From time to time we all seek healing. We ask friends and family about our symptoms, we self diagnose and look on the internet to find the answers and possible cure to what ails us. Then we turn to doctors and modern medicine, when we exhaust most other avenues.
Somewhere in between or at the end depending on our relationship, we turn to God. We seek those miracles found in the pages of scripture. We hope to be that man or woman whom Jesus declared to have the faith that brings healing. What a joy it would be to have the cancer declared mysteriously and suddenly in recession, the infirmity removed, the pain forever gone.
So how is such a thing accomplished, a miraculous touch from God? How do gain such amazing faith, you know, the kind of faith even small as a grain of a mustard seed that moves mountains.
It is my belief and understanding that we look at all of this from a wrong perspective. We should first understand that the healings of Jesus and the apostles was an exception to the rule not the rule itself. The Lord was prophesied to have healing in His wings, and that death, disease and all the rest is a natural result of the fall of man.
That being said, there is a pattern found in scripture of how to seek healing from God. I want to make clear, however, that healing rests in the hands of God and even if we follow the scriptural outline, He has the last word. May the Lord’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.
Deuteronomy 28 is just one of many Old Testament scriptures that tells us obedience to God’s word can and will bring the blessings of health, while disobedience to the same brings curses and sickness. That is why the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11 that we should not be surprised that if we do not judge ourselves and our manor of living, God will judge us and that some fall sick and even die.
The very first and most crucial step in seeking healing from the Lord is to perform a self-exam. We should compare ourselves to scripture and making those changes first.
Next, the bible tells us to go to the body of Christ for our healing. James 5:14 says “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” It continues to say that his sins will be forgiven and that the members of the church should confess sins to each other in order that the Lord may heal them. When is the last time that a healing service was combined with an alter call? We should look to the truth of scripture. It stated again and again.
Last, and this is rare indeed. You have heard of the Apostle Paul’s infamous thorn in the flesh. Paul told us himself in 2 Corinthians 12 that this was a messenger of Satan to buffet him, to keep him from self-pride. There are times when the Lord allows us to remain in a condition for His glory, but again we must be careful to avoid such presumption.
A lack of faith has less to do with our not believing that God can heal us, and more to do with our lack of scripture. Remember that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It has always been Jesus that heals. Jesus is the Word of God and His body is the church. When we deny these truths and run away from the Word of God and the church, we are running from the very things that can heal us.