What About Being Healed By God?

When sickness or suffering attacks us or someone close to us, what should we think? What should we do?
What does the Bible really teach about healing? Does God cause sickness in the lives of His children to build character? Does God just allow sickness to test our character? Is this consistent with the actions of a loving God? Are we sick because we don't have the faith to be healed? Is God healing people today through the ministry of faith healers? How can we say that God will heal our diseases when it is so obvious that many people stay sick and even die after asking God for healing?
Without question, many people turn away from God because of the problem of pain. They find it hard to believe that a loving and all-powerful God would permit good people to suffer the way they do. On the other hand, thousands have testified that it was during a time of deep sorrow or intense anguish that they found God more real and precious than ever before.
As Christians we agree that God is loving, wise, and all-powerful. We agree that this good God gave His human creatures freedom to choose between good and evil, and that their wrong choice has bad consequences. We also agree that this God is working out a program for our ultimate good and His glory.
But there are Christian disagreements – one having to do with the purpose of pain and the other with the matter of supernatural healing.
Does God USE sickness to make good people better? Some would say that sickness can never be essentially good for us or that God would use it to purify the soul and build character. Remember I said USE and not CAUSE. We brought sickness on ourselves way back in the garden of Eden. Sickness is a consequence of sin from somewhere down the line – in ourselves, in the world around us or from our forefathers before us. But I believe that the greatest, deepest truths of God's Word have often been revealed by humble souls who have gone through affliction and have learned experientially the deep things of the ways of God.
Is God working obvious miracles of healing today? Some have said that there are no real supernatural healings by faith healers today but all can be explained as psychosomatic - mind over matter. But some say only those deny who have not been there and seen. Unexplainable things have happened in faith meetings. I believe God does heal miraculously, even at times by faith healers, but not always. And when He doesn't, we need not blame ourselves or give in to despair.
There are many unanswered questions in my mind about God's healing. Our minds are not capable of understanding all the ramifications of sickness in ourselves or in others. There are just too many factors involved that can be joined into the overall purposes of God for His human creatures in their purposed journey to become a true child of God by a new birth. And these factors still persist after a true Christian conversion and process of spiritual growth.
So many times we must say – "I just don't KNOW!" "I just don't GET IT!" "Only God knows WHY!"
But the important thing is not to dwell on what we don't know. LET'S GET EXCITED ABOUT WHAT WE DO KNOW! Let's uncover five positive, unassailable certainties that every child of God can count on in times of sickness and suffering:
1. Christ is in you to make you well.
God does HEAL! If you are a sick or suffering Christian, you can stand on the certainty that you will get well – perhaps on earth, but surely in heaven. That's His guarantee. As His children we are destined to receive a new, glorified body and to live forever with Him.
Maybe you don't react to these words about heaven with much enthusiasm. You want healing in the here and now. Your feelings are not unusual. Suffering is not pleasant. We instinctively want good health and freedom from pain. We want it now. But if we don't get it now, what are we to do? We must do what we have pledged to do at conversion: TRUST in the purposes of God through Christ within. The peace of Christ can make you a "wounded healer" yourself comforting others wherein you have been comforted.
2. Christ in you hurts when you hurt.
God does FEEL! If you are a suffering believer, the second biblical certainty from which you can draw great strength is the knowledge that God is suffering with you. He is not an unfeeling being oblivious to the pain of His creatures. Nor is He a capricious Allah who carries out His will with no feeling for those who suffer. On the contrary, He is our loving heavenly Dad and Christ is our brother and the whole Trinity hurts when we hurt.
In reviewing God's dealings with Israel, the prophet wrote, "In all their afflictions He was afflicted...; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them" (Isa. 63:9). The Old Testament prophets repeatedly pictured God as delighting in blessing His children and as grieving when they must suffer.
The truth that God hurts when we hurt didn't find full expression, however, until it was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. God became a man and suffered everything that we can suffer. Be assured that Christ living inside you cares and hurts with you in your afflictions.
The Family of God doesn't like what you are enduring any more than you do. God could intervene and heal you instantly. But if He were to do this for you and every other person who is suffering, no one would have a need for the kind of faith and trust that builds Christian character. Therefore, He may allow you to suffer. But all the while He, like you, is looking forward to the time when all human pain will be over.
3. Christ in you knows why you're suffering.
God does KNOW! This is the third comforting certainty. We want answers when we hurt so we cry out, "Why?" And sometimes we can answer the question why. It is always good to search our hearts to see if we bear some blame for our pain. We may be sick because we have not obeyed common-sense rules of health. Maybe the accident that hurt us is the result of our carelessness. It is also possible that our illness is the result or consequence of sin in our lives (1 Cor. 11:29-30; Heb. 12:6). The Bible teaches us that some Christians die an untimely death (humanly speaking) because of sin (Act. 5:1-11; 1 Cor. 11:30). If we know we have been living disobediently, we must repent. God may give us healing when we do. And when we see the death of a believing loved one who has fallen into sinful ways, we can even take comfort in the assurance that God sometimes takes one of His children home rather than see him continue on his destructive course.
However we often can't find specific answers to our why questions. Instead of wasting our energy in useless speculation about the why question, let's view suffering – our own or that which we encounter in others – as an opportunity to demonstrate God's power and bring glory to Him. Actually God has many good reasons for letting us suffer:
· Suffering silences Satan (Job 1-2).
· Suffering gives God an opportunity to be glorified (John 11:4).
· Suffering makes us appreciative (Rom. 8:28).
· Suffering teaches us to depend on God (Exo. 14:13-14; Isa. 40:28-31).
· Suffering makes us sympathetic (2 Cor. 1:3-6).
· Suffering teaches us patience (Rom. 5:3; James 1:2-4).
· Suffering enables us to exercise our faith (Job 23:10; Rom. 8:24-25).
· Suffering makes and keeps us humble (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
· Suffering brings rewards (2 Tim. 2:12; 1 Pet. 4:12-13).
Many other reasons for suffering could be given. We may not know which one fits our situation, but God does. That's comforting.
4. Christ in you is in control.
God does CONTROL! This is the fourth biblical certainty for afflicted believers. The fact that God is in control doesn't mean that He is the direct cause of injury or disease. They come through the outworking of natural laws that God has built into the universe or they come through Satan.
The fact that Satan and natural factors are the direct agents in human suffering, however, should not be taken as evidence that God is not involved. These evils would not have occurred if He had not permitted them. But God sets the limits (Job 1-2). Jesus assured us that nothing can happen to us unless it passes God's permissive will. Unpleasant events try us and may even tempt us to sin, but we can rest in the following assurance: "No temptation [test] has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. 10:13).
5. Christ in you will never leave you.
God does STAY WITH YOU! Christ does not leave you when you sin. He uses the consequences of the sin to draw you even closer to Him in spiritual growth. Likewise Christ does not leave you when you are sick or afflicted. He uses the event of the suffering to draw you even closer. When you are born again as a true child of God by faith and trust in Jesus Christ, it is a forever event that you are indwelt by the Spirit within your human spirit. You are not punished for your sin as a Christian but rather corrected. Sickness and affliction are not punishments for anything but rather is a condition or circumstance that God can use in His infinite wisdom and power as He chooses.
Yes, "by His stripes you are healed." God wants you well. He allows illness and pain only when He can use them for good. It does not follow, however, that we should take a dim view of physical health or pleasure. Nor should we stoically resign ourselves to the idea that we should expect a lot of suffering. On the contrary, we should look at life optimistically. God's Word provides assurances and promotes a way of life that is conducive to physical and psychological wellness. God is going to see to it that you will be well for all eternity. Believing this will promote your good health. If you have been born again into God's Family, you CAN accept sickness and affliction calmly and hopefully. If you are not living obediently, you can turn away from your sin and back to God. You can ask the Lord for healing. You can pray with the absolute assurance that God will heal you, if doing so will bring glory to Himself and further your eternal welfare. And if He doesn't make you well, He will give you His wonderful grace and use the affliction for good.

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