Sunday, September 9, 2012

September 9 – Believe and Be Healed

Matthew 10:1, 7-8 - Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. - And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.

Luke 10:8-9 Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' NASB

The word “Heal” appears 38 times in the NASB. Jesus is the great physician—a healer both of the physical and spiritual realms. There have been many instances in my lifetime of people being miraculously healed—and then other times that thousands of prayers have been lifted up and the person was not healed. It is hard to understand why. We can only trust that God that He has a plan—and rely on Him to see us His will and His way.  In Luke 10, Jesus told seventy of his followers to go to every city and to heal the sick. He sent them to cities before He went there. There had to be a lot of faith in those followers and in the people that they visited. Jesus healed numerous people throughout the Gospels and those who believed were healed—or those who were healed became believers. Read through the Gospels for yourself and note all the times that Jesus healed people, physically and spiritually. There are at least fifteen occurrences of physical healing of blind, deaf, dumb, lame, crippled  with some noted in more than one Gospel, like the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law in Matthew 8, Mark 1, and Luke 4. Then there is also the miraculous raising of three people from the dead that I didn’t count as healings—although someone might.

One of the first miraculous healing that I observed was a friend of mine who had a blind spot in her eye and had been to a healing prayer service. Her vision was restored! The next experience of prayer and healing was with my own husband—just a small thing. He had food poisoning from left-over meat in a sandwich and had felt miserable at work for a couple of hours. When he got home I placed my hand on his stomach and prayed. He immediately threw up and was feeling better. Another time recently I prayed for a friend, a young believer, who was having a migraine headache while at the city park and didn’t have her medicine with her—her headache and nausea instantly went away! She was so thrilled! God is good.

Are you looking for healing? We can only ask and trust that Jesus hears our prayers. We can’t manipulate Him into doing our will. We can take care of ourselves by eating well and getting enough rest—but even then sometimes we catch colds or get something, like a migraine. Our bodies just wear out, too. For example, once the cartilage is gone between our joints—it is gone and only painful joints remain for which sometimes surgery is not an option. We can only trust, pray and know that the kingdom of heaven is at hand—in our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So believe…and be healed.

Lord, we know that You hear our prayers and whether we pray once or a thousand times, we trust that You are still the great physician and will heal as we’ve asked, either now or in eternity.

© 2012 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.

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