It had happened when I walked into the last domestic dispute my mother had with her third husband. Until she was saved, she was a bit like the woman of Samaria. She gave her life to the Lord during this last fight. As I walked in this man threatened me. Fortunately my brother was right behind me and he is a big fella! Consoling my mother it was obvious she was hurt. Her right hand was swollen where she’d tried to defend herself and had missed and hit something hard. She explained she had given her life to Jesus. I prayed with her, got her to bed, but she couldn’t sleep due to the pain. So I prayed with her until the pain stopped. The next day her hand had no pain but was still swollen and badly bruised. She decided she might need medical proof of the injury so went to hospital and had an x-ray. It showed two breaks along the metacarpal bone, the one that goes to the little finger. It also showed that these breaks were several years old and were completely healed. She had never broken her hand. God had healed her bone, even though the swelling remained.
This was the first time I had prayed for someone and had seen a miraculous healing. Why had God healed her? To seal her faith in Him. Possibly. To take away the pain? Obviously.
I learned an important lesson that day. If we want to see people healed we have to pray in three wmays:
Compassionately:
I shall return to this later but I do hear peoplecondemning people for not getting healed. It must be a secret sin! It must be a lack of faith.
Has no one else stopped to think that we are heaping hot coals of shame and guilt upon people who are already struggling.
How often do we read the phrase in the NT that Jesus was moved with compassion?
Matthew 14: 14: When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed those who were ill.
(c.f. Matthew 9:36; 15:32; Mark 6:34; Mark 8:2; Luke 15:20).
Let me throw this thought out there, just to get the brains going: you will never see someone healed through your ministry as long as you inwardly believe that their sickness is a judgment from God! Why? Because it makes it so hard to believe that God wants them healed.
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Lovingly
I guess there are few people that I would love more than my mother! When I was praying for her hand I was so concerned for her that nothing else mattered.
Love needs to be the motivation when praying for healing. Not our ministry or our reputation. Not our image. We pray for people because we love them!
1 Peter 1:22: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.
(c.f. 1 Cor. 13:1)
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Desperately
When I was praying for my mum I needed God’s help! I wasn’t going to stop until she was pain free. I was desperate for her to be healed. This is what we have come to call intercession, to stand in the gap, to stand in a place where they cannot or don’t know how to stand themselves (Ezekiel 22:30).
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Towards a Balanced Theology:
We have to have a more balanced theology of healing too. Have you ever been in a small group and the subject of healing comes up? Then all the different views of healing comes up? Then the arguments begin!
Opinion One: God only heals if it’s His will!
Opinion Two: Healing is in the atonement, so we should walk in Divine health and all sickness is a sign of sin!
Opinion Three: It is the Spirit who heals and is a gift He gives when He chooses.
It’s happened to me too! We were going to pray as a home group and we were asked to pray for a little girl, about 2 years old, who had a rare form of cancer. Her parents knew someone in the group and so had asked for prayer because they had been told their daughter had 24 hours to live. We discussed this and then the praying started. I’d like to call it praying, but it wasn’t. It was more like the doubt-filled mumbling of uncertainty. Something began to rise up within me. After a few minutes I could take it no longer! I burst out with, “She’s not dead yet!” At that everyone stopped and looked at me! I thought, “Oops! I’ve done it now.” So I continued, “When these parents asked for prayer do you really think they wanted us to ask God for a good funeral?” The group leader looked at me and said, “You pray then!” Friends, I prayed every prayer I could think of! I prayed for her, her parents, the family dog, I probably said grace for a meal too! But I stood where they could not stand. I stood before God and pleaded. Next week we heard the girl was still alive, still having treatment, but alive. We prayed again, this time with a little more faith, after all, she had beaten the odds. The following week, she was still alive, and the next, and the next. Eventually she came out of hospital and, to the best of my knowledge, is still alive today.
So which opinion is right?
Is healing a fleeting whimsy of God’s will?
Should we never get sick because of Jesus’ sacrifice? Is it the Spirit who heals?
To understand this we have to understand a little about the Foundational Truth of the Trinity! [If you search this blog for Foundational Truths: Trinity you will find a three messages examining the doctrine of the Trinity].
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The Trinity Simplified
First, what does the doctrine mean? The doctrine of the Trinity can be summarised in seven statements. This picture might help too:
(1) There is only one God.
(2) The Father is God.
(3) The Son is God.
(4) The Holy Spirit is God.
(5) The Father is not the Son.
(6) The Son is the not the Holy Spirit.
(7) The Holy Spirit is not the Father.
We can see how this works in salvation to see how the Godhead works together, 1 yet 3:
The Father and Our Salvation:
The promise of our redemption, is the claiming back of what rightly belongs to God (Genesis 3:15).
God the Father planned redemption sent His Son into the world (Galatians 4:4, c.f. John 3:16; Ephesians 1:9-10)
The Son and Our Salvation:
The Son obeyed the Father and achieved redemption for all of us (John 6: 38 c.f. Heb. 10:5-7)
God the Father did not come to die for our sins.
The Holy Spirit did not come to die for or sins.
It is the work of Jesus, the Son.
The Son is present in our sin. He has experienced the pain and consequences of all sin on the cross. This means that whilst the Father cannot be present where there is sin, the Son can be, for He is the God-man (the hypostatic union) and does not turn from us because of sin. He has already experienced the pain of our sin.
The Holy Spirit and our Salvation:
After Jesus ascended back to heaven, and the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and Son to complete our redemption for us.
Jesus speaks of Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in His name (John 14:26).
Jesus also said that it will be He who would send the Holy Spirit (John 16:7 & John 15:26).
The Holy Spirit Gives Us New Spiritual Life (John 3:5-8).
The Holy Spirit Sanctifies Us (Romans 8:13 c.f. Romans 15:16; 1 Peter 1:2).
The Holy Spirit Gives us Power and Gifts (Acts 1:8 c.f. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11).
Here is the pattern we see in Scripture:
The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring to completion that which is planned by the Father and begun by the Son.
This is a pattern and a principle that applies to healing too:
- The Father planned the provision of healing (He wills it). We know God wills it for the Son confirms this (Matt 8:1-4 c.f. John 5:19)
- The Son makes healing possible through the sacrifice on the cross (Isaiah 53:5). On the cross there was a time of suffering and pain. There was also a temporal dynamic where all the sins of mankind were placed upon Him, an eternal covenant (Heb 13:20).
2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
This also means that suffering and physical pain were present at the cross in the physical body of Jesus. So healing is in the atonement.
Isaiah 53:5: But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed. (NKJV)
This does not mean divine health is in the
atonement; if there was to be divine health that we would never get sick or ill, then we would not age either. But there is healing!
The Hebrew is clear for the word healing used is rāpā’ which means “to restore to normal” and is always used in the sense of healing from an illness, not never getting sick.
- The Spirit brings access to the healing by His gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).
We need to understand healing in the context that Father, Son and Spirit work together to bring this about.
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Why Isn’t Everyone Healed?
I find that when we do not pray for the sick no one gets healed. When we do pray for the sick, some get healed.
Faithless Sinners?
Does this mean that a person who is not healed is in some secret sin? Is it their lack of faith?
Jesus Heals People Even When They Don’t Repent!
His compassion knows no limits (John 5:1-15).
Certainly Jesus made it clear that not all sin leads to a physical punishment:
John 9:1-7: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3 ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ 6 After saying this, he spat on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means ‘Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing
Is it a Lack of Faith?
We end up crushing people with such pronouncements.
My wife had an accident at church, falling down the stairs, that nearly killed her and this left her with a severely broken foot and collar bone. She spent three weeks in hospital, was in a wheelchair for four months, and off work for many months more having multiple surgeries. During this time our church rallied around and cooked and ironed for us but I was her main carer. It was a tough time. When she felt well enough she commented on Facebook how things were going. Most people responded positively. One person, a close(ish) friend whom we’d been at Bible college with was hyper-critical. He claimed that the accident was due to us allowing the devil in, that her healing should be immediate and was delayed because of her lack of faith, and that God was clearly judging us. We knew God wasn’t judging us because we felt His presence and blessing so close during this time. So many other ministries were birthed through the church during this period too. Our theology has to have the balance of God’s power to delver us but also His power to sustain us.
Some are commended for their faith in the Bible:
On seven separate occasions, recorded in eleven separate passages, Jesus connects healing with faith.
On four of those He commends the faith of those who were sick (Woman with haemorrhage - Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34; Luke 7:48; Blind men - Matt 9:29; Blind Bartimaeus - Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18: 35-43; Ten lepers - Luke 17:11-19, note ten were healed but only one was commended for his faith).
All of these were life long or prolonged illnesses.
Sometimes you’re going to have faith for your own healing when others have given up hope.
On three occasions He commends the faith of those interceding (Gentile mother - Matt 15: 21-28; Friends who lowered their friend through the roof - Mark 2:5, Luke 5:20; Centurion’s faith for servant - Luke 7:1-10).
Sometimes when our friends have given up hope we will have to have faith for them.
James 5: 14: Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.
When you have faith for your healing God will honour it. When you don’t have faith for your healing others can stand for you.
I was speaking at a church weekend for a friend at his church. He asked me to visit a lady who was too sick to come as she was having chemo therapy for cancer. She was not well. We arrived and knelt beside her in the lounge. She looked like death and was obviously nearing heaven with every laboured breath that her lungs could manage. Her husband, sitting across from us in the lounge, was not a Christian. I knelt and listened to her pastor, my friend, pray a prayer only a shepherd who loves his flocks can pray. It was moving beyond words. Then he asked me to pray! All I am thinking is I wished I’d prayed first because here was no way I could top a prayer like that!
Then the Lord began to show me a picture of this baked bean that was jumping around and dancing! I know, it was an odd picture. I learned long ago to share even the oddest pictures. So I said, “I have this picture of this baked bean and it’s dancing and jumping. I think God is saying you’ll be His jumping bean!” Her pastor looked at me and I am sure thought, “I brought you hear to encourage her and you’re talking about baked beans!” She fixed her eyes on her husband with the biggest smile through her obvious pain and said, “God’s told me I’m going to live!” Now as prophetic as I am even I couldn’t connect the dots between the baked bean and her living! She then looked at her pastor and said, “The only other person who knew this in this room is my husband. My maiden name was Heinz, like the baked been, and my husband used to call me his jumping bean! I’m going to live!” Five years later I was back and speaking at their church weekend again. A lady came bouncing up to me and said, “You won’t remember me, but I’m the jumping bean lady! I’m completely cancer free and have more energy that I ever had before my cancer. It’s like I’m 20 again!” I did remember her I just didn’t recognise her!
If someone is not healed because of our pronouncements of lack of faith whose faith is lacking? Those who are sick or those praying for them?
Some display no faith and yet are healed because of Jesus’ perfect healing ministry (John 5:1-15).
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Ripple Effect of Healing:
The most important fruit is the health of the person. They don’t necessarily go on into a dynamic ministry. Lazarus was raised from the dead, but he didn’t do anything significant after this; it is recorded he had a meal with Jesus (John 12:1-2).
A man had been miraculously healed prior to my pastorate in a particular church. He had septicaemia and had been given just a few hours to live. The doctors recommended to his wife removing the life support machines and letting him slip away. It was hopeless. She called the church and they had 24 hours of prayer. The next day they took him off life support. He lived. He’s still alive today. He lived for a while frustrated. He wanted a ministry, for surely God had saved him to make him a preacher. Whilst God had healed him, he had a problem: he was one of the most boringly monotone people you’d ever want to meet. When he posed to me the question of why God had healed him I said, “God didn’t heal you to make you a preacher but to save your wife the pain of being a young widow. Her faith made you well!” He was content with this.
Sometimes miraculous signs and healing does not impact those around us in the community (John 12:37).
Sometimes healings and miracles bring in a harvest (Acts 9: 36-42).
We don’t know which miracle or healing will result in which fruit. We do not believe for healing because we think that that will bring a revival. That’s a spiritually selfish motive that we tend to have when we want our church or ministry ‘on the map.’
We pray for healing for people because we love them and have compassion.
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Wrapping this up:
I may have been a bit controversial for some today. I may have pointed to a theologically fresh view of healing for many.
Ultimately, we cannot talk about healing without praying for the sick!
Appeal.
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