By Pastor Mitch Horton | July 2007 | Posted in • Featured Content | (0) Comments

I was raised in a denominational church and frequently heard this prayer: Lord, heal so-and-so if it be Your will. Then, if the person who was sick didn't receive healing, the inference was that, in that particular case, it wasn't the will of God for that person to be healed. So you could never really know whether or not it was the will of God for you to be healed if you got sick. And since faith begins where the will of God is known1, you could never really have your own faith in God to heal you. The will of God for healing was somehow measured on a case by case basis and determined by the outcome.

In this lesson, I want to help you understand the will of God concerning your healing, and I want to help you get yourself in line with God to receive healing from Him if you are sick.

God's Word is His will, just as your word is your will. When a person makes out a will, they are placing in print what they want to be done with their personal property and belongings. Well, the Bible is God's will for us. To know God's will, you will only find it written in His will, the sixty-six books we call the Bible. God's will for our health is not found in circumstances, but in His Word!

I want to establish, first of all, that healing is always the will of God for the believer! It is the perfect will of the Father for every believer to be healed of sickness and disease. What we must do is learn to get ourselves in position to receive God's best for our lives. 2

It's the will of God for us to be healed because God is as interested in our bodies as He is in our spiritual nature. We are made in the image of God: spirit, soul, and body3. Our bodies, as well as our spirits, belong to the Lord4. We are made in the image of God, and this image refers to our bodies as well as to our spirits5.

The body is included in our redemption in Christ. We are to bring glory to God in our bodies as well as in our spirits6. He wants us to present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice7.

There is a close relationship between the spirit and the body. What affects one will affect the other. Emotional and mental stability can contribute to physical well-being, or our minds and emotions can hinder our health. A calm and undisturbed mind and heart are the life and health of the body, but envy, jealousy, and wrath are like rottenness of the bones8.

Our whole being was affected by Adam's sin. In fact, all of creation has been affected, and the cure for the spiritual, physical, and natural effects of the curse are all found in the redemption provided by the death and resurrection of Christ9. We have spiritual and physical needs as a result of Adam's sin. Just as surely as it is the will of God to forgive all of our sins, it is equally His will to heal all of our diseases10.

"Most people would admit that God can do anything He wants to do! But faith begins when you are really convinced that God not only can but wants to heal you."

God's will for the healing of our bodies is clearly seen by understanding the origin of sickness and disease. Sin and sickness have their origin in the fall of man. Everything was perfect in creation11 until the introduction of sin and disobedience. When Adam sinned, Satan gained a legal foothold on the earth and on man, and only through redemption in Christ is this legal foothold removed. Time and time again, sickness is directly referred to in the Word of God as a work of Satan12.

To have faith in the Father to heal you, you must first of all be convinced that it is His will to heal you. As mentioned earlier, faith begins where the will of God is known. A person must be convinced that it's God's will for him to be born again before he can have faith to be saved. And, likewise, we must know that healing is God's will before we can have faith in the Father to heal us.

Faith for healing rests not only in God's ability to heal us, but in His willingness to heal our bodies. Most people would admit that God can do anything He wants to do! But faith begins when you are really convinced that God not only can but wants to heal you. A man with leprosy approached Jesus as He came down a mountain, and said, Lord, I know that you have the ability to heal me if you only want to. Jesus immediately showed that His willingness equaled His ability to heal him by saying, I will, be cleansed! And the man was healed of leprosy. If it was Jesus' will to heal this man, it has to be the will of God to heal us, or Jesus shows partiality. And there is no partiality with God.13 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 14

We know God's will by looking to His Word. Paul prayed that the believers in Colossae would be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding15. He was really praying that God's Word would be revealed to them, so that they would know God's will.

In his book Christ the Healer, F.F. Bosworth says, "If sickness is the will of God, then every physician is a lawbreaker, every trained nurse is defying the Almighty, every hospital is a house of rebellion instead of a house of mercy, and instead of supporting hospitals, we ought to do our utmost to close every one." 16

The will of God in healing can also be seen in the seven redemptive names of God. God's redemptive "Jehovah names" express His will that continues through successive generations. Jehovah literally means the eternal, self-existent, unchanging God! Each of God's Jehovah names reveals His unchanging will through time.

God has been and always will be Jehovah Jireh our Provider17, Jehovah Nissi our Victory,18 Jehovah Shalom our Peace,19 Jehovah Raah our Shepherd,20 Jehovah Tsidkenu our Righteousness,21 and Jehovah Shammah our personal Presence.22 The last of His covenant names is Jehovah Rapha our Healer.23 If God never changes in the first six covenant names, then why would He change in His seventh name as Jehovah our Healer?

Healing is also found in the atonement of Christ24 for our sins. Healing is clearly revealed in what we call "The Great Redemptive Chapter," Isaiah 53.25 Notice Isaiah 53:4-5: "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."

The Hebrew word for griefs26 is literally sickness, and the Hebrew word for sorrows27 is pains. Jesus literally took our sickness and pains on His body and bore them for us so that we could be free from them, in just the same way that He personally bore our sins so that we could be free from them!

The words borne2and carried2refer to the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement bearing away the sins of the Israelites. According to Leviticus 16, on the Day of Atonement, the priest would offer two goats as a sin sacrifice. One goat was slain, and its blood was placed on the mercy seat30 on top of the Ark of the Covenant to atone for or cover the sins of the Israelites from God's view, as His presence hovered over the ark in the Holy of Holies.

The scapegoat was the second goat which was not killed, but was led into the wilderness. There the high priest laid his hands on the goat and symbolically confessed and transferred onto the goat all of the sins of the Israelites for that year. Then the goat was released into the wilderness to bear and carry the Israelites' sins to an uninhabited place, typically removing the sins to a place where they were never to be found again!31 So, just as Jesus bore our sins, He likewise bore or carried our sicknesses for us so that we could be free from them.

Matthew 8:16-17 is a divine commentary on Isaiah 53:4. "When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.'" I think that God must have known that religious people would seek to spiritualize Isaiah 53:4 and say that it refers only to our sins. But it's obvious to any thinking person, in the light of the Hebrew words in Isaiah 53:4, and of the reference to healing the sick in Matthew 8:16-17, that God was showing us clearly that Jesus bore our sicknesses at the same time that he bore our sins! That same sacrifice takes care of both the sin and sickness problem!

Once you've established in your own heart that it's God's will to heal you, the next step is to put yourself in position to receive healing. In this lesson, I want to show you how to receive healing by exercising faith in God's Word.32

Since faith begins where the will of God is known, once you know it's God will to heal you, it's then necessary to get yourself in position to receive the healing that's been provided. Since faith comes by hearing God's Word,33 the first step in receiving by faith is to get God's Word about healing firmly planted within you! In fact, the order in Jesus' ministry in the four gospels was teaching, preaching, and then healing.34 Please notice that in the four gospels, Jesus usually didn't minister healing until the seed of God's Word was planted through teaching.

The best way to plant the seed of the Word in you for healing is to find scriptures concerning God's will to heal you and meditate35 on them. Meditation in the Word builds the capacity for faith. The Word will build a knowing, a conviction within you, that God will heal. Once that conviction is strong, it's time to act on the Word!

The best way I've found to act on the Word is to go to Mark 11:23-24,36 and use these verses as a basis to initially exercise your faith. It's worked this way for me for over 30 years now. Whether you have someone pray and lay hands on you, or you just pray on your own, the important thing is to believe you receive. Once the command of faith has been spoken to the mountain of sickness, you must begin at that moment to believe you receive your healing. That is, you believe that you have already received the healing before there is any change whatsoever in the symptoms.

Faith must have corresponding actions to work as it should.37 If you believe that you receive, then do all you can to act as though you believe you receive. Talk like you believe you receive. If someone sees your symptoms and asks you how you're doing, tell them you're fine, and that you believe you receive your healing.

I find ways to act my faith when I'm believing I receive. I'll grunt through the discomfort, and I'll do the things I would do if the manifestation of the healing were there. Faith acts. Be pragmatic and practical, but find ways to demonstrate your faith.

Believing you receive is one of the most challenging things you'll do as a believer, because we are programmed by the world to believe only what we see. But we are to look at the things that are not seen by focusing our attention on the Word.38 Let every thought, word, and action affirm that you believe that God has already answered your request. Your job is to believe you receive; God's responsibility is to manifest the healing in response to your faith.

Remember, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.39 Meditate in the Word, then release your faith by believing God has answered while the symptoms still rage, and then act your faith in practical ways. God honors His Word. He watches over it to perform it.40 It will not return void to Him.41 He longs to heal you, because healing is provided in your redemption in Christ!

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