Healing: Part 1
Four types of healing:
1. Physical healing
2. Emotional healing
3. Relational healing
4. Spiritual healing
Outcome of God’s Word being misinterpreted…
Christians have forfeited their covenant rights.
Christians have remained victims to Satan’s attacks.
Jeremiah 1:9-10 [NKJV], “Behold, I have put My word in your mouth. 10 See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy, to throw down, to build and to plant.”
Five Misconceptions Concerning Physical Healing:
1. God uses sickness to discipline [teach] His children.
Hebrews 12:6-11 [NLT], For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child. 7 As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as His own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? 8 If God doesn’t discipline you as He does all of His children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really His children at all. 9 Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? 10 For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in His holiness. 11 No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
One theologian said “Ninety percent of the Christians who are sick, are sick because God is using sickness as a ‘chastening rod’ to express His love for them and is molding their lives to His perfect will.” He went on to say, “Christians who are not brought under the ‘chastening rod’ of sickness by God once in a while are not sons.”
Problems concerning this type of thinking…
A. The writer of Hebrews did not say: “Whom the Lord loves He makes sick.”
The word disciplines means; “to instruct, train, teach or educate like a teacher interacts with a pupil or like a parent teaches/trains a child.”
B. Most people who believe their sickness is God’s way of “disciplining” them, have no
idea WHY God is punishing them.
C. Let’s say that God actually uses sickness to teach us a lesson. What’s next?
James 5:14-15 [NKJV], Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
D. It doesn’t line up with God’s nature.
Acts 10:38 [NKJV], ”God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”
2. Sickness and disease are a part of God’s will for our lives.
Psalm 34:19 [ESV], Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
1 Peter 5:10 [NLT], In His kindness God called you to share in His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation.
Problems concerning this type of thinking…
A. For starters, neither of these verses say: “Many are the sicknesses and diseases of
the righteous.” Or…“After you have struggled with pain, sickness, and disease for a
while, I will step in.”
B. Both of the words affliction and suffering mean; “trials, hardships, persecutions, temptations, etc.”
Acts 9:15-16 [NKJV], “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
2 Corinthians 6:4-5 [NLT], We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. 5 We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food.
2 Corinthians 6:8-9 [NLT], We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. 9 We are ignored, even though we are well known. We live close to death, but we are still alive. We have been beaten, but we have not been killed.
2 Corinthians 11:23-25 [NLT], Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served Him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. 24 Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.
James 5:13-14 [NLT], Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. …14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church…
“It would be a contradiction to say that Jesus has bore our sicknesses and taken our infirmities; that by His stripes we are healed; that He heals all our diseases; but also say that there are many sicknesses and diseases which God expects us to bear until an appointed time or under certain circumstances. This would not make any sense.”
3. God used to heal, but He stopped once the Bible was written.
I believe the signs and wonders were not just to validate the Good News; they were also a vital element of the Good News!
Problems concerning this type of thinking…
A. The Bible never tells us God stopped moving in these ways.
B. A majority of denominations that hold to this line of thinking, their history tells a
different story.
C. Too many people’s personal experiences/testimonies reveal something different.
“It is a sad day in church history when Christians begin to believe that the Enemy of our soul [the devil] cares more about our well-being than God does.”
Matthew 12:22-28 [NLT], Then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and couldn’t speak, was brought to Jesus. He healed the man so that he could both speak and see. 24 But when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “No wonder He can cast out demons. He gets His power from Satan, the prince of demons.” 25 Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, “And kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. …26 And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself. His own kingdom will not survive. 27 And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too… 27 But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you.
Mark 16:14-18 [NKJV], Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. 15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay. Hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Psalm 103:1-3 [NKJV], Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: 3 Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases…
4. If I’ve never seen it then it can’t be true.
The Gospel which contains salvation and our eternal home is still the same Gospel that speaks of supernatural healing and deliverance.
5. If someone is sick then they must have hidden sin in their life.
Luke 13:10-17 [NLT], One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 He saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then He touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God! 14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” 15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16 This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?” 17 This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did.