To believe for your healing, you must discover in His Word beyond all doubt that it is God's will to heal you. Once you get that revelation, your healing is already on its way. It's as good as done, providing you believe it and act upon it. If you do not see it, you will not be able to believe for your healing. This is crucial.
Most people believe God can heal but they are not sure it is His will, either for themselves or for others. For lack of a right understanding of God's attitude and will on healing, many people remain sick and die. God says, "My people are destroyed (perish) from lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6), and that includes lack of knowledge about God's healing provisions in His Word.
We learn from God's holy Word that it is clearly God's will to heal. When we realize this, we can pray according to His will, and He says, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:14-15).
So, how do we know that healing is, in truth, God's will? There are several reasons.
1. The Father's will revealedin Christ. First and foremost, God clearly demonstrated His will in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is "the exact representation of his (God's) being" (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
If Jesus, then, was a full and perfect representation of His Father, it is very important to understand that Jesus healed all who came to Him. "Many followed him, and he healed all their sick" (Matthew 12:15). Jesus "healed all the sick" (Matthew 8:16).
Jesus never had to pray, "Father, if it be thy will, please heal this person." He knew God's will. In fact, He was God's will incarnate!
There is not one instance in the Bible where Jesus refused to heal anyone! This is significant. He healed them all. And remember, Jesus always did the will of the Father. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing" (John 5:19).
It could not be more clear. The Lord Jesus Christ, God in human form, healed everyone who came to Him, clearly revealing to us the Father's will about healing. That is reason enough to believe. You do not need the other reasons. But read on anyhow!
That the sick people took the initiative is probably very significant. Jesus never forced healing on anyone. We should first desire and seek Jesus, just for who He is. As we find Him, and touch His garment, so to speak, as did the woman sick with an issue of blood for 12 years (Luke 8:44), our healing can come.
Jesus commanded His disciples to go and heal the sick, which they did. Further, as previously learned, healing the sick is part of His Great Commission for the church age. He commanded, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.... And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons... they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." (Mark 16:15,17-18).
2. God has not changed. Has Jesus changed, no longer healing people as He did before? Emphatically, no.There is not one shred of evidence in the Bible that Jesus has changed. The Bible says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). What He did when physically on earth, He is still doing today by His Spirit. Jesus was God incarnate, and God says, "I the LORD do not change" (Malachi 3:6). What He did 2,000 years ago, He still does today.
3. God did not
create sickness. There is no mention in the Genesis creation account
that God created sickness. In fact, concerning everything He did create,
it is written, "God saw all that
he had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). Sickness is not
"very good." Sickness and death were introduced by Satan when
sin came into the world. Sickness was never God's will. The Bible
speaks of "...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and
with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of
the devil; for God was with him" (Acts 10:38).
4. There is no
sickness in heaven. That fact is beyond doubt. There is no cancer,
diabetes, arthritis, or any other disease in heaven. This clearly reveals
God's will about sickness. And Jesus told us to pray that God's will be
done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9)! Can you imagine heaven
filled with crutches, wheelchairs, the sick, the blind, and the lame?
Not really. From the Bible we know that heaven is a place of perfection,
eternal joy, and bliss; a place where there is no sickness, sorrow, or death.
If a person believes it is, indeed, God's will for them to be sick, they should
not go to the doctor, or else they will be fighting against God's will, which
is sin!
5. Sickness is a curse of the Law, from which Christians have been redeemed.
See Deuteronomy chapter 28 for a description of how sickness is a curse
caused by breaking the laws given to Moses. However, Galatians 3:13 says,
"Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone
who is hung on a tree.'"
6. The Great Physician. In the four Gospels, someone has counted 41 separate accounts of Jesus healing people, 72 in all with duplicated accounts, and Jesus attributed many of the healings to the faith of the sick person and not just His power alone. Those healed were not just individuals but sometimes multitudes. Christ was the Great Physician then; He is the Great Physician now.
7. The revelation of John. Not only is God's Word full of promises for healing, revealing His will, we learn of His deep desire for our health by His words prayed through the apostle John in 3 John 2: "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth" (KJV). God said "above all things." This verse alone is sufficient proof that health and healing areGod's will!
8. The Great Commission. As previously described, healing the sick was part of Jesus' command to go into all the world.
9. Declaring the kingdom. As also mentioned, Jesus commanded that the kingdom of Godbe declared, and the kingdom is a place without sickness, and declaring it is to bring healing, deliverance, and blessings to people. As Dr. Michael Landsman wrote, "the word ‘kingdom,' in the original language, means the activity of reigning. For the believer, the activity of reigning is broken down into three aspects: bringing deliverance to the captives, exerting authority over the enemy, and conferring blessings upon God's people."
10. God hates sickness. The Bible reveals that God not only advocates health, but He actually abhors sickness! Leviticus 21 clearly reveals that God would not allow sickness in His presence, which in those days was in the temple. Now, in New Testament times, our bodies are His temple! According to 1 Corinthians 3:16: "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" Actually, the word temple here (Greek: naos) is mistranslated. Used elsewhere, the Greek word nieron means the full temple, where there was also the Court of Gentiles (symbolic of the world of sin and sickness). The word naos really means the especially sacred part of the temple that is the sanctuary, or Holy Place, where the Holy of Holies was. There, no Gentiles (sin and sickness) were allowed. Sickness has no divine right to be in our naos, or sanctuary,is contrary to God's will, and by faith in His Word and power, we must drive it out!
If you are sick, the fact that God hates sickness does not mean that you are unworthy or that He hates you. He just hates the sickness that you have, because it is not from Him. It is His perfect will to heal you and for you to be in health (3 John 2).
In Old Testament passages such as Deuteronomy chapter 28, where it appears that God is putting sickness on people, Dr. Michael Landsman explains that the nuance of the Hebrew wording shows that because of the people's disobedience, the text really means that God is "caused to allow" the sicknesses. Our behavior can "cause Him to allow" sickness to come upon us, even though it is not His perfect will. For example, suffering from AIDS is not His will, but if man indulges in promiscuous behavior by his own free will, which God will not violate, God is "caused to allow" AIDS. Man has brought it upon himself, as did the ancient Israelites. Rebellion against God and His commands can cause Him to remove His protective shield over us, such as promised in Psalm 91 and elsewhere, and to allow the natural consequences.
11. A "better covenant." As mentioned, one of many healing promises in God's Word is Psalm 103:2-3. "Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases." But this is important: This promise in Psalm 103:3 and that of Isaiah 53 are part of the Old Covenant. Hebrews 8:6 says that with Christ and the New Covenant, we have an even "better covenant" than the old one! Under this "better covenant," we should certainly expect nothing less than, but even more from, the old!
12. Our Healer. One of God's names is revealed in the Bible as "Yahweh (Jehovah) Rapha" (Hebrew) which means "the Lord, your healer," or "the Lord, your doctor." In the Bible, God uses various name suffixes to reveal His provisions for humanity's needs. For example, "Jesus," or Yeshua, from Yeshoshua, means "the Lord (Yahweh) is salvation." Jesus is our provision for salvation. His Old Covenant name, Yahweh Rapha, is our provision for our sicknesses.
Conditional. Many of God's promises are conditional. They are all free and cannot be purchased or earned, but they are dependent upon some action on our part. An example is the promise of health in Proverbs 3:7-8: "Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones" (Proverbs 3:7-8). Note the clear reference to "health to your body." The three conditions are:
·
That we are not wise in our own eyes (but dependent upon God's
wisdom).
·
That we fear the Lord, or have proper respect and reverence toward
Him.
·
That we shun evil.
·
Result: health to our bodies. It's a promise!
From all these examples in the Bible we clearly learn that it is God's perfect will to heal and that His children be healthy. Knowing this, that we are actually agreeing with God and that we are praying in His will, it should be easy for us to pray the prayer of faith and receive from Him.