I have been asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to me why I don't have the confidence when I pray for healing I know I should have. As usual I've been given a clear answer ! Last week I started to read the gospels again, but this time from the perspective of Jesus. This simply blew me away ! It becomes very, very clear what sort of faith is required for healing. It also clearly shows what blocks healing.

I recommend anyone doing this - put yourself in the position of Jesus and ask the question - does this person in the gospels coming for healing actually believe Jesus will heal them ? If they don't Jesus adjusts their thinking before healing them. This clearly shows us what is required of us to get healed. Its not what we do - but who we see him as.

What Jesus finds is that when people approach him, often they will not have confidence he will heal them because they are ashamed of their sin. The Roman centurion realises Jesus is divinely appointed - but considers himself unworthy for Jesus to enter his house, although he does believe for his servant. Many others simply fall before him and ask for mercy. At this point they are clearly worried that they will receive a telling off rather than healing. This is similar to the reaction of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden after they become aware of good and evil. When confronted with Holiness they hide themselves from God. As Roger has found, Christians are particularly prone to this because of the failure to teach grace properly. We are always condemned by our conscience for something - and it stops us seeing that Jesus is not the one condemning us. It blocks us believing Jesus will heal us, because we don't think we are worthy of it. We are not taught in most churches that we don't have to earn healing any more than we earn Salvation.

Time and time again Jesus then adjusts their thinking to ask them if they believe he will heal them. When they see that they aren't going to get told off, and see that he is kind, they agree that he will heal them.

At this point they have faith (or a trusting confidence) that he will heal them. He then heals them. What worked for them will work for us as Jesus hasn't changed nor has the requirement for a simple trust in his goodness.


From this its clear that faith isn't anything we do, other than to recognise that if we come to Jesus we will be healed because he wants to heal us and forgive us. Our sin consciousness can stop us arriving at this simple trust. This explains why Christians who don't hear grace preached much don't find any trusting confidence that Jesus will heal them. This is made worse when they are not told that Jesus already paid for their healing so they don't need to earn it.

Unfortunately any attempt to do anything to persuade God to heal us does not rest on trusting in who he is - Jesus who already authorised our healing in the atonement by his stripes. We must simply see that he heals ALL that come to rest in the simple fact that he heals because that's who he is - The Lord our Physician ! Trust in this plus any attempt to persuade or earn this won't work because it isn't wholly resting on who he is - it is actually doubting he will do it unless we add something else. It doubts his true nature.

Faith for healing is simply seeing that Jesus really does forgive ALL our sin, and will heal us because he always heals those who come to trust that he loves us, wants us well and will heal us for that alone.

Its ironic that our sin consciousness produces so little trust in Jesus. Even though most Christians know that we should forgive others, and not judge anyone we don't often realise this is because it is exactly how Jesus treats those who come to him. He does not see our sin anymore, and wants us to draw near to him with confidence. All faith for healing is to simply see that he is a very kind, gentle and loving person who would NEVER withhold healing from anyone. He has decided not to judge those who believe in him, instead putting the punishment we deserve on himself. That's why we should have absolute confidence that he will heal us.

We really can believe then that the answer is 'yes' and that we've received this answer in heaven. By standing on this and not wavering, it will manifest on earth.

My mistake was to think that faith was about believing in making the healing happen - not in the nature of Jesus healer !

"My mistake was to think that faith was about believing in making the healing happen - not in the nature of Jesus healer !"

Sooo true !

Thanks Greg. I find a lot of my doubts are about my ability to heal someone, so as Roger says getting focused on Jesus is better because he is the one doing the healing. He's also God and just happens to have hard wired the universe to respond to trusting faith in his name. I wonder if anyone has ever managed to walk on water or throw a mountain into the sea ? I guess we'll find out in heaven !

I can really understand how Jesus must feel. Take the typical heretical doctrine that God is teaching someone through being ill. All those I know who state this still go to the doctor. They expect the doctor to have their best interests at heart and expect him to make them well. Now swap the doctor for Jesus and all of a sudden they don't know if they are going to be healed or punished to teach them a lesson.

This reaction is why Jesus told off his disciples as being a 'wicked and perverse' generation. He then went on to talk about even bad parents giving their children a fish if they asked for it not a stone. Why is it so hard for us to expect God to heal us with confidence ? I don't remember ever hearing one sermon locally which preaches this. Not one !

The way the human mind works is just weird at times. There is something about what happened to us at the fall which causes us to withdraw from God. Interesting isn't it that salvation is related to who you think Jesus is, and its not surprising that coming to a confident trust that you will be healed is the same.

Perhaps reading the gospels again from Jesus' perspective helps us see Jesus the man. I'm trusting in someone who consistently risked his life healing on the Sabbath, and was beaten to a pulp voluntarily to win us the right to healing. That's someone who isn't going to say 'no' ! Of course this is what God is really like.

Andy, for myself--maybe others as well--one of the things I mentally still have to get past (not as much now that I've been dwelling on Jesus' incredible consistency in healing everyone) is the OT examples. God often seems to put plagues and other illnesses on people, even taking full credit for all man's health and ills both.

there are some who say those verses in the OT really were referring to God merely allowing the devil to have his way with people, rather than God initiating the illness/plague, but I'm not sure.

It's true that the New Covenant of grace is superior. Still there's that element of OT thought that seems to conflict in some ways with Jesus' total compassion.

BrotherBert, Andy_uk gave an excellent word! Amen, thanks Andy_uk. But here are some examples that helped me with these OT ideas VS NT ideas on healing:

1. God tells Moses in Exodus 6:3 that no one knew Him by the name Jehovah (Yahweh, YHWH, etc.) before that time. They had only known him by El Shaddai. At this point in history, Father begins to reveal Himself as Jehovah. How does He do it? He rescues Israel from Egypt. What is amazing about this is that the rescue from Egypt is VERY TYPOLOGICAL OF THE WORK JESUS DID ON THE CROSS. This whole sequence is celebrated and practiced by Israel over and over as 4 out of the 7 Feasts of Israel:

a. Israel left Egypt on Passover - Jesus crucified on Passover (Feast of Passover)
b. Israel travels 3 days into the wilderness to the Red Sea - Jesus is buried for 3 days (Feast of Unleavened Bread)
c. Israel crosses the Red Sea - Jesus resurrected (Feast of Firstfruits).
d. Israel receives the Law on Pentecost - Jesus sends the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (Feast of Weeks).

This means the name "Jehovah" is inexorably linked to the name "Jesus." Then the 1st Jehovah hyphenated name revealed after their exodus from Egypt is given in Exodus 15:26 as Jehovah-Rapha, the LORD your Physician.

NOTE: If He is the Great I AM, then He is always Jehovah-Rapha. No one has the right to change His name. His name is not ever given in scripture as Jehovah-I-Make-You-Sick. He IS Jehovah-Rapha, not WAS. And this is linked to Jesus.

2. Deuteronomy 28:1-14 lists the blessings of obedience to the Law. Deuteronomy 28:15ff lists the curses of disobedience to the Law. Since no one could be totally obedient to the Law, the curses were bound to fall on them as God promised. God is a just God, and HAD TO BRING THE PUNISHMENT. This curse included every kind of sickness not even listed in this long list! (see Deuteronomy 28:61). Jesus Christ is the ONLY person that perfectly kept the Law and earned His righteousness. Thus He was not subject to the curse of the Law. Then He took our disobedience on Himself on the cross. Then He gave us His righteousness! And according to Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law in Deuteronomy 28! This means because of Jesus we get all the blessings of the Law listed in Deuteronomy 28 and none of the curses! This is most amazing to me.

3. Isaiah 53:4-5 prophesies that the Messiah would bear "our griefs" and carry "our sorrows." This is a horrible translation as is easily seen when Matthew quotes it in Matthew 8:17. Thus the Holy Spirit's commentary on the translation of Isaiah 53:4-5 is Jesus had "borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases"! Notice also the words "bore" and "carried"; these are substitutionary words. In other words, Jesus bore our sicknesses and diseases so we wouldn't have to bear them ourselves. He was our substitute. This is not spiritual sickness because Matthew 8:17 shows this is a reference to physical healing. Jesus was healing people based on His future work at the beating post. Just like He was forgiving sins based on His future work on the cross. We, on the other hand, look backwards at the beating post and cross to obtain (see 1 Peter 2:24). But this proves easily that the work of redemption was done to bear our sicknesses and diseases so that we don't have to. Now what God has laid on Jesus He will in no way lay on you! He would no more require you to bear your own sicknesses and diseases any more than He would require you to bear your own sins. If you think God will make you sick, then you must also say God would make you sin. If you say God would give you sickness to punish you, then you must say God will make you sin to punish you. If He uses sickness to teach you, then He will cause you to sin to teach you. It just won't work!

4. James 5:14 asks the question, "Is ANY sick?" Ask that to any crowd of believers. Then anyone that raises their hand give them the rest of the scripture. This passage clearly shows what is God's will for EVERY MAN. He wants them healed and forgiven. It doesn't say, "The prayer of faith MIGHT save the sick." If it said that you would have to say, "The prayer of faith MIGHT save the sinner." Faith exists where the will of God is KNOWN, NOT where it is in question.

5. 1 Corinthians 11:17ff shows that physical healing is in the New Covenant practice of communion which remembers the death of Christ on the cross. Paul shows that if they would discern the Lord's BODY (the bread in communion) (not His blood, the wine of communion), that they would not be weak, sickly and die early. This stands to reason that if they did properly discern the Lord's BODY they would be strong, healthy and live long. This again shows God's provision of physical healing in the work of Christ on the whipping post and cross. Bread & Wine are respectively Jesus' Body (physical healing) and Jesus' Blood (forgiveness of sins). This corresponds directly with the story in Matthew 15:26ff, where Jesus Himself calls physical healing of the woman's daughter, "children's bread" not "children's wine." The Bread (Jesus' body, physical healing) belongs to the children!

6. Notice the cleansing of the leper as listed in Leviticus 14 is a type of atonement. This is amazing as you can see that one dove that is set free is washed in the blood of the other one! This shows physical healing in the atonement.

7. In Numbers 21:9ff the Israelites were told to stare at the serpent on the pole to get physically healed. Jesus refers to this incident in John 3:14 and relates it directly to His work on the cross. Once again proving that physical healing is in the atoning work of Christ.

These things prove that God in the OT had to treat Israel the way He did (giving them sickness and disease) because His justice demanded it. But it is certainly not the way He wanted it to finally be. He not only set us free from our sin and its consequences (sickness, poverty, death), but SET HIMSELF FREE from having to punish us for every thing we did wrong!

Wonderful Jesus! Thank GOD for the grace of the NT!

Love this!




I have never heard this taught in this way. Awesome! Thank you, Jesus!


Carol

ETA: Okay, I don't have the quote thing down yet!

FROM QuantumGreg: Carol, I fixed the quote thing for you. You can click your Edit button and see what it should look like if you want to understand how I fixed it.

I think this is the number one problem in the church today. Everyone is trying to earn their salvation/atone for their sin, and no one really understands the real extent of grace. I think this is why so many people have a problem in their relationships with God, because they are basically ashamed to come to him and they are caught in a perfectionistic relationship with Him, trying to please Him but never feeling like they succeed.

"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." - Hebrews 4:16

I think the main purpose of the law was to demonstrate to people that they needed a Savior. People were wicked long before the law, but they didn't realize it, because there was no standard they had to compare themselves to.

Then once the law was given, Israel had to experience years of trying to live up to the law and failing before they could realize that they actually had a need for a savior. So I don't see it as God being mean, or setting up consequences where He knew they would inevitably fail. I see it as God preparing the people's hearts for their need for a savior.

I don't see the law as only a curse, either. I believe that the law is also a blessing in the form of God's protection - in fact, it is the best example I have seen in the Bible so far of God protecting someone before an incident happens. It is very akin to a parent saying to a child, "Don't swim in that water. There are crocodiles in there." When we say "don't go in the water", we are protecting our children from harm by warning them about things they do not know (they see the water as appealing, but they don't know about the crocodiles).

If they choose to follow our protective words (i.e. "the law"), then their life has blessings, if they don't, then it has consequences. So we tell our teenagers "Don't have s*x before you are married." They can see it from the viewpoint that we just don't want them to have fun, or they can see it from the viewpoint that we are protecting them from many unhappy consequences. And I think that it is the same way with God' law.

We have to remember that God is both a god of Mercy and of Justice. The reason we have Jesus' total compassion is because He took our sin debt on the cross, but without that, yes, God would have to punish us, or he would not be Just.

If we went to court because someone had murdered our sister, and the judge simply said, "Oh, it's OK, I forgive you," we would hate the judge and think that he was unfit. And so it is with God, He has to be a correct judge. He has to punish evil.

The only reason we can claim healing and forgiveness now is because Christ died on the cross for us. Otherwise, we really do deserve to be sick or to have bad consequences. So the God you see in the OT who is giving people illness or plagues, or whatever, is merely acting out his justice side. But when Christ comes in the NT, we see God's mercy side. He no longer gives sickness because Christ has already died to cover our sins. (I am so thankful that we live in the age of grace!!!) So we can be assured that He doesn't give us sickness and that any sickness we have is caused by the consequence of sin and the curse on the earth, or because of the physical laws of the earth (ie getting in a car crash).

Valerie, thanks for your further comments on this. And I do hear you regarding the need for justice/punishment.
As I later stated (should have earlier), my bigger confusion regarded how Christ seemed to view sickness as of the devil, where He sometimes became even righteously angry at the illness invading people. Just seemed odd that on the one side you have God putting the illness on people, yet on the other Jesus rebuking it.

I think what you, Greg and others have stated in various ways makes sense; Indeed the illness is the result of God's judgment on a wayward people, but that Jesus came to abolish it. And, in a real sense, it IS from the devil, in that he has done everything to get us to sin and be apart from God.