The word on healing: it's a done deal

An excerpt from a book I am currently writing... Be blessed-Kris

A pastor once taught, and I found it worth sharing, that God told him to study the two people in the Gospels whom Jesus said had great faith and find what they had in common. After an hour’s deliberation, this was his conclusion: they had nothing in common. One was a woman, the other a man. One was a Canaanite, the other a soldier, etc… So the pastor decided to ask God. God answered: they were both gentiles. Being gentiles, they weren’t conscious of the law; they only had eyes for Jesus therefore they were able to believe apart from examining themselves for worthiness to receive from Him. Today as Christians, we tend to fall back on the law! Guilt and condemnation along with our works beg our attention and we become self focused instead of Jesus focused. Keep your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith!
God says His ways are higher than our ways. God’s grace is beyond our ability to understand so you must receive it by faith. Sadly, there is still a tendency in the Christian community to fall back on deserving His grace instead of receiving it by faith. Everything we receive from God is now by faith; we believe God will do what He says He’ll do or more so, that He has done what He says He has done... When Jesus was on Earth, the majority of His miracles involved the healing of sick bodies. What did Jesus say in the Gospels? “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” As Jesus ministered to the sick, you see the Father’s heart and attitude toward the sick. Jesus was the will of God in action. In the book of Hebrews, it says that Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father. Let that statement sink in. Jesus was the exact imprint of the Father. Study the gospels, get to know Him, to get to know His heart. Freely Jesus gave to all who would receive from Him. Freely He gives today to all who will receive from Him. Jesus healed multitudes and they praised and glorified God. Not one person was turned away. Not one person was told, “this is not My will for you.” Many today are robbed of God’s provision because of that very mind set. They simply doubt it is God’s will to heal them, or they don’t know if it is God’s will that they be healed. My friend, that is not faith. Faith believes it receives from God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Believe God hears you when you pray. Believe He answers you when you pray. God is not withholding. Mark 11:24 says, “Believe you receive when you pray and you shall have it.” This verse says to believe you receive when you pray, not when you see the manifestation, but believe when you pray. That is faith. Simply believing God will do what He says He will do. Don’t complicate what faith is. It isn’t a pedestal to rise up to in hopes of someday reaching that place of great faith. Faith in its simplest form is believing God.
Let’s look at Psalm 103:1-2. David begins to speak on the benefits of knowing and serving God and states, “don’t forget His benefits.” The word benefit means good things. Things that add to and doesn’t take away. Two specific benefits are mentioned here that David tells us not to forget. “Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me. Bless Him and forget not all His benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases…” How many diseases? Some? Maybe 1or 2? No. All. All your diseases. God, Who never changes, heals all your diseases. God, Who is full of mercy and compassion, heals all your diseases. God, Who keeps covenant, heals all your diseases. God, Who says that all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, heals all your diseases. Has God changed his mind since that was written? Or have we had the wool pulled over our eyes by the one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy? Do you believe He forgives all your iniquities? That couldn’t be beaten out of you with a stick! Could one part of this verse be true and the other only half true or perhaps sometimes true? God never changes. God esteems his Word higher than Himself. There is a type in the old testament I’ll share. The children of Israel had sinned against God in the wilderness. Snakes came and whoever was bitten got sick and died. Moses cried out to God. God had Moses raise up a bronze serpent on a stick and whoever looked upon this serpent was forgiven and healed. Jesus was also raised up on a wooden cross; whoever looks upon Him by faith, can be forgiven and healed.

application 4 - the good news of the Gospel
Matthew 4:23 “And He went about all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news (Gospel) of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every weakness and infirmity among the people.”
Matthew 9:35 “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and every weakness and infirmity.”
Matthew 10:7-8 “And as you go, preach, saying The kingdom of heaven is at hand! Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”
A warning is given in Matthew 13:19, “While anyone is hearing the Word of the kingdom and does not grasp and comprehend it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown into his heart.”
I want to connect a dot in this next example: Matthew 21:14 “And the blind and the lame came to Him in the porches and courts of the temple, and He cured them.” A few verses later Jesus begins to teach using a fig tree as an example of faith. Verse 22 then declares, “And whatever you ask for in prayer, having faith and believing, you will receive.”
Mark 3:24 says, “And if a kingdom is divided and rebelling against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” I believe with all my heart that God does not use sin in any of its forms to bring about His will and purposes in his childrens lives. Does God use pride or envy, jealousy or strife to bring about His will? No. We are to rid our lives of those things. God views sickness as He views hate, envy, or lust. It is sin and it destroys the lives of his children.
Luke 4:40-43. “Now at the setting of the sun, all those who had any sick with various diseases brought them to Him, and He laid His hands upon every one of them and cured them. And demons even came out of many people, screaming and crying out. VS 43- “But He said to them, I must preach the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.”
I will end on this verse though there are still many verses I could add. Luke 12:32 says, “Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!”
From here we will jump to the book of Acts. Acts 14:7 “And there they continued to preach the glad tidings (Gospel). Now at Lystra a man sat who found it impossible to use his feet, for he was a cripple from birth and had never walked. He was listening to Paul as he talked, and Paul, gazing intently at him and observing that he had faith to be healed, shouted at him, saying, stand erect on your feet! And he leaped up and walked.” Skip to verses 15, “…we bring you the good news (Gospel) that you should turn from foolish and vain things to the living God.” Where had the faith for healing come from had Paul not included healing as part of the Good News?
Amen.

Jesus’ body was broken for our healing and deliverance. He has borne our grief’s and carried our sorrows, translated in the Hebrew: sicknesses, weaknesses and distress. Sorrow translates as physical pain in Hebrew. Surely He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains. Look at Matthew 8:16- 17, “When the evening was come, they brought to Him many that were possessed with evil spirits. He cast those spirits out with His word, and He healed all that were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, “He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”
Later in 1Peter 2:24, the Holy Spirit affirms this again only it is now stated this way, “and by His stripes, we were healed.” Were healed, past tense, a finished work. The word healed used here in the New Testament is again translated physical healing in the Greek. Jesus took the ravages of sin for our mind, body, and spirit. If you are a child of God, Jesus- the Bread of Life, has bore your sickness and pain. All that He purchased for you is yours to receive. He tells us, take and eat, do this in remembrance. Again I refer to Psalm 103, “forget not all His benefits”. There is a tendency in us to forget what has been purchased for us. Mediate on the word of God; don’t let it depart from your eyes for it is health and healing to your flesh.
The provision is there for healing. We don’t want to pull theology down to the level of our experience or the experiences of others. God says sin no longer has dominion over us. Have you sinned lately? Yep, me too. Is God’s word true? Yep. The potential is there to not give in to sin. It no longer rules our members. We are no longer bound by it. There is a potential for higher living, overcoming sin through the power of the Holy Spirit. My sin does not make his word void, it just means I am still learning and growing and not everyday batting a thousand but I have overcome in some areas and continue in His grace (forgiven) where and when I fail because I am in Christ. We need to be lifting the level of our experiences to the level of God’s promises and provision not pulling His word down to our theology, conclusions, and experiences. We are to continue to reach out and grasp God’s promises. This is done through renewing our mind. The Word of God renews our mind, replacing old thinking with new. And it is a process. The potential is there for healing, the potential is there for a lifetime of divine health but sometimes we fall short. The goal: continue reaching for the prize. Put the work in necessary to renew your mind. God has already given us the road map to reach the destination: keep the word before your eyes, renew your mind. In the next chapter, we will dive into how the kingdom works, sowing the seed to renew your mind.