excerpts on healing

Another week has passed (two to be exact) the last spent downing all the flu meds i could get my hands on.(it was downright scary truth be told). well we are in another week and 'm feeling much better i can look at the screen of my laptop without feeling the need to down panadol tablets at one point my friend said i actually looked stoned (like she knows what a stoned person looks like). i was thinking on the subject of healing when i stumbled on what i will show you in the next few paragraphs

In her book, A Place of Healing, Joni Eareckson Tada based on her extensive personal study and personal experience provides the answers to several questions frequently asked by those who suffer physical illness.  Does God still heal people miraculously today?  If so, does He want to heal all or just some?  And what am I to think if my prayers for healing go unanswered? She draws four conclusions for us to ponder.

 First, Jesus is just as concerned about our health and healing today as He was when He walked this earth.  She quotes Henry Frost who wrote the following. Christ is the eternal Son of God, and He is in His divine attributes the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  If therefore He loved in the days of His flesh, He loves now; if He cared then, He cares now; if He healed then, He heals now.  It does not necessarily follow that He will do now all that He did then, or that He will do what He does now in the same way as He did then, for His purposes in some things are different at present from what they were in the past.  Nevertheless, Christ is changeless in character, and we may be sure that He is infinitely interested in us and concerned about us.

 Second, yes, we are healed by His wounds—but not necessarily immediately.  All life, all healing, and all atonement flow from that fountain who is our Lord Jesus Christ.  Where else would it come from?  Joni quotes theologian Richard Mayhue: “Isaiah 53 primarily deals with the spiritual being of man.  Its major emphasis is on sin, not sickness.  It focuses on the moral cause of sickness, which is sin, and not on the immediate removal of one of sin’s results—sickness.”  We should be quick to add that not every sickness is the result of specific personal sin of the one afflicted.

 Third, our Lord Jesus has varied purposes of His own.  In His mercy and in His purposes He will heal immediately.  But at other times His healing will go on at a deeper level in the innermost parts of our being and not be fully realized in our bodies until we step into our new bodies upon our arrival in our Father’s house.  Yes, He has redeemed those who believe in Christ, but He is also continuing that redemptive process in our lives right up until we draw our last breath.  

When the resurrected Christ told Peter how he was going to die to glorify the Lord, Peter looked over his shoulder at John and said, “Lord, what about him?”  Jesus patiently replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?  You must follow me?”(John 21:22)  In other words, Jesus has His own purpose for each of us.  And what-ever situation He gives us in life, we are to follow Him in faith and trust.

God has different purposes for His own, and He shows Himself strong and gains glory in different ways throughout each of our life-times.  And if He allows suffering in our lives, He does for very specific, very important reasons, and he does not do so lightly!

 Again she quotes Henry Frost:

Christ has many things to think of in planning for a saint; He must have in mind what is best for the individual; what is the greatest profit in respect to His testimony; what is required in his relationship to many other saints; and what is to make most for God’s present and eternal glory; and He will hold resolutely, in answering prayer, to that course which will combine in bringing the largest and most enduring good to pass.

 Fourth, as with other crucial issues, Satan will seek to push us into nonbiblical extremes on this issue of miraculous healing.  Joni writes, there is one thing that seems to be a common element in those who take extreme positions on divine healing, a lack of humility.

 She continues writing “on the one hand you have people telling God what He must do, and on the other hand you have people telling God what He can’t do.  As clay pots who are we to dictate terms to the master potter and tell Him that he Has to heal me right now?  Who are we to tell God what He can or can’t do in today’s world?  He can do as He likes.  He is God.  As He declares in the book of Isaiah, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please’ (46:10).  As Job asserts, ‘He stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases’ (23:13).”

Joni concludes, “At times He is willing to heal immediately—and He will perform a miracle that modern medicine can’t begin to explain.  At other times, however—and for reasons we can’t always fathom—He is not willing to heal a particular illness, reverse the course of a disease, or cancel a particular disability.  As with the apostle Paul, who had his request for healing denied, the Lord Jesus will give an extra measure of His presence and grace instead.”  

Indeed, we may say with paul, “your grace is sufficient for us, for your strength is made perfect in our weakness.”(2 Corinthians 12:9)

So in  times of sickness and in fact anytime we particularly need the father to come through for us we can be confident that he will never leave us nor forsake us. This week however, i'm looking forward to the return of the SMURF (yeah i said it!) who I've not missed and i will be writing a couple of rather interesting exams this week if you would pray for me it wouldn't be so bad. have a wonderful week. 

HAPPY WOMENS DAY!!! to all the women and moms every where, moms are the mosdef the best.

 love you mom.