An Order for Healing

I saw a demonstration of unbiblical "healing" the other night. I opened my big mouth about it an decided to close it soon after. I saw the potential for hurting someone by this careless act, and I had an emotional reaction to the situation. I decided to be quiet because I wasn't sure at the time that I could adequately articulate what I felt about the subject of healing.

The first and foremost reason for healing miracles in the Bible was to authenticate the messenger of God and God's message. Casting demons out of people and healing people was Jesus' way of showing people who He really was. Being who He is, there is also no doubt that His great compassion on people who were suffering played a role, because He loved them, but that was not the primary reason He worked miracles nor was it the primary purpose of His ministry.

Jesus became flesh so that He could die for our sin and through His resurrection bring spiritual healing, bringing us back to God. He healed many people and cast out demons, but there were many people that He didn't heal. There were plenty of people looking for Him in Mark 1:32-39, but he chose to go to other locales so that He could preach and tell people to repent, because the kingdom of God was near, and because healing was not His primary reason for being there.

The miracles served to authenticate Jesus and showed that He indeed had power over sickness and demons and in the cases of the widow of Nain's son and of Lazarus, even power over death. The miracles showed that indeed He was the only one who could truly save men and women from their sins.

I believe He is still manifesting that power today, and I believe I have received healing in my own life in answer to prayer. I won't go into that right now, but some people are still healed, while others are not. I don't like it when I see or hear someone going about saying, "I cast out this cancer in the name of Jesus," or "I bind this sickness by the power of Jesus." They aren't casting or binding anything in my opinion. On the one hand the person saying these things is at least acknowledging that the power belongs to Jesus, but on the other it seems as if they've decided how they're going to use that power and that Jesus must comply. In this particular situation, nobody appeared to consult Him about it, and He isn't some sort of cosmic bellboy to be ordered about.

James said: "14 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. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." James 5:12-15

There is a Biblical order for the way in which we are to do everything. If that seems simplistic, well, so are a great many things, and that passage does not necessarily refer exclusively to the physically ill. This has specifically to do with what James meant by the words from which, "sick" was translated. The Greek word, "asthenei" means literally "to be weak." Even though that word is used in the Gospels for physical illnesses, it's used in the Book of Acts and in the Epistles to indicate a weak faith or a weak conscience.

The Greek word, "kamnonta" is used in the next verse by James, and that word is only used one other time in the New Testament, in Hebrews 12:3. The word in Hebrews is used for "weary," and it's pretty clear that that is how "sick" should be taken in James.

James wasn't talking about the people with diseases and illnesses. He was writing to those in the hardship of suffering who had grown weak and weary. He was writing to those who had become spiritually weakened and whose walk was suffering, even morally. Those are the people he was saying should call out for help from the elders of the church. Prayers of faith for those people would "raise them up," or restore them.

Do I believe healing takes place? As I've said before, I know I was healed in answer to prayer, and we have cases where people in my church have had diseases such as cancer, with x-rays, that have had it disappear, to the dismay and joy of their physicians. We also have people (currently) in our congregation for whom we have been praying for literally years with cancer that has not been healed. Are they less deserving of healing? Are they greater sinners than those whom the Lord healed? Is this a demonic manifestation?

The idea that disease is demonic and the result of demonic power is false, and not at all supported by the Scriptures. We live in a fallen world. There are many factors that contribute to disease. The healings that Jesus and His followers worked were always distinguished from casting out demons and from those diseases and demons which were caused by Satan or his minions. They aren't always one in the same thing.

All too often people lay the blame for things on Satan when he's not guilty. They don't consider that they themselves might be the problem, or that God is preparing to use them when they are going through a trial of some kind. He may want to put us through a trial to make us grow spiritually with a demonstration of His power and strength, or He may want to bring others to faith through our death. Either way, it is God's choice whether to heal or not and in His time or not.

Like I said before, God isn't our bellboy and He doesn't run where we tell Him to. If we could just say, "Be healed," and have success, we would be healing a lot more people. It also requires more faith to suffer through the pain of sickness and suffering than it does to just have someone immediately remove it.

Does God heal people? Certainly. That is something we should earnestly pray and hope for, but in an attitude of acceptance of the perfect will of God for ourselves or for whoever we are praying for. Yes I have done that. I prayed for healing if it was the Lord's will for my father for seven years as he battled cancer. I prayed for my uncle for nearly three years the same way. Both of these godly men passed away, but their suffering and their example was something that God used in my life and I'm sure, in the lives of others.

We must also seek and ask for God's wisdom in finding other solutions for our ailments such as diet, medical assistance, etc., and have faith, trusting Him for what He wants us to do throughout that process.

Above it all, we need to trust in His fatherly grace, His sovereign will and His masterful plan for what happens to us in this life, whether that means a speedy recovery or none at all.