God Who Heals/Jehovah-rapha
Acts 3 tells an amazing story. Apostles Peter and John are used by God to heal a beggar who has been crippled in his legs from birth! His legs are immediately strengthened, and, additionally, he immediately knows how to walk and does, leaping and praising God, too! Why this beggar among those nearby, I do not know. To me, the important lesson is that God WANTED the beggar healed! This is His nature as we will see from the following study. How can this apply to you?
The Condition of Mankind
- Habakkuk 2.4 states the contrast that prevents or produces the result of healing from God. How does Hebrews 11.6 explain this?
- God discusses this issue with Jeremiah in 7.23-24. Pride will cause you to walk ‘backward and not forward’ in knowing Him and experiencing His benefits. God always wants you at the next level with Him!
- In preparing the Jews going from Egypt to the Promised Land, Moses stated, in Deuteronomy 7.12-15, the blessings they will experience by listening to and obeying God’s commandments for not becoming like the nations He will drive out before them. Note His promise in verse 15: God will take away the diseases they ‘have known’ in Egypt! They must have gotten sick in Egypt.
- Exodus 23.20-25 records God’s assurance of His and their victory over the aberrant nations and His warning to not be deceived by the people’s gods. Verse 25 states that God will ‘take sickness away from the midst of you.’ Contemplate this promise. How can this include you?
- If only mankind would listen to and obey God! But, Isaiah 59.1-2 presents mankind’s plight (separation) and the cause. What is the cure?
The Love of God
- While other of God’s names were given by people to note their encounter with Him, God gave Himself the name Jehovah-rapha in Exodus 15.26 (Masoretic Text; manuscripts maintained by the Levite priests since the original manuscript was written). The context was a test of their dependence. Who were the last to drink?
- Isaiah 45.22 is the inclusive call of God to look to Him for ‘rescue, deliverance, healing, prosperity, and completeness’. Sozo is the Greek word for this total salvation – temporal and eternal.
- Ideally, God keeps sickness from us because we obey Him. When we disobey, satan rushes in to attack our weakness and destroy us. But God is ready to restore us. Consider King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20.1-11.
- Sometimes, the love of God includes an ‘Isaiah’ to act as intermediary. Elisha was such to the Syrian General Naaman in 2 Kings 5.1-27. What almost kept him from being healed? What were Elisha’s servant Gehazi’s sin and its result? Why did Elisha not accept payment? (Consider whose the gifts were, in verse 6.)
- Apostle Paul was another intermediary, for a crippled man in Lystra. See Acts 14.8-10. What does verse 9 say was God’s reason for healing him?
Why does God want us to know that He heals?
- He wants us to know that we do not have to endure sickness until we die. Is this the reason for Jesus’ actions in Mark 9.14-29 and Luke 13.10-16?
- What do you conclude from reading Isaiah 45.22 and John 8.31-32 as one thought?
Praise God!!!
Copyright © by Maurice L. Painter.