This is always an interesting subject. Yes, Jesus is still healing people! The Bible says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever ... so whatever He did yesterday He is doing today! How does God heal today? Through His Sovereignty? Through faith healing? Through medicine? People have all kinds of legitimate questions about healing. Is God still healing people? What about good Christian people who are not healed, was it not God's will?
One well-known TV and radio preacher made this statement when he said,
"I believe in divine healing not divine healers, I believe in faith healing, I do not believe in faith healers...I believe God in His Sovereign power can reach down ... and I have a conviction that God does that apart from any individual that claims to have certain power ... "Is God just randomly, sovereignly healing people as He wills? What role does faith play? Can you "believe" God for healing or must you simply "hope" that somehow in His Sovereign will you get on His list for healing?
Let's look at the Bible and see what God has already revealed to us concerning His will to heal the sick. First, we will discover that there are three main categories or three ways the Bible describes God's will concerning health and healing.
Category #1: God Initiates Healing Through His Sovereign Healing Power.
When God initiates a healing separate from a person's faith—this is known as God's Sovereign healing power. We see examples of this in the Bible ... for example the lame man at the pool of Bethesda. (John 5:1-8) Jesus initiated that man's healing without any faith on the man's part. Jesus said to the man, "Do you want to be healed?" The man started to tell Jesus all the reasons that he could not be healed. He went into a big pity party. Jesus was moved with compassion and healed the man right in the middle of his unbelief. It was a Sovereign act of God ... and in fact the man didn't even believe!
God's mercy. God's perogative. God's Sovereignty. Many times we see in the Bible that God initiates healings for people out of His mercy and as a sign and wonder to those onlooking. Look at Jesus Sovereignly heal Peter's mother-in-law, (see, mothers-in-law can be healed!) in Matthew 8:14-15:
"When Jesus came into Peter's house, He saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on Him."
These are NOT faith healings, because faith is not involved. Hope may be involved, despair may be involved, desperation may be involved, but faith is not ... it is God, in His mercy, reaching down out of heaven, as He wills, to heal a person. This Sovereign act of God's healing power cannot be manufactured or expected necessarily.
The Bible teaches that another way God Sovereignly initiates healings is through the "gifts of healing" listed as one of the nine gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11:
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines."
This passage tells us that the Holy Spirit, at His discretion gives the "gifts of healing" to different people at different times as He determines. We've seen this many times. Sometimes a believer who is sick will receive this "gift of healing" from God—it is as He detemines, He initiates it and the person is healed. Sometimes God will give someone who is not sick the "gift of healing"—so that they can lay their hands on some sick people and as God wills, the sick people will be well.
Again, God decides who He gives this gift to. There are some people that God has anointed with the "gifts of healing" and it is totally up to Him. We know different believers and preachers that God has seemed to give this gift to. For example, one of our mentors is one person to whom God seems to give the "gifts of healing." Over the years, it has been evident that many people have been healed by this God-initiated gift of the Spirit through his ministry. At times, the "gifts of the Spirit", "gifts of healing" can and do flow through men and women as conduits.
To read Part Two, click here.
Copyright © 2007 Beth Jones Ministries All rights reserved.
