God always heals…
…all who have faith to receive healing. (John 1.12; Acts 4.12; Romans 10.9-10) Jesus ‘always’ heals means every time, as is stated in Acts 10.38. Notice Who empowered Him.
Therefore, it is God’s will to heal every time. (John 14.8-9)
So, why don’t we see healing every time we pray for or with someone abused by satan with sickness?
- Some don’t have confidence that healing is His will and is possible. Contrast this lack with Mordecai’s confidence in the face of pending annihilation, in Esther 4.14. God, indeed, would save him and the Jews from satan’s plot!
- Looking at a bronze snake on a pole seemed a ridiculous instruction to those who, later, died from their snake bite. Read Numbers 21.8-9. They had no confidence in God’s instruction through Moses.
- Most residents in Jesus’ home town of Nazareth would not believe He could heal them, to His amazement. Read Mark 6.5-6.
- Consider, also, the confidence expressed by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego when threatened with being burned alive for not worshipping an idol, in Daniel 3.17-18. To which half of verse 17, before or after the ‘and’, does verse 18 modify? Which produces nonsense? Remember, they could not worship the idol if they were dead! (People sometimes put aside logic and sentence structure to justify their philosophy. Colossians 2.8) God delivered them from the fiery furnace without even a singed hair or odor of burning wood! The rest of the story tells us that God also delivered them from the king’s hand, too!
- Apostle Paul stated the confidence of S/M/A and Mordecai’s in Ephesians 3.20. Since God ‘always’ heals, the problem must be with man’s faith!
What is and how much of this ‘power’ do we need for healing?
- Zechariah 4.6 tells us that healing power comes from the Holy Spirit, not from man. Only God heals, and He does it sometimes through people.
- God said He would do miraculous things to evidence Himself to man, including healing. Consider Exodus 34.10; 15.26; 23.25; Deuteronomy 7.15.
- Habakkuk 2.4 tells us that the power of life is faith in God. Also, Hebrews 11.6.
- Apostle Paul, in Romans 1.16-17, says that faith grows to the next level through our study of the life and teachings of Jesus, which study and practice increases our power to act on behalf of mankind and against satan. This is clearly seen in Matthew 10.7-8 and Luke 10.17-19.
Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice….
- Mark 9.14-29 illustrates the axiom: practice makes perfect.
- Verses 17-18 discuss the father and his son, who is abused by a demon of epilepsy, and the disciples’ inability to cast the demon out and heal the boy. This occurred between the disciples’ successes in Matthew 10.7-8 and Luke 10.17-18. Note the progression from success through failure back to success.
- Every time God invites us to join Him in healing someone, He is teaching us, growing our faith in His abilities through us, and increasing our power to act on His behalf to benefit one of His children the next time.
- Don’t let failure defeat you! Learn from it, like the disciples ask Jesus in verses 28-29.
- The father, disciples, and crowd might have concluded that God had chosen not to heal this particular boy. They would have been wrong, because God always heals! If there is a problem with healing, it is man’s lack of faith to receive and/or to act, illustrated by the father on behalf of his son.
- Jesus proved the point in verse 23. (Any Bible translation rendering the question, ‘If You can?’, is incorrectly translated, I believe, by using the Majority Text instead of the Received Text.) Jesus answers the father’s plea with the most important statement of the story: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ That’s the point: healing is possible by faith in God’s unlimited power and proven willingness consistently applied to every person who has faith to receive it.
- Whenever anyone says that God does not always heal, s/he has limited God’s ability to act on their, personal behalf. This lie leads eventually to the ultimate lie: does God always save people who profess faith in Him for eternal life? (John 3.16-19; 6.47)
- Know God’s will from the Scriptures! It has not and will not change. Act it out until His will is seen every time! Learn from failures by asking how could this have been done better? God will answer, for He wants it to be on earth as it is in Heaven! (Matthew 6.10; 2 Thessalonians 3.13)
- In this case, Jesus said the disciples needed to pray for their faith to grow to overcome the resistance from ‘this kind’ of demon. ‘This kind’ of demon may have been different from those they had had success over (Mark 6.7, 13); thus, they needed a different strategy that God would tell them. ‘From childhood’ in verse 21 may reveal a long period of entrenchment that would require more preparation and a longer stand against to dislodge. Fasting would support this when defined as Isaiah 58.6-14, especially the end of verse 13.
- Or, perhaps, Jesus was saying that they should use His words in verse 25 in His name. We need both…a faith to overcome each kind of demon and our use of Jesus’ words.
- Remember God’s words in Isaiah 14.12-15 and be encouraged. We always triumph in all things through Christ Jesus! (2 Corinthians 2.14)
Hebrews 11.6: God always heals all who have faith to receive healing.
Praise God!!!