Faith and Healing

For several days now, I’ve been thinking about what might be considered a grey area of the Christian life. It started a couple weeks ago when, after talking with someone about my ongoing depression, he recommended a book for me to read. I’m still wading through that book, and while it has some good principles, the basic message seems to be “You need to repent!” At the same time, I downloaded a free eBook that looked like it could be interesting. Halfway through the book, the author writes about all kinds of illness including colds and flu, “Why is it that believers are not breaking this curse of sickness? …I’m convinced that there could be several reasons why we’re not healed. It could be because we lack spiritual understanding. It could also be that we are afraid and hope for a quick fix. We are often weak in our confession of faith.”

Now I’m not saying that repentance is unnecessary, or that we don’t need to have a good understanding of who we are in Christ and faith that He can do the impossible. But there are a lot of other factors that come into play as well, like bacteria and viruses! The health side of the “health and wealth gospel” is a lot more insidious than the wealth side. Most Christians can agree that God does not intend for all believers to have great wealth. But there seem to be quite a lot of Christians who believe that healing is more a matter of faith than of good medical care. I won’t argue that sin isn’t to blame for some illnesses. Poor stewardship of our bodies leads to all kinds of problems. And some doctors do tend to overprescribe, often at the insistence of their patients. Humanity can be blamed for many of our problems, both social and physical. But living in a fallen world has its own issues. I’m sure Adam and Eve never had to deal with sickness while they were living in the Garden of Eden.

So I was wondering what the Bible has to say about health and faith. Most of the references come in the Gospels as Jesus healed people wherever He went. He specifically tells one woman, “Your faith has made you well” (Luke 8:48). And He tells Jairus after his daughter’s death, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well” (Luke 8:50). The fact that great crowds gathered to be healed indicates that they had some degree of faith in His ability to heal. But how many of those people actually believed in Him as their Savior, Redeemer, and Messiah? It appears that very few of them were still following Jesus at the time of His crucifixion.

The passage that intrigues me is John 5 and the Pool of Bethesda. Verse 3 says there were “multitudes of invalids” waiting by the pool, and yet it appears that only one person was healed that day. There is no expression of faith by the man before Jesus heals him. So why was he healed when no one else was? Then in verse 14 Jesus meets him again and says, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” This seems to indicate that sin was somehow a cause of this man’s suffering, and yet there was no call for repentance before Jesus healed him. So there is no direct correlation between repentance, faith, and healing in this case.

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray… And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up… Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:13-16). These verses imply that prayer and healing do often go together. However, if this were always the case, how are we to interpret the following statements?

• “I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20).
• “Indeed [Epaphroditus] was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow” (Philippians 2:27).
• “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments” (1 Timothy 5:23).

Was there no faithful person to pray for the healing of these men? That’s certainly unlikely, given that they were associates of the Apostle Paul. Some would claim that the dispensation of miracles had ended and there were no longer any people who had the gift of healing. More likely, these illnesses were from natural causes, and though God could have healed them, for whatever reason He chose not to. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12 may also have been some physical ailment that God did not relieve.

I come to the conclusion that 1) God can heal, 2) God sometimes does heal in response to prayer, faith, and repentance, 3) God does not always bring physical healing, and 4) God often uses doctors and medicine to bring some measure of healing. (This site has an interesting article on Luke the Physician: http://www.icr.org/article/doctor-luke/.) Who are we to judge or prescribe how God will or will not work in a particular situation?

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

Stones of Remembrance

I was thinking awhile back about the moments in our Christian lives that we tend to remember. Depending on your denomination or tradition, you may have special recognition for child dedication, baptism, first communion, marriage, and perhaps ordination. Some churches give certificates or Bibles for special occasions. But if you think about it, those events represent a very small number of days out of a lifetime of experiences.

This observation came to mind as I was watching someone being baptized, and I realized that when I was baptized at seven years old I had a child’s understanding of faith, and I didn’t really know that Christianity wasn’t about being good. My understanding has grown through the various stages of my life. The past year has been one of significant growth and change, and part of me wished I could be re-baptized to signify a fresh start. I’m not a proponent of rebaptism, particularly when I think of the symbolism of being buried in baptism and raised to new life. If the old flesh is dead and buried, it does not need to be buried again. I accept by faith that one baptism is enough, regardless of my limited understanding at the time. (Do we ever fully understand our new life in Christ?)

So that leads to the question—how can we memorialize the special events or new stages of our life of faith? I was reminded in the Old Testament of the multiple times that people gathered “stones of remembrance” to build a memorial or altar following some event. Noah built an altar after coming safely out of the ark (Genesis 8). Crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, God directed the people to gather stones for an altar (Deuteronomy 27 & Joshua 4). Elijah gathered twelve stones to build an altar, which he then used to disprove and disgrace the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). Abraham, Jacob, and Moses all built altars and renamed places in memory of something that God had done there.

I wonder if we should adopt a similar practice at times—creating something to remind us of how God has worked in a particular time or place? I think we are naturally inclined to create memorials, whether it’s a photo album, scrapbook, souvenir, or bumper sticker. We like to remember where we’ve been and good times we’ve enjoyed. So why not adapt that for the good things God has done and blessings we’ve enjoyed? Obviously we don’t want to fall into the trap of worshiping the creation rather than the Creator (as Israel did on multiple occasions). But we can all use reminders of the things we should be thankful for. It doesn’t have to be anything big. At one time in my life I collected small white stones out of my driveway to mark a certain event, and those stones are now inside a paperweight I made. And more recently, I’ve simply been counting the weeks on my calendar to remind me of how God has given me victory in a particular area (16 weeks and counting).

When God directed the Israelites to gather stones after crossing the Jordan, they were told, “When your children ask why these stones are here, you are to tell them what God has done” (my paraphrase). Part of the value of the memorial is in sharing the story with others, passing it along to children, grandchildren, and friends to teach them how God has worked in the past so that they may trust Him for the future. And in remembering together, you can also praise God together.

It’s something to think about as we approach Thanksgiving. What has God done in the past year that you need to share with someone? What family stories need to be preserved in some way so that they won’t be forgotten in the next generation? Just as the Jews still observe their feast days to remember and teach what God did in the past, we can use special occasions like Thanksgiving to do the same.

“[Remember] so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever” (Joshua 4:24).

Hope in God's Steadfast Love

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Have you ever considered the converse statement, “If in Christ we have hope for eternity only, we are to be pitied”? Perhaps it is just because of where I’m at in life, but that latter statement has come to mind more than once in recent months. Yes, we need to have hope for eternal life, which is Paul’s point, but don’t we also need hope for daily life? Certainly there are times when the eternal hope is predominant, such as in the case of terminal illness or when enduring persecution for your faith. At those times, daily life may be so precarious that hope has to rest in the promise of eternal life free from pain and suffering.

But for most of us there are a lot of days to live in this life before we arrive at the fullness of eternal life. So where do we find that hope to carry us from day to day when circumstances are discouraging, life feels less than enjoyable, and perseverance is lacking?

Last night I came across this verse: “But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love” (Psalm 147:11). Something clicked for me in reading that. God’s love is our source of hope. There are more than 120 references to God’s steadfast love in the Psalms alone (26 in Psalm 136). It doesn’t matter what is going on around us—we are assured of His love, so we can endure. We know that He cares (1 Peter 5:7); He is with us (Matthew 28:20); He is at work in us (Philippians 1:6); and He will bear fruit in us (John 15:5, Galatians 5:22). That knowledge should give us hope to keep pressing on, though I’ll be the first to admit that that is sometimes easier said than done. I’m preaching at myself here and I’ve had this preached at me a few times lately.

When relationships hurt—hope in His steadfast love.
When work is frustrating—hope in His steadfast love.
When stress piles up—hope in His steadfast love.
When sorrows accumulate—hope in His steadfast love.
When nothing seems to change—hope in His steadfast love.

Rich Mullins' song Verge of a Miracle is a reminder to me that God’s love is near, and that is a promise we can hold onto when nothing else makes sense. It’s also a reminder that we may never know when we’re on the verge of a miracle. The miraculous usually isn’t announced in advance!