And He Healed them all: Healing Mercies.mp3 Podcast: Download (33.0MB)
Key Text:
Matt. 9:19-31
Matt. 15:22-28
Matt. 20:29-34
Luke 17:11-19
Luke 6:17-19
Phil. 2:27
Ps. 147:11
Jn. 5:14
Summary:
Tonight we began to discuss healing. We’ve been teaching extensively on what we as believers are “Freed from” and what we are “Freed to” throughout 2012. The three categories we discussed were:
- Freed to Believe
- Freed to Hope
- Freed to Love
While learning from God on these truths we discovered that God speaks – not just in the Bible, not just from our spiritual leaders, not simply from time to time in our personal lives – but He continually speaks into our lives attempting to deposit grace and strike up a dialogue with you. I imagine that the cool of the day in the Garden was not only the highlight of Adam & Eve’s day, but it was the great anticipation and joy of God Himself. What did Jesus say to His disciples before communing over the passover meal with them?
He said to them, “Earnestly have I longed to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;“ ~ Luke 22:15
God did not create children with whom He could not commune and delight in knowing.
With all this framework in place, I began to teach tonight on healing because we’ve covered so much ground and learned so much, but have applied so little. We are experiencing a glut! This topic is not only timely for several within our fold, but it is an awesome opportunity to walk out much of what we have been taught.
The first part of this “walking out” our knowledge OF Him, is to convert that academic knowledge “about” Him into Knowing Him.
The first step in knowing Him is revering Him!
Tonight as we read the passages listed above we discovered both some broad stokes and some minute details of things which typified the common experience of receiving healing in Jesus’ ministry.
The broad strokes:
- Healing is a mercy
- As such you can DO nothing to obtain it.
- As such nothing you have DONE can disqualify you from it.
- God IS touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
- God is moved with compassion, meaning He deeply feels for us and yearns to have pity on us.
- Healing was not only available, but was given to ALL who came to Christ.
- We mentioned that the only recorded examples of people walking away from Christ still sick, were those He came to – NOT those who came to Him.
- In those examples the only difference according to scripture was trust.
- Those who came to Jesus did so BECAUSE they believed or because they were diligent enough to seek Him out, in order to discover IF He was willing -to which Jesus ALWAYS replied “I am willing”.
- Those to whom Jesus came exhibited little to no faith.
“He couldn’t perform a miracle there except to lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was utterly amazed at their unbelief. Then He went around to the villages and continued teaching.” ~ Mar 6:5-6
- The word ‘unbelief’ here means, lack of acknowledgment of Christ; a want of confidence in Christ’s power. In general, a want of trust in the God of promise. We have no biblical record of the common phenomenon today, where people simply don’t know if He is willing to heal. In Jesus’ ministry, those who wondered at His willingness – asked Him and in EVERY CASE Jesus ALWAYS said, “I am willing”! This should be enough for any believer for if God never changes He is still willing.
The Minute Details:
- Those lives we have a close-up of in Jesus’ ministry who were healed all seemed to worship Him.
- Several seemingly recognized Him as Messiah and God.
- They held Him in reverence.
- They saw a God who was easily moved to compassion with the feelings of their infirmities.
- They submitted to and acknowledged His authority and power.
- They recognized healing as a mercy.
- Real Faith FINDS ITSELF SPEAKING! – II Cor. 4:13
- This is entirely different that “making confessions” or vain repetitions which Paul called hypocritical faith. – I Tim. 1:5,6
- Faith is MORE than convincing yourself that some is true -it is being FULLY CONVINCED DUE TO PERSONALLY HEARING HIS VOICE!
- Just knowing that historically Jesus NEVER denied healing to anyone is not enough! You MUST go to Him…hear HIM speak His words,“I am willing be made whole”. HE is the author and maturer of our faith in Him (Heb. 12:2). To obtain faith one does not rely upon His words to others, but His words to them. Jesus will not deny you, but you must come to Him.
Above all – do not treat this as a list of “steps for healing”. To reduce faith to a method is to rob faith of its very essence. Faith IS relational trust in a person you know. It is relational at its core – THAT is why genuine reliance upon Jesus cannot be reduced to a method. ALL who would be healed, MUST come to Him. All who Came to Him were healed!
“…and He healed them all!”