Discover divine healing, how Jesus healed, and why you can expect to be healed today. This article is an excerpt from the book REBORN A New Identity which deals with the identity of the believer and the life of the born-again Christian.
Healing of the sick and those oppressed by the devil
One day, Jesus, leaving the synagogue, went with his disciples to the home of one of his apostles, Peter. When they arrived there, they found Peter's mother-in-law confined to bed with a fever. When Jesus heard this, he went to her and treated her with love and compassion. He touched her, commanded the fever to leave her, and she was healed immediately. The proof is that she immediately got up and began to serve them food.
Well, the story doesn't end there. Good news travels fast. It was a Sabbath, and toward the end of the day, the Sabbath over, Jesus faced the massive influx of townspeople. They had heard about the healing and they brought all their sick people to receive their share of this unexpected blessing. Jesus agreed, and the Scriptures tell us that he placed his hands on each of them and healed them of sickness and oppression caused by demons.
Divine healing brings joy
There are some meetings so extraordinary that you will be prepared to do anything to attend them, and this is certainly one of them. How palpable the joy in the city must have been. Who had ever heard of such a thing? And could it happen again? Probably not, we might say. Yet we are told the opposite. This remarkable event, we are told, marks the fulfillment of the promise made concerning the Messiah by Isaiah the prophet hundreds of years earlier.
According to Isaiah, Jesus would bring healing from sickness as part of his work of redemption. And those living in his time experienced this even before the cross. How much more should we experience it after the cross and resurrection?
It is God's nature to heal
God has always healed. Healing is part of His nature. What's more, it's reflected in one of His names. God has names, you know that. Yes, you might think He was called God. Well, one of God's names is Jehovah Raphe—the Eternal One who heals. His names reflect His personality. He constantly promised good health to His people if they obeyed Him. So it's something immutable because it's a fundamental dimension of His Person.
The history of God's people throughout the Old Testament demonstrated this fact. Unlike ritual laws that change from the Old to the New Testament, healing as God's expressed will to bless His people remains unchanged. The patriarchs lived to a ripe old age; He brought His people out of Egypt in excellent health, and never ceased to bring them restoration whenever He called upon God.
Divine healing is a promise from God
He promised that if they were obedient, He would bless their food and cause sickness to disappear from their midst. Psalm 103 invites us to remember God's goodness because He forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Disobedience leads to sickness. However, it is not the only cause of sickness because we live in a suffering world where evil dominates. What matters is that God desires His people to be healthy.
Look at Jesus. Jesus is the expression of the Father's perfect will, and His ministry was summed up by the apostle Peter in these words: 'He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.' That day in Capernaum, he did a lot of good. Healing is God doing good. Jesus demonstrated this, and everywhere He went, sick people were brought to Him so that He could heal them. Then He sent His apostles to preach the Gospel and also to heal the sick and deliver people from demons, and they did so.
Healing is the expression of God's will.
Healing is an expression of God's will. When they asked Jesus if he wanted to heal, he said he was available. When they suggested, "If you can," he replied, "All things are possible to him who believes." He could and He would. And the remarkable thing is that He empowers His people to function like the apostles, agents of good and healing. Before leaving the earth, he made it very clear that His disciples (us, in this case) would do the same works He did and even greater works.
Healing is God doing good.
Healing is God doing good. And wherever Jesus went, He did good and healed all the oppressed. So healing didn't stop with the Old Testament, it continued with Jesus, and it didn't stop with Jesus; it continued with the apostles. We see this in the book of Acts. Once the disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit, they began healing the sick and preaching boldly. So much so that people brought sick people from all over and simply sought to lay them down so that Peter's shadow could fall upon them. The healings were so extraordinary and astonishing that they had no doubt that people would be healed if Peter's shadow would simply fall upon them.
Postscript: Beloved, God still heals today. If you need divine healing, look to Jesus in faith.
Can I pray for you? I pray that the power of God will come upon you now and bring total restoration to your body, in Jesus' name.
This article is an excerpt from the book REBORN A New Identity which deals with the identity of the believer and the life of the born-again Christian. This chapter explains healing, how Jesus healed, and why you can expect to be healed today.
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