There is Healing in Christ Jesus

There is Healing in Christ Jesus

There was a time when we'll get all excited hearing words like this title. We got all excited hearing words like, 'healing is the children's bread' from the story of the syrophoenician (A non Jewish) woman who came to Jesus Christ seeking healing for her sick daughter, with the kind of faith Jesus Christ never saw in Israel.

Over time, as medical science gets better and apostasy and scoffers increase, with all sorts of unexpected things happening in the healing ministry, casting aspersions on the ministry, faith in the healing power in Christ began to wane.

Of course, medical sciences has improved health care system a lot, but that still doesn't mean people aren't dying or that they have had all the breakthroughs needed to cure all diseases that afflict man. It shouldn't be a reason why we should cast aside our faith in divine healing, we'll always need it.

There has also been those arguments saying the days of miracles and healing are gone or that healing isn't in the work Jesus did for our redemption. We have scoffers, who manipulate scriptures to make the promises of healing irrelevant today.

But it's incontrovertible that Jesus Christ healed while He was here on the earth in fulfilling prophecies that went ahead concerning Him and that part of the commission given to those who believed in His name, is to do the works He did in His name and by His Spirit.

It was explicitly recorded how the apostles and the disciples continued in this mandate, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manners of diseases.

Divine healing isn't just to care for God's people but also to declare and confirm the truth of the gospel of Christ. If it is argued that medicine has replaced divine healing in caring for people, how then has it replaced divine healing in evangelism?

The fundamental basis for our faith in Christ is that God raised Him from the dead and that He is still alive right now even if He has been made to sit on the right hand of God in majesty. If He is still alive, and manifesting with and in us through the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter sent to replace Him with us, so that we won't be left as orphans after Christ left, then, it is in order to believe that He is still healing the sick today.

Of course, we know that the challenge to our survival while waiting for His return aren't tailored to be handled by human capacity and resources alone. Why then should we abandon ourselves to the limits of the physical, in fighting the unending and unyielding challenges we face in time, when we have a good offer of help from the Lord?

Even with a supersonic health care system, it is possible for the Christian to be excluded because of his or her faith in Christ by persecution, under which circumstances, the efficacy of divine healing becomes the only option available, if we must be alive and well to continue our purposes of shining the light of God to the world. We'll always need this earthsuit to function here, God knows that, and has made provisions for it.

Apostle Paul once wondered why it was seen as an incredible thing that God should raise Christ from the dead. The same question should be asked even much more in the case of healing, why it should be seen as an incredible thing for God to heal the sick and to heal supernaturally, knowing that He made us from ordinary dust and that by His breath, every thing we have now in our body anatomy and physiology came to being?

He is God and we can call upon Him in time of any trouble and He is faithful to make a way.

Another source of unbelief is a lot of things seen in the healing ministry.

One query is that healing ministers ought to heal every sick person as advertised. I agree that lots of advertisements are quite misleading in the claims and expectations they put forward, but then, they aren't the Healer, and there are lots of issues going on between God and the individual that's beyond what the minister has the right to get involved in which may deprive a seeker from getting healed. Remember lots of people were touching Christ the day the woman with the issue of blood touched him and was healed of a twelve year plague. 

Besides, healing at an evangelical crusade has a different purpose than healing among a group of believers. The purpose of an evangelical crusade is to win souls and every thing is geared towards people receiving Christ, if it takes only one person being healed to bring those who should be saved to Christ, that may be all the healing that would take place.

In the local church however, it is written, is there any sick AMONG YOU, let him call the elders of the church to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up...James 5.

It wasn't every time Jesus Christ came across with sick people that He healed all the sick. At the pool of Bethesda, where the man with palsy was healed after 38 years, there were many other sick people there but He healed only one, and we don't know why but there was a situation recorded by Matthew in chapter 8, where by evening they brought to Him all that were sick, and He healed them all. Meanwhile, He was at His hometown at a time and He couldn't do mighty miracles there only that he healed a few sick folks with minor ailments.

The truth here is that we shouldn't use the situation of others to judge our own faith in Christ. That someone didn't get healed shouldn't be the standard by which we relate with God's healing promises. The relationship we have with Him and His promises to us should be the basis for our faith. That someone backslides and falls away from the faith shouldn't be the basis by which we judge our own walk with God, if everyone backsides, we should determine that we'll continue to walk with God in such a way that we won't fall, whatever it will cost. If people aren't enjoying certain gifts of grace that everyone should be enjoying, don't join those who would say, it shouldn't be for them...rather stretch your wọn faith to receive and God will honour your faith. 

Some may have made the healing ministry a tool for exploiting people and extracting from them. This still doesn't erase the work Jesus did and the promises He left for us for our healing. Don't let other people's unfortunate rascality rob you of your inheritance in God. 

Many in unbelief would fake healing miracles and manipulate testimonies to show how powerful they or their ministries are, for patronage and for human accolades. This too won't erase the truth that God still heals neither would it destroy the promises of God. Have you met or heard of anyone like that? Pity their unbelief but walk on in faith towards God for your own healing. 

We have the more sure word of prophecy, where God declared Himself as Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that heals His people. Exodus 15:26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, FOR I AM the LORD, YOUR HEALER.”

Here He declared Himself as one with the responsibility of our healing and health. Apostle Peter pulled this provision out in the healing of a disciple in Acts 9:34 

And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose.

Again, God promised His people to bless their bread and water and to take sickness away from their midst. Of course, we know He has the ability to do so.

Exodus 23:24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. 

25 You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 

26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

God rewards undivided attention to His worship and to faith in Him as God. He takes primary responsibility for our care as we worship and serve Him wholeheartedly without compromise. 

In the fundamental messianic prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 53 of his book, we saw Christ bearing our pains and sicknesses, bearing the punishment for our peace and healing us by the consequent stripes the punishment brought. 

3 He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. 

He was like someone people turned away from;

he was despised, and we didn’t value him.

4 Yet he himself bore our sicknesses,

and he carried our pains;

but we in turn regarded him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion,

crushed because of our iniquities;

punishment for our peace was on him,

and we are healed by his wounds. (Christian Standard Bible)

The healings Christ performed were seen to be the fulfillment of this prophecy by the apostles in retrospect. Matthew said Christ healed so that this might be fulfilled and Peter affirmed this in His epistle.

Matthew 8:16 When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick, 

17 so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

He himself took our weaknesses

and carried our diseases.

As long as Christ lives, this prophecy shall continue to be fulfilled by the healing and health of those who seek His kingdom and believe in Him. 

1Peter 2:22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; 

23 when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

The issue is if we believe this. If we understand that the same word that brought us the promise of our eternal salvation brought us this one also, and we handle our healing just as we handle our salvation, living above sin, we will enjoy the same divine faithfulness in every area, all things being equal. 

We should recover our faith from where scoffers have put it. We should recover our faith from being overthrown. We should trust the Lord with every area of our lives including our healing and health and God will be pleased. 

Let Him be the Healer, that He said He is and allow Him to lead as He wants in getting us our healing. With Him there are no incurable diseases. The worst we could be was to be dust, and if out of the dust, all we call our bodies today came, then there's no sickness that can be incurable to Him. 

If He has each hair on our heads numbered, He sure knows what and where exactly the problem is in the cells of our bodies. Let us trust Him. 

As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and whosoever looked to it among those who were bitten by the serpent was healed, so also God has lifted up His Son today, we are saved and healed as we look up to Him. 

He is able to keep the plagues away according to His promises... Don't despise Him who made the body, He knows what to do to repair it. He raised Christ from the dead according to the gospel, He by the same Spirit can give life to our mortal bodies...Hallelujah! 

Do you believe this? 

Picture Credit: Falco/Pixabay