LORD, I’M HEALED!      (No, You’re Not!)

We as Christians love to point our fingers at the abortionist and say that he is crafting his words to suit his theology:  instead of a ‘baby’, it’s a ‘fetus’.  Instead of ‘abortion’, it’s a ‘choice’, etc.  Yet don’t we do the same when we pray for someone to be healed and when we ‘help’ God by saying, They are healed, but just don’t have the manifestation’ of it yet.”  Or if they die, we figure out what God really meant was that, “Being in Heaven is the ‘ultimate healing’.”  This is hypocritical.

Are we not to do as Jesus did?  When Jesus healed the woman with the issue of blood, do we think she kept bleeding?  She was healed.  Did that mean she still had the manifestations; did it mean she died?  No!  We clearly understand what the bible means when it says, ‘healed’.  It was immediate, it was permanent and it was total.  The lame walked right then and there.  That is the definition of healing and yet we make excuses.

The bible says these things we shall do and greater.  While healings are great, is not winning of souls greater?  The body is here but for a moment but souls live on through eternity.  These are surely greater things than healing.

Also, in the bible the healings were never an end unto themselves.  Peter after healing the lame man was said to have ‘seen his opportunity’.  What opportunity?  The opportunity of having the attention of a crowd of lost sinners to preach the gospel to!  Over and over again the healings were simply a catalyst to present the gospel to sinners.

Which brings me to another point:  today Christians gather in church to pray for Christians surrounded by other Christians.  Who is there to be converted other than an occasional visitor?  In the bible when healings were numerous and even during times of revival since, the healings took place in front of hundreds and even thousands of sinners (3,000 added, 5,000 added, etc.) for the purpose of doing greater things:  winning souls.  So as the apostles walked about they placed themselves among overwhelmingly ungodly throngs of lost sinners and at that point healings occurred to facilitate the greater thing:  salvation.

It’s almost as though there are generally three occurrences that fall neatly and naturally together:  healing, deliverance and evangelism.  It is my belief that we need to sandwich these three back together rather than separate them.  And most importantly they need to occur not in churches but among the ungodly who are wanting to see miracles that they might believe.

Where then can we find masses of unbelievers today in modern America?  Rock concerts!  There is one pastor in California (Ray Comfort) that has his youth group dress in white tee shirts and jeans so they all look official and together  They drive a van into the parking lots of all the concerts that come to his town, get quickly out and distribute preprinted sheets to everyone standing in line and quickly leave.

The sheets don’t say, “Praise the Lord, trust Jesus” because if they did they’d be thrown on the ground as litter.  Instead they begin in the first few paragraphs telling information about the group that is to perform, i.e., where they were born, how they started the band, etc.  After paying or the tickets, these teens usually believe they are being handed a souvenir and usually fold and stick them into their pockets to take home.

There is never a clash with security as usually there are several different groups of security and each assumes the others are with some other security group.  No one tries to witness at this time as many of the young people will be intoxicated or stoned and it would probably not be effective.

When they get the papers home and sober up over the next few days, they get to the paragraphs that transition to the hopelessness of the lives of the performers.  The concluding paragraphs briefly share the gospel.

The papers are colorful and have attractive and catchy drawings from the current CD’s that are not offensive, which makes the young people take them readily.

Not all of them will be read of course.  Some will still be thrown on the ground just as not all seed thrown on the ground will take root.  But some will, after sobering up, and will feel the pointlessness of their lives and are ready.   Prayer can do a lot to direct these very ones to read the papers.  This pastor does not put his church’s phone number, etc., but instead instructs them to contact a Christian friend (they usually know who the real ones are) or a bible-believing church.  This is a place we can do as the apostles did and I believe there are some people who even have the courage to, at some point, go beyond this step to boldly proclaim the gospel to these people.

I am not advocating bringing in the elderly in wheelchairs to be put among mobs of rowdy concert-goers.  But I think that is because I am so conformed to our way of doing church that we have become comfortable with.  I wish that I were radical enough to suggest it; I wish that someone was.  In Jesus’ day, people were radical enough to lower the sick through the roof!

I know that sometimes I have been healed before in services.  And I know that sometimes I have not.  At those times, I go to a doctor. I know others do too.  I am honest enough to say, “I wasn’t healed so I’m going for antibiotics.”  I call it ‘getting well’ knowing that all good things come from God but I can’t in good conscience call this a healing as it is not the definition of healing as used in the bible and I know the Holy Spirit is big enough that He doesn’t need our word games to defend Him.

Another popular misconception is that the reason healing does not come is because there is a lack of faith.  My healings have come when I was, in fact, not expecting to be healed.  The church I attended years ago had people just come to the altar and pray silently for whatever their needs were.  Many of the people there did pray for healings which was new to me and very disconcerting as I was convinced prayers hardly ever caused miraculous healings and certainly probably not in this country.  I had had an arthritic elbow that was painful 24/7 for years and decided to go pray for it to be healed actually in order to prove to myself that my theology was correct.  However, as I silently prayed the pain receded completely!  I kept waiting for it to reoccur, even a little annoyed that my logic was in error, but after over ten years it hasn’t hurt even once!  No one’s faith was being exercised.  If God has shown me one aspect of Himself since I’ve known Him, it is that He is full of surprises and that I am unable to figure Him out.

Other times I’ve had faith yet not received.  I’ve had a strained should that I have, over the years, had practically every elder in the church pray for at one time or another, anoint with oil, etc.  Many times I was sure this would be the day that, like the elbow, would be healed.  However it still hurts as much as ever and I cannot say “I am healed”, as ‘am’ is present tense and that would be a lie.  I believe we must seem pathetic to non-believers to bend our words to match things they can clearly see are false.  This causes them to see the whole package of Christianity as silly and fake.

The woman with the issue of blood had never seen in the scrolls that “touching the hem of the garment” of the Messiah would produce healing.  She just thought that up herself.  So part of her faith was in Jesus, yet part of it was in doing something she just thought up!  The faith was not from the Lord as he was surprised and had to ask, “Who touched me?”  Yet when all was said and done, He said your faith (not His) has made you whole.

Many people when arguing this will (again) adopt a method from homosexuals:  Just keep yelling louder and louder (never mind the logic of it).  Things like “By His stripes we are healed”, etc.  No where in this statement does it infer that every time we ask, He will heal His children, but never mind – just keep yelling it to make a point.

If we did have a statement in the bible that every time a Christian prayed for healing we were guaranteed to be made whole then the lost would become Christians simply to keep from paying their insurance premiums or buying prescriptions.  They would convert so they could bungee jump, go white water rafting, etc. with no fear of consequences.  They would not want the Lord because of conviction of their sin nor because He was precious to them.  Rather they’d come into the Kingdom for the ease of worry free living and the ability to live as they want and never contract AIDS, etc.  Following the Lord is costly and we must count the cost and be willing to give up everything, even the right to be physically perfect.

One reason I believe there are so few healings is that the name of God in this country has been brought to a status of zero.  It is in the Lord’s name that healings occur.  Yet sitcoms, even approved by Focus on the Family constantly have characters saying, “Oh God!” followed by laughter.  No one even notices anymore nor takes offense at this.  I know most Christians don’t say this themselves, but if we can be comfortable when we it hear it at a service station or the grocery store then we have become acclimated to a culture in which Holy name is nothing more than a trifle.  I believe an indignation should well up inside us each time we hear it and if we are able to stand by comfortably and later prayer in His name, how can we not see the contradiction?