More on Christian Healing
29th November 2019
As I gradually grow closer to God, I've come to three convictions about Christian healing. Perhaps they're controversial and difficult, but I want to share them with you:
The first is: God wants to heal all His people. I know, of course, that many Christians have not been healed, but I can no longer accept the idea that the God who loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us, doesn't want to heal my brothers and sisters. Since the Fall, our bodies wither and die, and one day the best healing will be to depart this world to go and live with the Lord but until that day we can expect God to help us.
The second is: God wants to heal us spiritually and emotionally more than He wants to heal us physically. To be healed is to be made whole. God wants to make you whole in body, soul and spirit. God wants to prepare you for heaven. He wants your soul and your spirit to be as ready for heaven as possible. Your body will last for just a few more decades, and then you'll discard it. At the Resurrection of the Dead, you'll be given a new, perfect body. So the healing of your soul and your spirit must take precedence over the healing of your body.
And the third is: God knows what is the best order in which to heal us of our various problems.
We can see that God prioritises the healing of our soul over physical healing from:
2 Corinthians 12:7b-9a
in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a
messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness."
Most would agree that the thorn in Paul's flesh was some kind of physical problem, although people have made different guesses about which illness he had. Paul states that the reason God allowed him to be physically unwell was to prevent him from becoming conceited. That means, doesn't it? that God sees the state of Paul's soul as a higher priority than the state of his body. The same is surely true for us.
It's a difficult lesson for us to accept, but God will not heal our bodies if doing so would endanger the wellness of our souls. Surely, had Paul not been in danger of becoming conceited, God would not given him the thorn in the flesh. For other people at other times, in other circumstances, God would heal our body because that healing would be good for our soul. God knows best.
Also, I think it must be true that sometimes (although not always) our physical problems are symptoms of unwellness in our soul. So, as I allow the Holy Spirit of God to bring healing to my soul - often through repentance, but also often through revelation and prayer - I can become able to receive other healing, sometimes including physical healing.
I'm not passing judgement on anybody here. We're all works in progress. Neither my body nor my soul is perfectly whole, and nor is yours. God knows all my imperfections - body, soul and spirit. God wants to make me whole, and God knows which healings I'm able to receive without harm. And I don't. Therefore, my role must be to draw near to God, to seek His face, to listen for voice, to try to discern as best I can His will for me, His instructions, His leading, to trust Him and try to obey Him.
I'd like to finish this week by saying explicitly that none of us fully understands Christian healing, because none of us fully understands the mind of God, our great Healer. There are many more thousands of words to be written about this important subject, and I offer these few words humbly, hoping they make some difference for some people.