallet. I am sovereign over what I wish to do with that $10. But I am also a man of my word. If I say, “I promise to give you this $10 after service”, do I still have sovereignty over that money? Not if I am going to remain faithful to my promise.
Gifts of Healing vs. Faith for Healing
1 Corinthians 12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
1 Corinthians 12:11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Christians confuse the manifestational “gifts of healings” with our covenant right of healing. The manifestational gifts of healings are under the sovereign control of the Holy Spirit, who decides who He will heal, when, and how.
Gifts of Healings do not require that the recipient of the gift have any faith; it is a gift. A good example is the lame man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1-15. He had no faith for healing (when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well, he gave all the reasons why he couldn’t be), he just had a little bit of hope – just enough to keep him coming back to the pool every day.
Notice that after Jesus healed the man, He didn’t hang around and heal everybody else around the pool – the multitude (vs. 13). Why not? Because the Holy Spirit sent Him with a gift to that one man. It was a gift of healing.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, look at the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5:25-34. Jesus’ faith had nothing to do with her being healed, the woman made a demand on the healing power resident in Jesus, through her own faith.
There is also corporate faith; when a group of people get together with a minister who is anointed for healing, such as Jesus and the multitudes that came to “hear and be healed”.
There is power in unity, and when a bunch of people get together around a common cause, there is a level of expectation that is created and it bolsters everyone’s faith. This is an excellent atmosphere for God to move in.
If you are not healed by a gift of healing, does that mean that it is not God’s will to heal you? Certainly not. Unfortunately some people believe that way, because they are not aware of other methods of healing that God has rather than spiritual gifts.
Faith Required to Obtain the Promises of God
If healing is our covenant right, if it’s God’s will to heal, why don’t all get healed?
I’ll answer this question by asking another: Did Jesus purchase salvation for everyone? Is it God’s will that everyone be saved? Then why isn’t everyone saved? If you can answer these questions, then you have the answer to the first.
Not everyone is saved because although salvation has been purchased for all and it is God’s will that everyone be saved, each person must appropriate that salvation for themselves individually. How is it appropriated? By faith.
The difference between salvation and healing is that the Church has developed a lot of faith for salvation; we are “fully persuaded”. Plus, when a person accepts the Lord, there is nothing to tell them “it didn’t work, you’re not saved” except thoughts. With healing however, there is the physical evidence, your body, that might be contradicting what the promise of God says. Therefore it’s harder to believe – you have to “walk by faith and not by sight (or by things perceived by the physical senses)”. And unbelief can stop healing in its tracks.
Mark 6:1-6 1 Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him.
2 And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands!
3 Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” And they were offended at Him.
4 But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”
5 Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.
Here Jesus, the Son of God Himself, there physically in the flesh, was unable to do any mighty works, except He laid His hands on a few sick folk (sickly, implication that they were minor ailments) and healed them. There were no blind eyes or deaf ears opened, no lame healed. Not that it wasn’t His will to heal them, it says He was unable to do so. What was it that prevented, or hindered Him from healing?
Vs. 6 He marveled because of their unbelief. In a parallel passage in Matthew 13:58 it says “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.”
Unbelief, or a lack of faith, could keep Jesus from healing people when He was present in the flesh. And unbelief will keep Him from healing people today also.
Faith for Healing
So a key point is that healing is not just “all up to God; if He wants me to be healed, then He will heal me.” No, we can initiate our healing by our faith. We have an equal part to play in our healing as God does. That is true for any of the promises of God – there is a part that He plays, and a part for us to play.
So how do we develop and exercise faith for healing?
- Collect scriptures on healing; find the promises! See Healing Scriptures at the end of this post We’ve done the collecting for you!.
- Determine that it is God’s will for you to be healed now. (Hebrews 11:1) “Now faith is….” Not was, or is going to be.
- Be fully persuaded that God not only can but will fulfill His promises. (Romans 4:17-21)
- Make a point of contact where you switch from asking God to heal you (future), to thanking God that He has healed you (1 Peter 2:24 – by His stripes you were healed).
- Consider not your own body, the evidence of your physical senses. Consider the Word of God more real.
2 Corinthians 4:18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary (subject to change), but the things which are not seen are eternal.
- Act on it. (James 2:14-24) Faith without works (corresponding actions) is dead (inoperative, ineffective).
What would you be doing if you weren’t sick? That may be a good way to act on your healing. This has to be qualified according to the seriousness of your condition. Don’t stop taking doctor prescribed medications; but you could believe God instead of immediately reaching for the aspirin or cold pills.
There are many times when I’ve woken up feeling lousy, and could have justifiably called in sick to work. But instead I’ve believed God for my healing, and got up and got ready to go to work – and I’m feeling better before I get there.
- The Bible does not promise that all healings will be instantaneous. (Mark 16:18) “These signs shall follow them that believe….. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” What does it mean to recover? It means you’ll get better.
Realize that there may be some time between when you start believing, and the healing manifests in your body. During that time you will need to stand your ground and walk by faith. (Hebrews 10:35-36) “You have need of patience, so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promises.”
- Don’t wait until you are sick to start studying and believing for healing. It’s better to have divine health than to have divine healing. Start with the smaller things – headaches, colds, aches and pains.
You don’t have to have perfect faith
Now I’m going to say something that might sound like it contradicts what I just said before. You don’t have to have “perfect faith” to be healed.
Mark 9:14-24 14 And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them.
15 Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him.
16 And He asked the scribes, “What are you discussing with them?”
17 Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit.
18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”
19 He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.”
20 Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
21 So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.
22 And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
In vs. 19, Jesus appears to be exasperated with the disciples and their inability to minister to the man’s son. He was wondering how long it would take them to finally get it. But, after this, the disciples came and asked why they couldn’t cast the spirit out. After all, they had had success when Jesus had sent them out two by two before.
The father of the boy makes a statement that isn’t full of faith: “If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us”. He wasn’t sure Jesus would have any more success than the disciples.
Jesus replied “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
The father says he believes – but also recognizes that his belief wasn’t that strong.
And Jesus heals the boy anyway.
Even in the passage we read from Mark 6 in His own hometown where people were offended at Him – it does not say He did no miracles. It says He did no mighty works, but He did heal a few folk. There were some people there that believed in Him. It was those that were offended at Him, who criticized Him, that missed out on His healing ministry.
There is a danger is putting too much responsibility on yourself for your healing. You actually can get into works, where you think that you “earn” your healing when you reach a certain level of faith. Healing is an act of grace (see Why Healing, part one of this series) and you don’t earn it.
Even if you lapse into doubt for a while, that does not disqualify you forever. You can be like this father – “Lord I believe! Please help my unbelief.”
Work for Divine Health, not just Healing
God’s will for us is not just healing, but divine health. Christians overall should be “weller” than the world, but unfortunately that is not the case.
Watch what you say about your physical health. I’ve noticed a pattern, and there is scripture to back it – people who are always talking about their health problems seem to have health problems continually. They talk about “my” allergies, or “my” diabetes – in effect claiming it for their own.
You should treat any sickness or weakness as an invasion in your body, and battle it on a natural and a spiritual front. Christians will do all kinds of things to battle sickness in the natural – go to doctors, take medicine, have surgery, change their diets – yet wonder at the same time whether God is allowing the sickness on them for a purpose.
Get it in your head and your heart that the Bible views sickness as a curse, not a “blessing in disguise”.
3 John 1:2 KJV Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
This verse isn’t just the apostle John saying “howdy” to his friend Gaius. It expresses God’s will for us, also, to prosper (the root definition of prosper means to succeed in reaching), and to be in health. But notice the last part of the verse – even as your soul prospers. Even as, just as, according to… or in other words, for your finances and health to prosper, your soul has to prosper first.
Get the image of you being healthy on the inside of you. Build a case for it with the scriptures. Then start speaking it over yourself.
Especially for those of us on the other side of 40, tell your body how it is going to be as you age. Moses was 120 years old and his eye was not dim nor his strength abated. Caleb at 80 was as strong as he was at 40. Speak to your joints and tell them how they are going to remain supple and flexible and strong. Tell your heart that it is going to continue to beat strong and regular throughout your life.
Confess that your mind and wits remain sharp, and your memory accurate and clear. Don’t make jokes about “having a senior moment”.
This is all preventative maintenance. If you turn this into a habit, it will have an effect on your longevity.
My Testimony for Divine Health
I don’t have a testimony where I was supernaturally healed of a life threatening disease. I’ve never had one. I can count on one hand the times I’ve stayed home from work due to illness in the past 20 years. I’ve raised five boys and up until recently we’ve never had a trip to the emergency room (my youngest son had a skateboard accident and dislocated his elbow). The only doctor’s appointments my wife has needed has been associated with having those five babies.
You could say, “Oh, you’ve just been lucky”, but I believe that there is more to it than that. My wife and I learned to believe for healing and health for ourselves and our children.
We were at Rhema Bible Training school when our first son was an infant. He got ear infections pretty frequently – one or two a year while we were there. We had to learn to believe for healing for our child. Now we still took him to the doctor and they prescribed the same pink medicine each time. But he stopped getting them, and none of our other children have had problems with them.
Our second child was born with a hydraseal – his scrotum was filled with fluid and greatly enlarged. We asked about it during his two week checkup, and the doctor wanted to operate. That did not sit well with us at all. When we asked what would be possible consequences if we didn’t operate then, he sort of hemmed and hawed and said that there might be some complications later.
We wanted to get a second opinion, and found another pediatrician, an older Jewish man, who wasn’t so ready to pump you full of drugs or put you under a knife. He said to wait for six months. So we did, and believed God that the condition would heal itself – and it did!
I have nothing against doctors, drugs, operations – if you need them, use them. But in my life and my family’s we do not jump immediately into using the natural means.
Also, we do not baby ourselves – by that I mean call in sick and lay around in bed for every little symptom.
Healing Scriptures
Here is a pdf file containing all the healing scriptures in the Bible (at least that I found during my study).
