In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. "Lord," he said, "if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean." Jesus reached out and touched him. "I am willing," he said. "Be healed!" And instantly the leprosy disappeared. (Luke 5:12-13 NLT)
Jesus was tied to the whipping post; He was scourged until the flesh was ripped from His bones for only one reason: so that by His stripes, we could be healed! How can we even think that He might want us to live in sickness for a single moment longer?
Thank God, we never have to think that way again! Instead, we can rejoice knowing that Jesus always has been and always will be our Healer. Because He is the same yesterday, today and forever, we can be sure that He will reach out to us just as He reached out to those He healed during His time on earth.
He is always moved with compassion toward us. He is always touched with the feelings of our infirmity (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus' love for us cuts through all the entanglements of theological, homiletical theory.
His Word stands above all the hoopla, above all the religious rhetoric and denominational opinions. It matters not what others may say; Jesus has spoken to us His will for all eternity. He has given us His answer for all time: I will; be thou made whole.
There are times, however, in all of our lives when we lose sight of those words. There are times when sickness strikes us, and because we've let the revelation of divine healing slip, we find our faith knocked back on its heels.
What should we do when that happens?
We must meet with Jesus afresh over the pages of our Bible and let Him quicken the truth to us again. We must immerse ourselves in His Word and put it into our hearts until it starts flowing out of our mouths. We must stay with it until faith comes and we find ourselves declaring (despite the symptoms of sickness that still cling to our bodies) that we are healed.
To me that process is like putting gasoline in my car. I don't have to look at the gas gauge to see when the tank is full. I can just keep pumping it in until the gas starts to overflow.
Oh, what divine health we could all enjoy if we would stay in that overflow all the time! Let's make a commitment right now to do it! Let's make a decision to meet with Jesus more often over His healing Word in the days ahead. Let's keep pumping that Word into our hearts by heeding the instructions in Proverbs chapter four:
My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my
sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find
them, healing and health to all their flesh.
(Prov. 4:20–22 AMP)
If we will do that, God's healing power can flow through us like crystal clear water all the time. We can stop Satan from stealing one moment of our lives with sickness. We can stay well and finish our assignment as front-line warriors in the kingdom of God!