The Gospel in Twenty Questions (19 page)

When Camilla and I started
pastoring in the late 1990s, we didn’t have a clue. We loved God with all our
hearts and we prayed a lot, but our prayers seldom moved mountains. On one
occasion there was a lot of sickness going around so we organized a healing
meeting. We laid hands on the sick, prayed like mad, but nobody got healed. In
fact, after the meeting more people got sick!

We joke about
it now, but we weren’t laughing then. Why was it so hard to heal people? I have
since come to understand that many sincere believers struggle to receive
healing because of false teaching. They’ve been told it’s not God’s
will to heal everyone or that God uses sickness to teach
character or that God used to heal people, but now he’s retired. Others
struggle because they simply don’t know how to pray for the sick. Nobody’s
taught them. We didn’t know, but we learned. You can too.

When
Joseph
learned that
his fiancée, Mary, was pregnant, he decided to call off the
marriage. But an angel came to him with a message that would change everything
for everyone forever:

Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary
home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because
he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1: 20b–21)

Here are three things from
heaven: a messenger with a name, a baby, and a mission. The heavenly messenger
told Joseph that Mary’s son was not conceived by natural means but by the Holy
Spirit. “This is one special kid, Joe. Like no other ever born.” He said the
son was to be called Jesus. “You know what that means, right Joe? It means ‘the
Lord who saves.’” And then he said that the son would save people. “Are you
following me Joseph? Mary’s son from heaven is ‘the Lord who saves’ who saves.”

It’s like God
was trying to tell us something.      

But what does
it mean to save? The word
save
first uttered by the angel is the Greek
word
sozo
, which means to deliver or protect, heal or preserve. It means
to make whole.
[34]

Jesus, the
Savior from heaven, came to make broken people whole. How could this not
include healing and deliverance? Forgiveness from sin is wonderful, but it’s
only part of the package. Jesus wants to do a complete number on you. He wants
to deliver you from sin and all its cursed effects.

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his
benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. (Psalm 103:2–3)

If you don’t know Jesus heals,
you are missing out on some of his benefits. You’re not getting the full bang
for his buck. You’re not enjoying everything he’s given you. Your grasp of
sozo
is so-so. You need to enlarge your understanding of God and how mighty he is.
If he is mighty to save he is mighty to heal, for the two are interchangeable.
They are both expressions of
sozo
.

In the Bible
you will find stories of people receiving salvation in the form of healing from
“the Lord who saves.” Here’s one:

Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came
there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, “My
little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she
will be healed (
sozo
) and live.” (Mark 5:22–23) 

Jesus set off to heal the sick
girl but on the way was detained by a woman who had been bleeding for twelve
years.

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the
crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes,
I will be healed (
sozo
).” (Mark 5:27–28)

And she was. The woman reached
out to Jesus and was healed of a long-term affliction. She was
sozo
-ed.
But then bad news. A messenger arrived to tell Jairus his little girl had died.

Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid;
just believe, and she will be healed (
sozo
).” (Luke 8:50)

And he did and she was.

We tend to
compartmentalize forgiveness and healing, but Jesus just sees salvation. A
paraplegic is brought to him, and Jesus says, “Cheer up, your sins are
forgiven.” And then for good measure, he heals him (see Matthew 9:1–7). Do you
see? Jesus dealt with his sins
and
his sickness. That’s
sozo
.
That’s making a broken person whole.

God’s will
for salvation is God’s will for healing. There is no difference. Since God
wants all to be saved we can be assured that God wants all to be healed. Jesus
is proof of this. Every sick person who came to Jesus was healed (e.g., Matthew
12:15).

Jesus never
doubted that God’s will is always to heal, and neither should you. Don’t ever
pray, “Lord heal me,
if it be thy will
.” This
is
not a prayer of faith, but doubt and uncertainty. Instead, pray according to
his will, which is to heal every single person every single time.

Jesus
taught us to pray to God like this: “Let your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.” There is no sickness in heaven because God is on the throne and where
he reigns, sickness cannot endure. His will for there is his will for here.

When God made the world it was
good. There was no sin, no death, and no sickness. All that bad stuff came
because man listened to a lie and opened a door to trouble.

Sin entered the world through one man, and death
through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
(Romans 5:12)

Sickness is death in
installments. If your pancreas malfunctions or your memory fades, we may call
it diabetes or Alzheimer’s, but it’s actually a foretaste of death. It’s a part
of you that is no longer working as God intended.

We have lived
with sickness and death for so long that it has become normal, but Jesus did
not accept sickness as normal. He rebuked it with authority. Nor did Jesus
wonder whether sickness was the result of bad genes or stress or an unhealthy
diet. He knew that all sickness ultimately originates with that old thief the
devil.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I
have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Have you been robbed of your
health? Have you suffered loss? Don’t blame God. It’s the thief who has robbed
you.
I have heard people with
long-term illnesses say, “I have made peace with my condition.” Forgive me, but
that’s like making peace with the devil. The
hemorrhaging
woman suffered for many years, but she never
accepted her condition as normal. If she had she would not have reached out to
Jesus with faith.

If you are suffering, don’t sit there and take it
like a
passive, pitiful Job. Instead, follow Jesus, who resisted the enemy by healing
the sick.

You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him
with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and
healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts 10:38,
NASB)

Like vomit on a classic
painting, sickness is an affront to the goodness of a good Creator. It’s a
Satanic stain on us, his living masterpieces. We were created in God’s image.
We were glorious. And then the devil showed up with his spray can of sin and
sickness. The devil is the biggest vandal there is, but the good news is Jesus
came to destroy his work.

He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all
the sick. (Matthew 8:16b)

Jesus healed the sick, he
commanded his disciples to heal the sick (Matthew 10:8), and he said we would
heal the sick (Mark 16:18). So why are we unsure about his will for the sick?
His will is that we heal them.

A few months ago I
fell off a ladder and broke a rib. It was an incredible learning experience. I
learned one should not climb a ladder that is resting on a flimsy branch. And I
learned how every little thing hurts when your ribs are busted.

Experience is
an effective but brutal teacher. So is sickness. But God doesn’t need either to
teach you. Jesus said
the Holy Spirit
would teach us “all things” (John 14:26). If we can learn all things through
the Holy Spirit, what is left for us to learn from sickness?

God is certainly able to take life’s hardships and make
them work out for good, but he doesn’t give us the hardships in the first place
. God didn’t push me off that ladder and he’ll never give
you cancer to teach you humility.

Under the old covenant, people got sick as a
consequence of breaking the law. Under the law, sickness and disease were
clearly identified as curses (see Deuteronomy 28:15
–
28).
But Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law that we might live healthy
and abundant lives.

Don’t ever think God is making you sick to
punish you or that he’s “allowing” a sickness to teach you stuff. Instead, have
the mind of Christ. Jesus had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to sickness.
Jesus took sickness
off
people; he didn’t give it to them.

Much of what passes for prayer
is wishful thinking. “Oh Lord, please heal Mary.”
I’m sure you can, Lord. I
just don’t know if you will.
“I beg you to heal Tom.”
But if you do, no
one will be more surprised than me.
You can pretty much guarantee these
sorts of prayers won’t change anything because they are devoid of faith.

The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person
well; the Lord will raise them up. (James 5:15a)

If you are not sure that God
will answer your prayers, he probably won’t (see James 1:6–7). You may hope
that he does, but faith is not hope. Faith is being sure of what we hope for
and certain of what we don’t yet see (Hebrews 11:1).

Jairus came
to Jesus certain that he could heal his daughter. The woman who had been
bleeding was just as certain
that Jesus could make
her whole. You need to be certain too.

There
are no formulas or magic prayers for healing the sick. There is only faith in
God. Our faith doesn’t manufacture the healing or compel God to heal us.
Rather, faith is the means by which we access the abundant provision of his
grace. Faith is simply agreeing with God. That’s how we receive. If you don’t
agree you’ll have a much harder time receiving.

Two
blind men came to Jesus looking for healing (see Matthew 9:27
–
30).
Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus then touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith it will be
done to you,” and their sight was restored.

Look
carefully at the faith of these two blind men. How many days had they fasted
and prayed? None. For how long had they pounded the gates of heaven with
persistent prayers? They hadn’t. Yet they had enough faith to get the job done.
How do we know they had faith? It was evident in the way they spoke. They came
to Jesus with a “Yes, Lord” attitude. They didn’t say, “I hope you heal us,
Lord,” or “If it be your will, Lord.” They simply said, “Yes, Lord.” That’s
faith. Faith is agreeing with God. Faith is saying yes to the Lord who saves.

And he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross,
so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by his wounds you
were healed. (1 Peter 2:24, NASB)

This verse looks like a
misprint.
Were healed? I’m not healed, Peter. I’m sick as a dog.
But as
far as the work of healing you goes, everything that needed to be done has been
done.

Jesus bore
your sins, past tense. Jesus bore your sicknesses, past tense. You have been
forgiven, past tense. You have been healed, past tense. Your present reality
may not reflect it, but the grace you need for your healing has already been
given. How are we to respond? With faith! Faith is being certain of what you
don’t yet see. Faith is giving thanks for what Christ has done
. Faith is the means through which his grace will transform
your present reality into his saving reality.