The "Managed Care" Concept For Healing

God wants to heal His children:
“I am the Lord who heals you” (Exo 15:26) “. . . I will take away sickness from among you” (Exo. 23:25) “...the Lord will take away all your sickness and will not let you suffer diseases” (Deut. 7:15) “. . . I kill and make live; I wound and heal” (Deut. 32:39).

By Christ‘s stripes (whip beating), we are healed:
“He was lashed — and we were healed!”
(Isa. 53:5) “. . .all the sick were healed.
This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah…”
(Matt. 8:17) “. . . For His wounds have healed
ours” (I Pet. 2:24)

How is the Christian to approach the subject of sickness, disease, and bodily healing? God says He can heal us directly. It is unequivocally stated that Jesus Christ suffered for our healing. How are we who have been reborn with Christ dwelling in us, to handle disease and medical treatment on a personal level?
Some groups such as the “Christian Scientists” look totally to God for miraculous healing and avoid doctors wherever possible. But physical medical treatment is used in the Bible. See Isaiah 1:5-6; see the “good Samaritan” in Luke 10:34; see II Kings 20:7.
How are we Christians to live with the concept of healing from God? How do we deal with sickness on a day by day basis? Let me digress for a moment to discuss a little about modern day medical treatment.
Our country has been in a great debate over the last decades about how to handle the exploding costs of medical care and the inequities in insurance coverage. There are advantages and disadvantages for each of the remedies being suggested.
Up until the 1970’s, doctors were almost exclusively private practitioners. They were basically self-employed charging a fee for service directly to the patient. Only a very small percentage of doctors were on salary -those working for governmental agencies and those on active duty in the military.
Since then, we have seen the explosive growth of what are called in general “managed care systems” of delivering medical services. An example of this is what is designated an “HMO” - a Health Maintenance Organization. These are basically business corporations formed for profit. Doctors are hired and placed either on salary or on capitation-payments for each patient signed on by them to participate in the HMO. Hospitals and pharmacies are also recruited to be part of the HMO to deliver services at less than their usual charges.
The proponents of HMO‘s state these advantages: 1) lower overall medical expenses for the members 2) better oversight of quality delivered and 3) better efficiency.
The HMO system works as follows. A patient joins the HMO for an agreed monthly premium. The new patient then is required to pick his “primary care physician” from a list of doctor providers in the system. This physician is the one that the patient always goes to first for medical treatment. If more specialized treatment is decided on by the primary care physician, the patient is referred to a specialist physician in the HMO. If hospitalization is decided on, the patient must go to a hospital in the system.
In the HMO community, the primary care physician has come to be known as the “gate-keeper”. He is the one who must decide how extensive and costly to the HMO the patient‘s treatment will be. The gate-keeper is the main factor in cost control within the HMO.
Many complaints are being heard from patients that their gate-keeper is not giving referrals to specialists which, in their view, are obviously needed. Arid many hospital stays are being drastically limited below safe levels for the patient.
The gate-keeper’s job is obviously very important. But evidence is being uncovered that many gate-keeper contracts with the HMO call for kickback bonuses for every patient that is NOT referred to a specialist. Also there are bonuses for keeping hospital stays at an absolute minimum. This certainly creates a conflict of interest between the physician’s income and the patient‘s medical treatment.
There would be no gate-keeper problems if the physician was totally knowledgeable and gave perfect moral judgments on each case.
I believe that a good way to look at Christian healing is with the HMO approach, BUT WITH A PERFECT GATE-KEEPER, JESUS CHRIST!
Just as the Christian is to trust Christ daily, moment by moment, for guidance in every area of life, so medical decisions are to be made by consultation with “The Perfect Physician” - Jesus Christ - the totally
knowledgeable and totally moral spiritual
GATE-KEEPER.
Christ is to be our primary care physician - our first line of decision about medical treatment.
When you are taken by a sickness, an injury or an abnormal growth, the first thing to do is to go directly to your spiritual primary care physician. Contact Christ within for fellowship and guidance about what to do medically. When you keep your awareness of union and trust in Christ’s leadership up to date on a daily level, this “office consultation” can become as routine as any other guidance from Him.
Christ may tell you to go to a doctor and allow the healing to come from the doctor’s expertise. God can very well heal through the doctor.
Christ may tell you to get some over-the-counter medicine to relieve the symptoms as HE heals you.
Christ may tell you to do absolutely nothing because HE has already healed you of the primary cause and the symptoms will disappear in God’s time on their own.
As you can see, this consultation with Christ must result in a very personal decision - one with which those around you might disagree. But you, as a Christ/person, are in charge of any bodily medical decision. When you have learned to hear Christ’s guidance, you will know His medical direction for you.
One thing must be said concerning medical treatment for your minor children. The medical directions given by Christ to you as a Christian in the Family of God are for you alone and are to be applied by and for you only. Therefore a young person who has not established a personal relationship with Jesus has no way of receiving personal medical guidance.
We live in a world which has established laws for the overall good of society. And one of these laws is that parents must not withhold life-saving medical treatment for their minor children. TAKE YOUR MINOR CHILDREN TO THE DOCTOR FOR TREATMENT OF ALL BUT THE OBVIOUSLY UNIMPORTANT SICKNESSES AND INJURIES! You should pray to God for a rapid healing of your child with a minimum of suffering and then use whatever medical treatments are available. Withholding treatment requires trust in Christ of the person involved, and Christ will never have you try to apply your trust to your children’s healing.
We must remember that God never gives us sickness as a test of our faith. Sickness is brought on by the world (the disease organisms cultured and spread within the world community), the flesh (congenital deformities inherited within our genes or lack of body health due to misuse or disuse), and Satan (who can use sickness to attack us).
What about those trying times when our healing is not obvious to us - when we just don’t seem to be getting better? WE SELDOM SEE AN IMMEDIATE, INSTANTANEOUS HEALING. We have a period of time in which we must patiently wait to see God’s promised healing. During this time, the following possibilities must be considered:
1. The cells in my body involved in the sickness are BEING healed even though I can’t see it or feel it yet.
2. I do not see physical healing right now even though it has occurred because God is using my reaction to it as a means of reaching someone else through me. After His purposes are achieved, then the healing will become apparent.
3. If my sickness is caused by bad habits (smoking, lack of exercise, etc.), God expects me to repent and begin to treat my body properly. This repentance and patient obedience to common health rules may be necessary before we see our physical healing.
4. I may never be physically healed, but will die in the future from my sickness. God may have decided to take me out of the world and heal me spiritually with a new spirit body: a. because I have shown by my faith that I have reached a level of maturity or b. because God knew my weaknesses and that I am probably as strong in faith as I will ever be. So He removes the sickness and pain by death.
God does not think as we think because He knows the big picture of His purposes and we don’t. But we do know that the end result for us will be what every good father desires for his children: peace, joy and love. And God as the perfect Father will achieve the perfect good for us.
Yes, healing comes because of and through Jesus Christ. HE IS THE KEY TO HEALING.

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