Welcome to our broadcast today. Today, Mitch and I are having a conversation about healing. Many of us will have family members, friends who have sickness in their body, even ourselves. Does the Bible teach that God still heals today and is He a healing God?
It’s a great question. It’s a tight one to cover in two minutes, and I want us to pray for people at the end. First and foremost, there’s two traps that we can fall into, Amanda. The first one is where we just lean on our own experience. So for example, my mom and dad have both died of cancer, so I can say therefore, God does not heal because people prayed for them and they didn’t get healed. Of course, my experience goes broader than that, and I have seen people saved and healed. I’ve seen people healed spiritually, emotionally, and physically. In fact, in the program that we run every Thursday night, Hope Chapel Lane in Belfast, we see testimonies of people supernaturally healed by the person and power of Jesus.
The second trap that we can fall into is one where we just pick one Bible verse and we say, well, because Jesus healed there, yes, Jesus heals today. So when we take the whole canopy of scripture, when we look at the function of the Holy Spirit through the early church and today, then the broad picture is a definite yes. God is a good Father, and He is the great physician. He was the great physician in Genesis, and He’s the Alpha and the Omega, and He does not change. He is still the healing God. So the the answer to that is yes.
Then we’ve got to look at what the Bible teaches about how that plays out today. And in Mark chapter 16, it says, believers, that’s people like you, people like me, will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Now, some people say, well, that verse may have been added into the text later, but even if it was added in later, it was only added in later because that’s what people had seen. They had seen the early church lay hands on the sick and they were healed. And then in James chapter five, it says, if we are sick, we should go to the elders in the church and they will lay hands on us, anoint us with oil, and the prayer of faith shall raise up the sick person. Little footnote on this before we prayer, Amanda, that we need to be very careful that if someone doesn’t get healed, that we don’t blame it for their lack of faith. Yes, faith is an important ingredient in healing, but let’s never weigh people down with guilt or shame that it was because of their lack of faith. So let’s pray with people before we close.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we invite you into our circumstances. We know that you are the great healer, and we ask that you bring your healing power to pass in our lives. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.