Let's Talk About Healing - Is It God's Will to Heal Me?

There's a great question that probably everyone has asked himself / herself at least once or twice… “Is it God’s will to heal me??” Sometimes, people have prayed for healing and not received it, so they just assumed that it was not God’s will to heal.

Others feel that it cannot possibly be God’s will for everyone to be healed, because if it were, then everybody would be healed and nobody would ever get sick. But that’s the same as saying because there’s a soap factory in town, everybody in town should be clean. Or because there is a bar of soap in a house, nobody in the house should ever get dirty.

The fact is, you have to apply soap to your body to get clean. And in the same way, in MOST cases, you have to apply faith principles to get healed by God Himself, outside of professional medical care.

Now, of course, there are doctors and nurses and people who are anointed to help people to restore and to maintain their health. We thank God for doctors and nurses and other medical professionals. They have helped so many people. And if God was against doctors, He would not have allowed Luke, a physician, to write two of the most important books in the New Testament, namely the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.

There are even medical ministries that are such a blessing to people, going into places where medical care is scarce or absent altogether and performing surgeries and giving people medical supplies that help enormous amounts of people, and we are grateful for all those things. And I am in no way telling you to stop seeing your doctor. Or to shun the medical field. They are of great value. So let’s make that clear.

But there are times when the health care professional says, “There is nothing more we can do for you.” There are times when the doctor says, “Our tests aren’t showing anything.” Or, “We don’t have a solution for this. All we can do is prescribe something for the pain.” Doctors have limitations. The Great Physician has no limitations.

And, with that being said, when it comes to health issues, the Christian should always consult God first. God should never be our last resort, or the last one we ask to get involved with our medical issues. The Christian should ALWAYS consult God first. The Lord may very well save you a trip to the doctor. OR! He may tell you to drop everything and go see the doctor, or to get to the ER right away. There are times when you may think an issue is nothing and deal with it for weeks, when if you had consulted God first, He would have told you to go and get medical attention. OR! On the other hand, you may be worrying about something for weeks, and if you had gone to God, He would have told you, Hey! Lay off the pizza and beer for a few weeks. Stop drinking a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi every day, and you’ll feel a lot better! LOL. So, in EVERY situation, the Christian should ALWAYS, without exception, consult God FIRST. Not last. First.

Prov. 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” God's direction is always the right direction. And always the BEST direction. So! Do yourself a favor…Ask God first.

NOW. To our question… Is it really God’s will to heal me??

Before we get into answering that question, let’s cover some groundwork first.

1. Whatever we know about God, we know from the scriptures. He reveals Himself to us through His word. You can come up with really flawed mental constructs about God if you don’t consult the scriptures.

For example, probably all of us have heard that when there is an untimely death, "God needed a flower for His heavenly garden, so He, in His divine wisdom, decided to take the life of this precious10-year-old with cancer, so that He could have another heavenly flower in His garden," or something along those lines. WHERE IS THAT IN THE SCRIPTURES??? WHO CAME UP WITH THAT??? Because God surely didn’t!! God doesn’t kill people to put flowers in His garden. He could just create more flowers in heaven. He's God Almighty! He created the entire earth in 6 days. I think He could create flowers in heaven if He wanted some more! And people don’t die and become flowers in heaven. That is SO OFF!!!

But the Bible DOES say in John 10:10 that “the thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy,” but that Jesus came so that we might have an abundantly blessed life. So when you consult the Bible, and not religious tradition, you can see that everything evil, everything causing tragedy, untimely death and destruction came from the devil and NOT from God. God is GOOD. God IS NOT EVIL.

Now there are some people who might say, Well, in the Old Testament, God pronounced judgments upon people, and if you live a sinful life, isn’t sickness just God pronouncing judgment upon you??

And to those people I would say that, yes, sin has its penalties. Just like, if you step in the ocean, you’re gonna get wet.

The Bible says in Proverbs 14:34 that “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Sin, by its very nature brings forth death, according to James 1:15. "But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2)

So, even if we do sin, there is still a way out. Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. And He paid for our sicknesses and diseases and pains on the whipping post. When we repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness, when we forsake our wicked ways and cry out to the Lord for mercy, He hears us. The Bible says “And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart." (Jer. 29:13)

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:7)

So even in the case of a sickness or disease or a chronic pain that is the result of sin, if you will seek God with your whole heart and forsake every wicked way, there is STILL a way out!

God wants people to be saved from sin, and thereby saved from the penalties of sin. He wants people saved from sicknesses and diseases which may be the result or the wrath that comes because of sins committed on the earth. And He wants people saved from hell, or the wrath to come upon the children of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:6). God is a good God. He is a holy God. And He is a good God.

As a matter of fact, the Bible says in 1 John 3:8 that “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” We know that sickness comes from sin and from the devil. For several reasons:

Sickness Comes as a Result of Sin:

One: There was no sickness, disease or pain until sin came into the world. Adam and Eve dealt with no sickness, no disease and no physical pain. Those things did not enter into the world until sin entered into the world.

Two: 2 Kings 5:25-27 (NLT) "When he went in to his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”

“I haven’t been anywhere,” he replied.

But Elisha asked him, “Don’t you realize that I was there in spirit when Naaman stepped down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to receive money and clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and cattle, and male and female servants? Because you have done this, you and your descendants will suffer from Naaman’s leprosy forever.” When Gehazi left the room, he was covered with leprosy; his skin was white as snow." Gehazi’s leprosy was a direct result of sin.

Three: The man at the pool of Bethesda.

John 5:1-9 (ESV)"After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath."

John 5:14 “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” Jesus indicated by His instruction that the man's sickness was a result of sin.

Sickness Comes as a Result of the Devil

One: When Jesus healed the bent over woman in Luke 13:11, He said that a “spirit of infirmity” had bound the woman for 18 years. That is an unclean spirt. A demon.

Two: Acts 10:38 (NLT) "And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." In this passage, things from which people need to be healed are described as an oppression of the devil.

Three: Matthew 12:22 (NKJV) "Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw." The man described in this passage was blind and mute because he was possessed by a devil. So many conditions that we have normalized with medical names actually have a demonic root, and only requires the dislodging of a devil to gain healing.

Yes, It is God’s Will to Heal

How do we know this?

1. Jesus only did what He saw the Father do, and only said what He heard the Father say.

A. John 5:19-20 (NLT) “So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

B. John 8:29 (ESV) “And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

C. John 8:28 (NLT) So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I AM he. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me.”

D. John 12:49-50 “I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.”

2. Jesus’ life showed us the will of the Father.

A. John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will.” And what did Jesus do, all the time? For anyone and everyone that asked? Heal people. Clearly, it had to be the Father’s will. If you believe that Jesus is not a liar, then you have to believe that it is the Father God’s will to heal you.

B. John 4:34 “Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” In other words, Jesus lived to do the will of His Father. That was His heart cry and passionate purpose.

C. John 19:30 “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Jesus accomplished His assignment on earth, having carried out the will of the Father concerning Him to the last detail. Clearly, one look at Jesus’ ministry on earth tells us that it is the will of God to heal. Otherwise, Jesus lived out His life in total disobedience to the Father.

QUESTION: So, if it’s God’s will to heal, why did I pray for healing and healing did not come?? Does God not like me or something?

Praying In Faith

Let's look at James 1:6-8 (KJV) "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

1. We see here that when we ask the Lord for something, it is crucial to ask in faith.

a. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)

b. Luke 6:17-19 (ESV) "And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all."

i. The people CAME. (Jesus didn’t come to them, they came to Him. AND, they came with an expectancy to be healed.) What is your expectancy level? Do you sincerely expect to be healed? Or are you just trying to see what might happen if you pray?

ii. The people came to HEAR. Their expectancy was to hear something from the Lord, first. Meaning they understood that He would say something valuable. They were expecting to hear something that would result in them being healed. Everyone had a base level of faith to be healed.

iii. Because they came to hear and be healed, they gained faith to be healed, and EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS HEALED. In other words, everyone with an expectancy, who took the initiative to come and then took the time to hear everything He had to say, got healed. And this was multitudes of people. This shows us that God is no respecter of persons.

2. James 1:6 says, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering..." Wavering means going back and forth between believing for healing and doubting you’ll be healed. This causes people to miss out on what God has for them.

a. So, what if you've been praying and you've seen nothing so far? How do you keep from wavering? How do you keep from doubting when you don’t see anything happening? Take a page from Abraham’s story, and praise God, no matter what you see!!

b. Romans 4:18-21 "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, [Abraham] considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform."

i. Romans 4:18: He believed, though he had NO PHYSICAL REASON to believe. All he could see was impossibility. YET, he still believed God.

ii. His focus was on what God had said, “So shall thy seed be.” That was it.

iii. Romans 4:19a: "Being not weak in faith..." It requires strong faith. Reject a weak faith. Reject a weak belief in God's Word. Believe God with all you have within you!

iv. Romans 4:19b "He considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb." This is key! You cannot consider (concentrate on) what you see. You cannot concentrate on what you feel. You cannot concentrate on the doctor's report. Dismiss Captain Obvious. Put him out of a job, and believe God instead.

v. Romans 4:20a "[Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." “Stagger” and “waver” are the same word in the Greek here. the word means "being unstable." Going back and forth. Looking up and then looking down. You cannot do both and get the results you’re looking for.

vi. He was strong in faith, giving glory to God. PRAISE IS KEY!!!