Everybody wants to be healed of sickness, and they pray to God for help! Yet, God does not seem to heal at all sometimes, or at least not the way we think he should! Christians, those of us who have decided to follow Jesus into his new Kingdom way of living, need to understand God’s perspective on healing for our own benefit, but more importantly so we can help others see God’s bigger picture on life.
Way back when I was in Seminary (48 years ago, yikes!) the President of the Seminary taught a class on healing. He taught us 5 miracles of God’s healing, and described them this way:
Most popular ways:
1) Jesus heals directly and supernaturally–the miracle of the supernatural touch.
2) Jesus heals through doctors and medicine–the miracle of modern medicine.
3) Jesus heals through the human body’s healing power–the miracle of nature.
Less popular ways:
4) Jesus heals through bestowing grace in suffering–the miracle of sufficient grace.
5) Jesus heals through victorious dying–the miracle of the victorious crossing.
Whether it’s physical healing of some sort, or even mental, emotional or “soul” healing, I’ve never known anyone who doesn’t prefer to start with the first 3 ways above! It doesn’t matter how “spiritual” you think you are, we ALL want God to intervene and heal completely.
Almost 5 years ago now when my first wife Claudia was diagnosed with stage 4, metastatic cervical cancer, we immediately recruited an army of “prayer warriors” to pray with us for God to heal her in any or all of the first 3 ways above. (And thank you all, you were an AMAZING army of prayer support) We didn’t care how, we just pleaded “Please, Jesus, heal her”! And even though we didn’t notice any supernatural healing, we did see significant healing through medicine. The chemo reduced her tumors in half, and after a long surgery, she recovered with just one tiny spot of cancer left behind her liver that they couldn’t get to. Her body and spirit seemed to recover quickly, and the doctors were optimistic and said she may have 5- 10 years more! Claudia ate very healthy and did everything she could learn on the internet to keep her body strong and clean. But, after 3 months and wonderful rest and recuperation on a Florida island, we returned to find her evil cancer had returned spreading all over again.
While many might think God had failed to heal her, we were just forced to move into a deeper, more Biblical understanding of God’s healing plan for us all! One of God’s names he gives us in the Old Testament is Jehovah-Rapha, “the God Who Heals”. The word “Rapha” means “to restore,” “to heal,” “to mend,” “to repair thoroughly,” and “make whole.” God sees us and the world we live in as totally broken because of sin, and he passionately hates that sin because it destroys our lives and prevents us from living the real, abundant life that he created us for.
Claudia and I and our family were forced to move into the 4th & 5th ways of God’s healing plan above, even though we resisted and prayed not to go there!
The 4th & 5th ways of healing listed above are intertwined, and you can’t really understand the 4th way well until you first understand the 5th way, which is the truth that God ultimately heals us through death itself, completely and forever! Healing in both the Old and New Testaments is always only a temporary thing, and it’s always pointing to a bigger, future plan of God to heal, restore, make whole, and repair thoroughly all of creation, including the natural world, animals, and us as humans.
Because sin has ruined us all as well as creation, Jesus came to overcome the power of sin on the cross and offer us salvation, power to change and overcome sin’s grip on us, and eventually join him as new creations in a new Kingdom to be fully implemented when he returns to fully redeem and restore his lost world on the earth. In Acts 3:19-21 we read,
19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20 and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you–even Jesus. 21 He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.
Having God’s perspective on healing, death, and our future makes all the difference in the world in how you see healing, your life now, and your promised future life in Jesus!
Perhaps the most amazing, encouraging, and hope-filled passage in the Bible that points us to a future Kingdom under Jesus’ rule is found in Revelation 21: 1-5:
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
I sometimes tell people when I think of this passage that “I’m not going to die. I’m going to live forever!” Some may think I’m crazy or that I’m naïve, but of course I realize that my body will certainly die, but my soul, my created being, will NOT die. And, in God’s coming new combined Heaven and Earth, we get new bodies that will last forever! ALL of us will live forever, either with Jesus in his new Kingdom as we trust our lives and future to him, or separated forever from him in Hell if we choose not to trust and follow him and choose our own rebel existence instead.
If you know that the real “YOU”, your soul, will live forever in Jesus, and you will get an amazing new body in the future, you will have a more mature and peaceful view of healing, suffering, and how God uses even the hard times in life to draw us closer to him and make us stronger in character.
Which leads us back to healing path #4, where God usually takes us in the end…
– Jesus heals through bestowing grace in suffering–the miracle of sufficient grace.
The apostle Paul suffered illness, beatings to the point of being left for dead, numerous unfair imprisonments, ridicule and constant rejection, and times of suffering and discouragement that wore him down to total weakness. But Paul understood that God worked best in his weaknesses, not his personal accomplishments. He was able to say in II Corinthians 12:9-10:
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
As we mature in faith, we realize that ALL of us will face suffering in many ways at various times: physical illness and eventual death, mental and spiritual strife, anxiety, and depression, and all kinds of experiences that just plain hurt us and we wish we could escape. Jesus went through every imaginable pain and suffering for us on the cross, so he knows exactly how you feel at your worst moments! God doesn’t promise to take us OUT of suffering and painful times, but he promises to BE WITH US AND WALK US THROUGH to the other side of healing and hope. God is more concerned with our character than our comfort. (For a great book to help in those hard times, I highly recommend “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering” by Timothy Keller.)
Not only does God use our suffering and hurt to make us stronger in character, but he uses it to help us be an encouragement to others who we see going through the same thing. God never wastes a hurt! If you have gone through cancer or some other terrible disease and survived, God can use you to empathize with and encourage someone else going through it now. You “know how it feels” and you have walked through it with God, so you are the perfect person to share that experience with others walking the same dark path at this moment. We all will go through brokenness and hurt in life, but we can actually find purpose and peace in knowing that God can use ANYTHING for his ultimate good, and can use it to draw others into his eternal Kingdom of restoration, wholeness and joy!
While Claudia was dying, she was able to share her faith and struggles and that brought great encouragement and hope to many. And in turn, it gave us a sense of purpose and peace in the midst of a really hard time. God walked with her through the valley of the shadow of death, and used her family and friends to “walk her home” to her new, permanent life with Jesus.
It makes a tremendous difference in HOW we as Kingdom people walk through these hard journeys of brokenness. This past year, I’ve had 2 very dear men friends face terminal cancer. One has passed away, and the other is in the last stages. Both of them, and their wives, have been marvelous examples of living with deep faith and trust in God in the midst of the pain they are all going through. They have a deep sense of peace in knowing this is NOT the end, ultimately, but only a transition to a new world that will no longer be marred by sin, sickness, and death. One even said “I didn’t know Claudia, but I have a sense I will be able to recognize her. I will say hi to her for you!” Wow, that just encouraged my heart like he will never know, and it reaffirmed for me that God has given us a future hope that nothing here can take away or touch.
Paul reminds is in II Corinthians 1:3-7:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Pray for healing for one another, especially for ways 1-3 listed above. I will always pray for healing for you as well. We ALL want to be strong and healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and God wants that for us more than we can imagine.
But even more than that, I pray you will all come to understand God’s deeper, better, and permanent plan for our ultimate healing and life together, forever, in His Kingdom. When we understand that perspective, God can walk us through all the hurt this broken world will throw at us, and He will walk hand and hand with us into a beautiful future that is beyond our imagination!
Let’s walk this journey with Jesus together…
And let’s walk hand in hand as brothers and sisters as we ultimately walk each other home to a new and beautiful place that our hearts long for!