Do you suffer from chronic afflictions? Are their things you've prayed about for years, asking God to take them away, but have never received full relief? Or maybe you're just sick and tired of being sick and tired. Did you know that Jesus Christ has redeemed the whole person, spirit, soul, and body? Did you know that through Jesus and His redemptive work on Calvary, our heavenly Father has made provision for the restoration of wholeness to every aspect of human life and existence?
If we accept the Bible, we know that Jesus dealt with the sin problem. But when Isaiah 53 described the atoning work of Christ he also wrote, "He bore our griefs [literally, sicknesses], He carried our sorrows [literally, pains]...He was chastened for our peace [literally, soundness, wholeness, completeness]; and by His stripes we are healed." When this passage is quoted again in Matthew 8, it is expressed: "He Himself took away our infirmities and carried away our diseases."
If this is true, if healing and wholeness is God's will for us, why is sickness still so much a part of human life? I am convinced that it is because we have not appropriated God's provision. We haven't truly believed this good news from the heart. And without heart-faith, we have not been able to lay hold of it. False teaching entered the church very early in its existence which called spirit good and matter evil. And since matter was deemed evil, believers were taught to seek liberation from the material body, which is to be discarded. And out went the healing message!!! Anointing of oil to heal the sick became the last rites for the dying. We spiritualized away what the Bible clearly says about healing. Redemption became a remedy only for the human spirit.
How does Jesus' death almost 2000 years ago have anything to do with our wholeness today? And how can you and I begin to believe and receive this wholeness today? There are four essential steps of understanding.
First, we must realize that Jesus, in His earthly ministry, went about doing God's will. The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is the exact representation of God's nature. Jesus Himself said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." And there are a great many other scripture references that establish the point that Jesus did God's will on earth.
Second, we see plainly in the historical record of the Gospel that Jesus' earthly ministry included a healing ministry. Putting these first two points together, we establish that God's will is for our healing. But now, what about today?
Well, that brings in the third point - God never changes. The Bible says that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever." Therefore we know that God's will is for our healing and wholeness today. Now, how do we get in on it?
The final point is this: Jesus is still performing this same healing ministry today through the Church, the Body of Christ. This is happening wherever men and women of faith have humbled themselves to simply take God at His word, and not try to explain it away. The Bible says in Ephesians that God the Father "put all things in subjection under the feet of Jesus, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." The same healing power which flowed through Jesus Christ is flowing through the hands of the believers today. Come to church and see for yourself.
I'm so glad that I got over being "smart" enough to explain why the Bible doesn't really mean what it says! It's so much better to be whole than to be "smart."
@ copyright 2001 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.