Thursday, October 8, 2009

God's Healing Power



I promised to write about the baptism in the Holy Spirit before, but first I want to write about healing. I’m not an expert on anything, but I am a believer and I do believe in what the word says. It’s so easy to base our faith on our experiences especially when it comes to healing. I hear a lot of teaching here in America that says that God has everything in His hand and that nothing bad will happen to us unless God permits it. That may have been true in the Old Testament and people refer to Job as an example of that.

When you bring this issue up in a discussion, a lot of people will tell you that you cannot understand God’s mysterious ways etc, etc and it sounds very wise, but it’s just human reasoning based on what they have seen in life. And they may have been around for quite some time! When you say that God wants to heal everybody it seems so radical and unwise.
If you are saved, born again and has received Jesus in your heart, health and healing is part of salvation. Our bodies will not be completely redeemed till we get our new glorified bodies in heaven, but the healing powers of Jesus is ours.
“And by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
“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.”
1 Peter 2:24
God is now our Father through Jesus Christ and He wants only the best for us.
“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”.
James 1:16-17
In my Swedish translation it says that God is light and that there is no darkness in Him.
"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?
Luke 11:11
I would like to add, which one of you parents would want your child to have cancer?
That seems absurd to ask, still we find it easy to believe that our heavenly Father would want that for us.
I have given my testimony here on my blog before, how I got saved when I was thirty. I didn’t have any physical health problems as far as I know, but God healed me from so many issues in my mind and my soul. He also delivered me from smoking which probably would have turned into a health problem eventually. He didn’t just save me and let me deal with my issues on my own to teach me something. He totally delivered me and set me free. In my church in Stockholm they would lay hands on people all the time and I would run up front and be prayed for so many times.
Here’s one example how the Word of God itself just healed me when I read it. I was very introvert when I came to the Lord. I had done a lot of eastern meditations and those kind of things which had led to that my soul was in bondage. One day I read the word below, about letting your eyes look straight ahead, and it was like something popped in me and around the area of my eyes and I was loosened.
“Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you.” Proverbs 4:25
He has not changed. My God is the same yesterday, today and forever. What He does for me, He will do for you. He will heal our minds as well as our bodies. He is altogether good.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8
God has through Jesus Christ given us authority over evil. We are to cast out demons, lay hands on the sick and command sickness to leave.
“Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Luke 10:19
He has given us authority over demonic powers. Many times when Jesus came upon a sick person, He would cast out the demon that caused the disease.
We are not to be passive bystanders. Jesus tells us to do what He did. We don’t pray a prayer and hope that something will happen. We tell sickness to go because in Jesus name we have the power.
We don’t live in a perfect world and I believe that there are things that can bring on disease. Bitterness and unforgiveness for example can open the door and give the enemy access to our bodies. The most important thing is that God doesn’t make us sick to teach us something. He is chastising and correcting us through His word first and foremost, and only if we refuse to listen or take heed we can bring disease upon ourselves. Satan is also out to destroy us and he is more than happy if we don’t understand that we are in a spiritual warfare and we start to question God’s goodness. How can you pray for somebody’s healing if you in the back of your mind think that it may be God’s will for this person to be sick?
You can also ask yourself, if you believe it’s God’s will, why pray at all? Why go to the doctor if it’s God’s will that you be sick.
I think we’ve been fed human theology and not God’s theology and it seems kind of holy and humble to have those beliefs. But it’s not. True humility says what God says. We also have to look at the whole Bible and not just find one scripture that seem to back up our theory.
“The entirety of Your word is truth,
And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”
Psalms 119:160
Maybe you prayed for somebody and the person died. OK, so that’s your experience. Like I said before, we don’t base our faith on our experiences. Just because that person didn’t get healed doesn’t mean that God didn’t want to heal. We don’t have the whole picture and there may be obstacles that we didn’t see or didn’t understand.
The Bible is full of words about healing. We have to find those promises and pray them over ourselves to stay in health but also pray them out for ourselves and others when sickness attacks.
“He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”
Psalm 107:20
Here is also an interesting word that reads a little different in the Swedish version where it says that the righteous are snatched away by the power of evil whereas in the English the righteous is taken away from evil.
"The righteous perishes,
And no man takes it to heart;
Merciful men are taken away,
While no one considers
That the righteous is taken away from evil."
Isaiah 57:1-2
If you look up evil it always talks about how the righteous will be protected from evil and the wicked. Reading the Swedish translation here tells me there are times when the evil one actually snatches somebody away before his time. Like young people dying in car accidents for example. I don’t know what the original translation says so I’ll just leave it at that.
I can recommend BibleGateway if you don’t already use that website, for easy access to God’s Word.


http://www.biblegateway.com/


God Bless You!



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