The question of the headline of this teaching article is common among many Christians today that struggle with sickness and pain. However, the question, as it is formulated, shows that we have not understood how healing works, which in turn hinders the healing we so much want to experience from manifesting.
The problem, when we experience sickness or pain, is never that God is holding back the healing, nor that He – by our repeated prayers – must be convinced to send healing. God does not need convincing. He wants us to live in good health more than we do ourselves, since He is a good Father who cares about us – His children!
Through the finished work of Jesus on the cross, God has already made healing available for every believer. It is for this reason that the Apostle Peter said:
”who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” (1 Pet. 2:24)
Peter here connected Jesus’ death for our sins on the cross with our physical (and mental) healing, which in turn shows that healing is a part of the redemption! In the same way as the redemption led to the forgiveness of sins, it also meant healing for our bodies and souls! Jesus called healing the “children’s bread” (Matt. 15:26), which means that it is a right (!) for all of God’s children in the same way as a child has the right to eat the food served in the family house.
Note that Peter said: “by whose stripes you were healed”. He did not say that we will be healed by the wounds of Jesus sometime in the future. Through Jesus’ finished work on the cross, our healing is already an established fact in the spiritual world! This means that sickness and pain – how real they may ever seem in the physical world – are fake and lying symptoms of the devil.
Note that we do not deny the physical reality of sickness and pain that many experience today. All of us will, sooner or later, face sickness and pain as long as we live on this earth. However, the question is: how can we see a change so that the healing that Jesus already has provided can be a manifested reality in our physical bodies? How should we change our thinking so that we can receive the healing that Jesus through the cross already has made available to us? We receive healing the same way we received the forgiveness of sins and all other gifts that we receive from God: by grace through faith. That we receive healing by grace means that healing is never anything that we can deserve through our own good deeds. Healing is an undeserved gift. Instead of trusting in our own goodness as the reason to why we can be healed, we should only trust in Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross. When we do so, we are in the territory of grace and faith, in which we – through faith – can receive the healing that God – by grace – already has provided.
A decisive factor is that we realize that God does not hold back the healing and that He does not need to be convinced or manipulated to provide the healing we need. When God sent Jesus Christ, He sent everything that He will ever send to us!
Healing can take place in many ways; either through God’s divine intervention or through natural means. We can receive healing through prayer offered by another person, through the operation of the supernatural gifts of healing, faith or power works (see 1 Cor. 12:9-10), or by receiving the holy communion. We can also be healed by physical training, weight loss, healthy foods, or through different kinds of medicines.
The main way in which God wants mature Christians to receive divine healing, is by simple faith in His word, as God wants the believer to live by “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4).
”He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions.” (Ps. 107:20)
20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; 22 For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh. (Prov. 4:20-22)
God sends His word and heals us! God’s word is health to our bodies!
What does God’s word in the new covenant tell us about healing? That it is an already accomplished fact! That we do not need to “storm the gates of heaven” to make God act. That God has already acted and done everything for us to be able to receive healing – by the finished work of Jesus on the cross!
23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. (Mark 11:23-24)
Instead of asking God for healing, as if He needs to be convinced to send healing, start using your spiritual authority in Christ and “speak to the mountain” by commanding the sickness and pain to leave your body in Jesus’ name.
God’s power is “voice activated”. For a person that has never heard this teaching before, it might sound difficult to command sickness and pain to leave. Instead of stressing or feeling that you must perform something you are not yet ready for, you can start by doing something very simple: Fill your mind with words of faith – from the Bible – concerning your healing. Watch sermons about healing. Listen to new covenant preachers that are used by God to bring healing to others. There is much good teaching on healing available online via YouTube and other platforms. Let God’s word work in your life. Let it take time, if needed.
When you are ready, start speaking to the “mountain of sickness and pain” to leave your body in the name of Jesus. Say: “Pain, leave in Jesus’ name!” Stand firm by the fact that you are healed by the wounds of Jesus, even if the symptoms do not immediately disappear. See your healing as a completed fact through the eyes of faith, instead of based on what you see or feel in the physical.
We receive divine healing by faith. Faith means believing more in Jesus and what He says about our situation than in what the physical reality tells us. Faith means to see the situation from God’s perspective, even if the physical circumstances tells us the direct opposite.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)
”…without faith it is impossible to please Him…” (Heb. 11:6)
Don’t give up. Rest in the finished work of Jesus, by focusing on what Jesus has done on the cross concerning your healing. When you come to a place of faith and rest, trusting that you already are healed by the wounds of Jesus, the healing will manifest physically in your body.
