A CASE FOR HEALING An examination of our life in Christ By Marjorie Cole A Case for Healing takes a deeper look at the controversial subject of healing. It presents the world of sickness and disease not from a medical model but from a spiritual point of view. If we understand that the past greatly influences the present and molds the future, we can determine the patterns and apply remedies to what the medical community has only been able to observe. If we understand that the physical and spiritual worlds are completely integrated and interactive, we can find answers to the ever present questions about divine healing and what determines it. The information in “A Case for Healing”, is based on both deductive reasoning, (reasoning from a known principle, the Word of God, to the unknown, from general to a specific), and inductive reasoning, (reasoning from practical facts and individual case studies to a general conclusion). We have used the scientific methods of observation and self-report to gather the data. The information is a compilation of thousands of case reports gathered over years of personal interaction with people from all worlds of life and under every human circumstance imaginable. It has not been verified by laboratory research, but by the good report of many who have been helped. We are not medical doctors and do not claim to be. We offer this information for your consideration and pray that the Holy Spirit will administer it to you in a real and powerful way. Many times in scripture Jesus performed a miracle of physical healing after a demon was removed from the person. “ A Case for Healing,” examines sickness and disease from a physical and spiritual perspective, applying scriptural principles in our search for healing and deliverance.
Life Recovery, Inc. 7671 Old Central Ave. NE Minneapolis, MN 55432 e-mail liferecovery @tcinternet.net www.liferecovery.com Life Recovery Publications, Inc. 2003
1
PART I THE SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATIONS FOR HEALING A great confusion rests over the people of God in the matter of health and divine healing. Many are not confident it truly is God’s will that they walk in good health and live with an overall sense of well being. Some think sickness is their cross to bear. Some think it comes as a punishment for sin. Some don’t know what to think. Looking for the explanations for unanswered prayer, we often cite lack of faith as the cause for failure of prayer, including unanswered prayer for healing. The unresolved controversy surrounding divine healing and unanswered prayer creates a tangle of theological questions with respect to the nature of God’s will in matters of health and healing. These questions have hindered the promotion and authentication of the gospel message, which, according to the Bible, is to be confirmed with “signs and wonders following”. (Mk. 16:20) The healings and miracles of the Gospels confirmed the truth and authority of Jesus’ words. Divine healing and the working of miracles are to establish the authority and legitimacy of the Gospel we are called to proclaim. They lay the foundation of God’s relationship with us. They underscore His desire to bless His children. Debates about God’s will in regard to healing open the door to confusion and doubt. The confusion about God’s will in health and healing has not only left the Body of Christ weak and divided, but also hinders and undermines the power of the God to building His Kingdom. FEELING GOOD We all want to feel better, look better, be liked, be good and be blessed. We all want people to like us. We want our lives to be nice and comfortable. We want to be well fed and esteemed -- pain and problem free. But for most of us, life is just not that way. We put expectations on ourselves and one another that are unattainable. We struggle with extraneous rules and burdens Jesus describes as too grievous to be borne. We pressure each other into an artificial compliance and become rigid and anxious in our pursuit of peace. Happiness is defined as karma or some other undefinable cycle of perfection. Self–justification and the validation of personal worth promote discontentment and competition, while religious pride blinds us until we become the blind leading the blind. We become angry at personal injustices and seek to bring justice apart from God. Hatred and bitterness become our counselors as we justify unforgiveness. We pray in unbelief and have become content to live
2
without receiving the answer. We settle far short of what God has in mind for us, filling our minds and hearts with temporal distractions and false comforts. We embrace a truth twisted to look like and feel like us. We refuse correction and blame the God of heaven for making our life so hard, totally unaware of how deeply He suffers waiting for His prodigal children to be free. (See Isaiah 63:9) GOD’S PERFECT WILL VS. HIS PERMISSIVE WILL As His children, God’s perfect will for us is to walk in health and be blessed. Just as we would not want our child sick and suffering from disease, malnutrition, poverty or lack, neither does God. Would we give our child diabetes to teach him or her a lesson? Would we want our daughter to have migraines or our son a broken leg? Is God not a far better parent than any of us? Does He get glory out of His children suffering in pain? How is it that we would not think to put such a thing on our child, and yet we might be persuaded to believe that God would give His children cancer to teach them a lesson? Why aren’t we more curious that so many of God’s children are sick and in pain, dying from countless diseases and infirmities? How have we come to tolerate things than need not be? Are there spiritual dynamics that govern health and promote well-being among God’s children that we fail to understand? How do we sort out consequences from chastening? How does God feel when He sees His children suffer, sick and cast down? Even as we are often hindered in being able to provide the kind of care and comfort of our children we would like them to have, God is also, many times, not allowed to operate in His perfect will for us. Because of our free will, He is frequently restricted to operating within the parameters of His permissive will regarding our lives. Because He has given us a free will and allows us to use it, His intervention in our lives is many times limited to operating within the context of that free will. That limitation is often misinterpreted as His failure to care or misread as Divine anger or impotence. THE THEOLOGICAL QUAGMIRE -- HEALING AND GOD’S WILL If we do not know God’s perfect will when it comes to believing for healing, we will not be able to seek Him with confidence. Just as “asking” becomes a primary means of “receiving” salvation, asking becomes critical to receiving healing. Doubt and doublemindedness about God’s will, reinforced with feelings of undeserving and unbelief, can become chief obstacles to receiving it. Making healing about my worthiness and, or God’s willingness, are the devil’s plots to rob the church of one of her greatest gifts, divine healing. The devil uses confusion to divide the house and leave us in a flurry of controversy over theology and interpretation of scripture. Confusion permeates our understanding and clouds our experience, leading to a
3
tentative position in regard to God’s will to heal us. “If it is God’s will” provides a religious caution and a pious way out of spiritual embarrassment. The form of godliness undermines the power of our prayers and the confidence of our faith in God’s love for us. HEALING THE SICK IS NOT A QUESTION, IT IS A COMMAND Any question regarding divine reluctance to heal can be quickly dismissed with even a casual glance at the earthly ministry of Jesus. “Immediately the people recognized Him and ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick…and as many as touched Him were made well,” (Mk. 6:54-56). Jesus was moved with compassion for the masses held under the influence of demons and disease. The question of God’s willingness to heal is answered by the Lord Himself when responding to the leper’s request for healing in Mark 1:41, “And Jesus, moved with compassion, put out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “ I am willing; be cleansed.” Some might say, “but that was Jesus. That was then. We are not Jesus and this is now.” Endless discussion on the matter of “God’s will” in healing can be quickly cleared up by the command that Jesus Himself made to go and “heal the sick and cast out demons, ” (Mk. 16:17-18). When Jesus sent out the twelve apostles, He gave them “power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases” (Lu. 9:1). In Matthew 10:7-8, He defined the task more clearly. “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Later He also included others; “after these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go” (Lu. 10:1). He told them to… “Heal the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’ ” (Lu. 10:1, 8-9). The Lord continued to confirm His Word through the disciples in the book of Acts with signs and wonders including healing the man who lay crippled at the temple gate (Acts 3:1-9). As Jesus prepared to depart, His last declaration commissioned His followers with authority in the supernatural. “These signs shall follow those who believe” (Mk.16:17-18). James also gave simple but specific instructions to the believers on the practical methods for healing the sick. Call for the elders, pray over the sick, and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. He adds that believers should confess their faults one to another and pray for one another, so that they can be healed (James 5:14-16).
4
God is consistent throughout both Old and New Testaments regarding healing, declaring of Himself, “I am the LORD that heals you” (Ex 15:26). Jesus promises us that “He that believes on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father” (John 14:12). God intends for us to not only be healed, but participate with Him in the restoration and redemption of mankind. WHO IS GOD? From the beginning God has demonstrated Himself to us as Father. In the context of that relationship, He walked with Adam in the garden. Sin brought separation. Redemption restores our relationship with Him. God desires to have fellowship with us, to teach us and talk to us. Just as any good parent desires a good relationship with their children and wants good things for them, God desires that His children walk in obedience and be blessed. If an earthly parent would not want to see their child suffer with sickness and disease, are we out of line to conclude the same to be true for the One who created parenthood? Our concept of God determines our confidence in Him and provides the foundation of our faith in the pursuit of healing. If we believe that God is good, and that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning,” (James 1:17), we can present our need and approach the throne of grace and mercy with greater boldness. Many of us, however, define our thoughts and concept of God based on what we have experienced with our earthly fathers. We misinterpret God’s intentions and actions toward us and become overwhelmed trying to please Him and win His approval. We become exasperated trying to be perfect. We live in spiritual exhaustion trying to predict God’s behavior or live in anxiety trying to figure out where to stand to avoid the fiery blast of His wrath. If we are convinced that God does not care and is cruel, we will find Him impossible to please. We will spend our lives avoiding an intimate relationship with Him, believing He is unloving and slow to forgive. If that were the kind of a God we serve, how would we expect Him to heal or help us? Neither striving to please nor separation from Him serves us well in developing a trusting relationship to respond freely to our heavenly Father, and the devil greatly desires it to be so! WHO AM I? If we do not know who we are or where we are from, we will have serious doubts about where we are going or how to get there. Those of us in pursuit of healing must re-examine the information we have gathered and assimilated about both God and ourselves. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to separate that which is God’s Word from that which is of our own mind and imagination as the Enemy desires to create deceptions and delusions in every area of our lives, including healing. His sole purpose is to cut us off from help. He
5