Saturday, June 13, 2015

Do You Believe God Heals?

Do you believe that God can heal?

Do you deep down in the depths of your soul believe that the power of the cross is enough to heal?

I know just by asking those questions, I'm heading into an area where opinions and experiences differ and have often been cause for debate and division among Christians. I have no intention of starting a debate on this hear. But, these are the questions I've been wrestling with lately.

When Jesus was on earth, He healed people. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus healing. Acts is also filled with the early church praying for people and them being healed. Matthew 10:1 records Jesus sending out His disciples "to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness."

As I read through Scripture, I'm struck with the reality that the early church believed God could heal and they acted on that faith. I don't see anywhere in Scripture where it says God stopped healing people. And there's still stories to be heard around the world about how God has healed people.

I can agree that God has the ability to heal. Even that He does still heal people sometimes. The question becomes if I personally believe it's possible in my life or the lives of those I know. Bringing it from something in my head that I can say, to something that has an impact on how I live.

That's where my wrestling with the questions I opened this post with began. I was in a situation where my answers to those questions mattered - they would change my prayers. Those answers still matter and they still impact my prayers. I think we can all find ourselves in these situations at different times in life.

The truth is Scripture makes it pretty clear God can and does heal people. That being the case, it means I can, and should, believe it myself. And I can pray as if God does heal people today. That's what I'm asked to do as a Christian.

The challenge comes in my personal expectations of what believing God can heal and praying that He would entail. That's where I can become discouraged. And I think that's where much of the division and debate over this comes from. We've gone beyond what Scripture says and put our personal expectations on the same level.

Believing God can heal doesn't mean we ignore prudent medical advice. Believing God can heal doesn't mean we go around recklessly declaring God has healed people just because we prayed for them and we believe it.

Believing God can heal means we humbly come before Him and ask for Him to intervene. It means we allow room for both the miraculous that excites us and the path of following the treatment laid out - because eve in that, the healing at the end is still a work of God; He just chose to use other people to bring about that healing.

Believing God can heal means we allow space for God's plan to be beyond us when He doesn't heal the way we expected and prayed for Him to. It means we trust Him, even when His response doesn't make sense according to our plans and requests.

Ultimately, believing God can heal comes down to a decision to pray boldly and humbly, and then trust God with the outcome.

Do you believe God can heal?


Do I believe this? As I wrestled with these questions, I've come to conclusion that I do. Now, it comes down to what that looks like moving forward in my life.

The same is true for you. What you believe about this will impact how you live - how you pray.


  1. I keep wishing He would help me from my pain, but not so far. But he has healed me in other ways, brought me to forgiveness and love for my mom. The healing make never be physical but He heals us in many different ways. I think most people believe in physical healing and don't recognize the emotional or aspects of healing.

    1. So true. If we're only thinking in terms of physical healing, we miss much of what God does in our lives.