IS HEALING GOD’S WILL?

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

1 John 5:14 to 15.

The question then is: What is God’s will concerning healing?

Mark 1:40, A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

This man was a leper, and Jesus came to his city. When he saw Jesus, he went to Him, bowed down, and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” The leper didn’t question the power of Jesus. He knew Jesus was a healer because he had heard about Him. He wasn’t asking, “Can you heal me? He didn’t say, “Lord, I wish you would heal me.” What he asked Him is the question in the heart of many of us today: “Are You willing to heal me? Or is it your will to heal me? And sometimes we say if God’s will for us to be healed, we will be healed.

Another man took his son to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” Verse 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” 

Mark 9:17,18 & 22.

This man’s question is different from that of the leper. He questioned the ability of Jesus to heal. He said, “If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” Jesus answered, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes” Verse 23 of Mark 9 because he questioned Jesus’s ability to cast out the devil and heal the boy. More often, people ask the leper’s question, who questioned not God’s ability, but His willingness to heal. They believe in His power and know the Name of Jesus is powerful enough for them. They even know He’s done it for others and can relate the praise report of other people they know, but when it’s their turn, they wonder, “Is He willing? Will God heal me?

If you are in this category, I have good news for you. God is more willing to heal you than you are eager to receive your healing.

Few people could ever be in the position the leper was in that day. He was sick in his body and an outcast, isolated from the community because of his illness. He could have been stoned for coming out in the open. But he had heard of Jesus and was desperate to find out if this man they called a teacher from Nazareth would want to do something about his condition. Just like many people, he wanted to know the will of God.

What was Jesus’ response? I believe that day; He must have known He was answering the question in the mind of not only people who were then present but also that of generations to come. He knew it would not be enough to tell this leper about His willingness. He could have spoken the word only, and the leper would have been healed. After all, He had healed many people just by His spoken word.

But He didn’t stop at that. Instead, with a lot of compassion, He stretched forth His hand, touched the leper, and said, “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Mark 1:41. Just by that simple touch, He demonstrated love, compassion, and acceptance to the leper and assured him of His willingness to make him whole. If you read the next verse, you will notice that the man healed as soon as He touched him. The touch was for another purpose different from healing.

Verse 42 of Mark 1 “Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.

So, the leper could have been cleansed just by the word of Jesus, but I believe Jesus wanted something beyond a demonstration of power. He wanted to demonstrate His willingness: “I WILL: BE CLEAN.”

Let this be settled in your heart forever: God has the ability to heal you, He wants to heal you, and He will heal you.

There is a record of another sick man who didn’t even have enough sense to know it was the creator of the universe standing before him. When Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” instead of saying, “Yes,” he started to complain. Before he could finish, Jesus told him, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk” John 5:8. Before the man knew what had happened, he was already walking.

God said in 3^rd John 2. Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

What more confirmation do you need to know that God is willing to heal you? If your community has made you an outcast because of your sickness. And if your illness has isolated you from the mainstream of life. From living life in health, if you are sick and wondering if God can ever do something about it, I want you to know that God is more willing to heal you than you are ready to be healed.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Mark 10:27.

IS GOD DISCIPLINING ME WITH SICKNESS? WHAT LESSON WILL I LEARN FROM BEING SICK?

Though it’s incredible, it’s common to find Christians who sincerely believe God uses sickness to discipline His children. In their religious minds, they only think of illness as a result of sin, just like the disciples asked Jesus concerning the blind man.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” John 9:2.

How could the man have sinned before he was born? This was just plain religious thinking, the same as some people have today.

God doesn’t use sickness to teach His children lesions, nor does He use that to discipline them; neither does He need it to make them humble. Isn’t that hypocrisy? He says it’s God’s will to make him sick because God wants him to be humble, but then he takes medication to take away what God put on him to make him humble. The truth is God never puts sickness on any of His children to make them humble or learn lessons.

Some people give examples of the Egyptians to illustrate that God put sickness on people to make them humble. The problem is those people have forgotten that the Egyptians were not the people of God. What is more? The Bible lets us know there are indeed clay pots fitted for destruction, but this doesn’t refer to the children of God. 

Romans 9:15 to 24.

Some people are so hypocritical that they will criticize preachers who preach healing. Never attack a Christian or a preacher of the good news who teaches healing. We are never going to require healing in heaven. In heaven, there are no sorrow, pain, or tears. It is only in this world there can be such diseases. But God has provided a means for us whereby we don’t need to suffer sickness. And He wants us to take advantage of such knowledge. He doesn’t want us sick or oppressed. Jesus died on the cross so that we would not be sick.

Jesus told the leper, “I will; be clean.” A simple statement but powerful. God doesn’t want us sick.

God is more willing to heal you than you are willing to be healed. In Acts 10:38. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

God anointed Jesus for this purpose. But just like the Pharisees, religious people don’t see that. Do you know the Pharisees complained after Jesus healed a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years at the pool of Bethesda? What was their complaint? That it was a Sabbath day. That was ridiculous. Which should be much more important? The man’s health or Sabbath day? (John 5:8 to16).

They believe he should not have carried his mat or bed on the Sabbath day. And because Jesus told the man, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk,” they considered carrying his bed to work.

This man had suffered for thirty-eight long years; no one remembered the Sabbath. They didn’t even know the real meaning of the Sabbath. If you had been in bondage, the Sabbath was the time to be free. Sabbath was the time for celebration and rest. It wasn’t a day of sitting at home. It was a day of rejoicing, rest from trouble, worry, pain, and disease and infirmity of the body. Nobody ever told that man the truth, and just on the day Jesus gave him rest from pain, they all came shouting, “It’s the Sabbath.”

This is why I say people who criticize Pastor that teaches healing are just as bad as the Pharisees who wanted to kill Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath. One other time they even told people to come and be healed at the synagogue any other day apart from the Sabbath (Luke 13:10 to 14). As long as you are sick, they will extend their sympathy, but the moment you start talking the same as God, confessing you’re the healed in Christ, then they take note of you and criticize you.

God is more willing to heal you than you are willing to be healed. We were not even born when Jesus went to suffer for our sins on the cross and took our pains upon Himself. What more could our God have done to demonstrate His desire for our complete well-being?

The good life belongs to you. It is God’s will for you to live the good life; it is your heritage in Christ. Galatians 3:17. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 

You must realize that sickness is destroyed; sickness cannot have a home in your body. So disease has become a thing of the past.

GOD WANTS YOU WELL