Do not fear; Only believe!

Wonderful Church:  Here is some great news.  Jesus heals.  Jesus healed one person after another during the New Testament times.  Jesus healed “many people of many diseases, and plagues and evil spirits and He bestowed sight to the blind” (Luke 7:21).  Jesus was all about healing people.  In Luke 8:40-56, we see Jesus heal a woman who had a twelve year old uterine hemorrhage.  She had lived the last twelve years of her life isolated and defiled while dealing with a constant flow of blood coming from her body.  In this scripture Jesus also healed a twelve year old little girl who had just passed away from a sickness.  Jesus healed one person after another in His daily life walking this earth.  Is that now over?  Was all the healing that Jesus did just for the New Testament days?

I believe scripture clearly teaches that our sovereign God continues to heal today.  There are many scriptures in the Bible that encourage us to think this way.  The primary scripture, which is also very simple and straightforward, is Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  Jesus healed in the New Testament times and He remains the same today as He was then, therefore, He also heals today.

What was it that Jesus delighted in on the day He healed the woman and the little girl in Luke 8?  Jesus delighted in faith.  He saw the faith of the woman who had the disease and He also saw the faith of the Father of the little girl who had just died.  Jesus loves faith and honors faith by healing… sometimes.  Sometimes He heals a believer to live another day on this earth but He always heals them to enjoy an eternity in heaven.  Sometimes, our loving Heavenly Father decides what is best in a specific situation is not to heal us to live another day on this earth.  However, what we absolutely do know is that every time Jesus decided to heal, His healing was because of someone’s faith.  He decided to heal on behalf of the faith of that person who was sick or the faith of someone else close to that person.

Each time there was healing by Jesus, faith preceded healing.  Each time healing took place, Jesus enjoyed and delighted in the healing of the person because of faith in Him to heal was present.  Faith that honors God is a faith that not only knows that God can heal, and that He delights in healing, but that He does actively heal.  If we did not believe that God heals today, we would not pray for Him to heal.  I don’t believe the Lord delights in that type of thinking.

Think about why God delights in faith that believes He heals.  Faith turns us away from trusting in our own power to trust in His power.  God delights in that.  Faith is a rejection of one’s ability to do anything and a confession that God can do everything.  God delights in that.  Faith is a confidence in His Word and HIs perfect loving, caring character no matter what the outcome is.  God delights in that.  Faith entrusts everything to God’s care.  God delights in that.  It is crucial to remember that the power of faith does not come from our ability to whip up enough spiritual energy to get what we want.  The power of faith comes from the object of our faith, the supernatural, loving God of the Bible who cares for us perfectly.  God heals!

Let us follow through with what Jesus told the Dad of the dying twelve year old daughter, “Do not fear; only believe…” (Luke 8:50).