"Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?"
"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!" - Matthew 7:11 NIV
It's amazing how many parts of our belief system come from Greek tradition and not from the Bible. The Greeks, being brilliant philosophers and rationalistic thinkers, fully inspired the Rennaissance, which birthed the modern style of thought in western society. The Rennaissance was the full embracing of classical antiquity (namely Roman and Greek art and thinking) and was mostly a wonderful thing. After centuries of the western world picking up the pieces of the fallen Roman empire, the re-introduction of these ancient cultures (which in many ways were far more advanced than medieval Europe) spurred a new excitement of discovery and free-thinking and ushered in the modern world we know today. Mostly a good thing, I'm sure everyone who enjoys electricity, modern health standards and modern plumbing would agree.
After a couple hundred years of seeing some of the most beautiful art, breathtaking architecture, expansive discovery, and major scientific advances the western world came into a new age, the "Age of Enlightenment". This period was a direct progression of the embracing of Greek thinking, albeit with a new wrinkle; reason, logic, criticism and free thinking now had no more room for faith or the mystery of the supernatural. Whereas the Rennaissance incorporated faith freely, the Enlightenment now made it so there was no more room for the unexplainable. Faith over reason or logic was now to be criticized until it could be explained. Man had no more room for a God who was beyond understanding. God was now to be understood on man's terms.
It is no coincidence then, that the western church now has little room for the mysteries of God. Everything must be explained satisfactorily, for it is very uneasy for us to admit things we cannot understand, things we cannot explain. This is our history, it is emblematic of where we came from. It is why Protestant churches have so much trouble embracing the supernatural in comparison to the Catholics, whose history includes a great deal of the supernatural and goes much further back than the Enlightenment. The Reformation occurred just before the Enlightenment, and so the churches that came out of the Reformation were still in their infant stage when the Enlightenment way of thinking swept into the west. This directly affected the way many churches began to view their faith. As a result these churches began to scramble about and find a way to be both rational and full of faith.
The church suddenly found itself creating answers for questions, answers we didn't, in fact, really have.
One of the greatest of those questions was, and still is, "If God is good (which we believe), and He loves me (which we believe) and He can heal (which we believe), then why am I not being healed?"
And when that question evaded our grasp we created our own, and it usually goes along the lines of, "He must have given it to me to refine me. It's my cross to bear. He would heal me if it was His will to do so."
So acceptance sets in, and we make up reasons for why the Bible doesn't say what it actually says. We let experience and reason determine what we know about God.
I know this, because I was that person who made that argument. Again, and again, and again. And frankly, after I actually studied the Bible and then SAW WITH MY OWN EYES over and over again how I was wrong, I came to one conclusion:
Enlightenment, you suck.
Now the fun part. Now I get to dispel one of the biggest lies in the Christian world. A lie so pernicious and disgusting that it is ruining the lives of countless people. A lie so evil that it actually is convincing Christians, people filled with the SPIRIT OF GOD, that they are powerless.
It's time to send that lie right back to hell, where it belongs.
Here's the truth: God did not make you sick. God's will is not for you to be sick. Jesus died and broke the power of sickness and death. The Holy Spirit gives us power to heal ourselves and others.
I know you probably don't believe me yet, and that's good. You shouldn't believe me if I can't back it up Biblically and experientially. I wouldn't believe me either! So let's do just that.
Biblically:
Let's start with God's will. Do we even know it?
The Apostle Paul sure thought so, "He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ." Ephesians 1:9
"For 'Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ." 1 Corinthians 2:16
And then Jesus made it clear that everything He did was God's will, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of Him who sent me." John 6:38
So Paul says we know the will of God, and Jesus said that He did the will of God. So what did Jesus do with sick people?
"News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and He healed them." - Matt. 4:24
"When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick." - Matt. 8:26
"Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill." - Matt. 12:15
The word healed, in reference to Jesus' actions in the Gospels appears 39 times. Times that He made someone sick? 0. Hmm...
Ok ok. That WAS Jesus after all. I mean, what about AFTER He goes back to heaven?
Good point. Well let's see what He instructs His disciples.
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Matt. 10:8
"and He sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." Luke 9:2.
"Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'the Kingdom of God has come near to you." Luke 10:9
Yeah but those were the DISCIPLES, they walked with Jesus! He couldn't possibly mean for US to do that, could He?
"Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well: the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven." - James 5:14-15
You tell me, did we get the same Holy Spirit that the disciples got, or didn't we?
"Alright, ALRIGHT! I get that we are supposed to pray for the sick, and maybe even expect healing. But you still didn't answer the question of whether or not God ever makes someone sick. What about Herod?"
Ah yes, the famous death of Herod, who build himself up as God and then was struck down by a worm in his stomach in Acts 12. The Bible is clear it was God who made it happen. And I believe it.
So what about that? Well first of all, Herod wasn't saved. He was antagonistic toward God. He also didn't suffer long-term. So our merciful, loving God, even when He takes someone out He doesn't leave them in suffering, because He's not cruel.
So why do we think He'd be cruel enough to make us suffer with a long-term ailment when He wouldn't even when He wouldn't make someone as evil as Herod suffer? Does that sound like a loving God to you? And even worse, we treat is as a gift! Like He's doing us a favor by making us suffer!
Where is THAT in the Bible?
The Bible is clear we will suffer for His name. But a) it never says that suffering comes FROM Him, and b) it never gives any indication that suffering is from sickness. Go look. I WANT you to. You can't find it.
By every indication in the New Testament sickness is an evil that is never to be accepted as ok. So why do we do it?
Because the truth is, not everyone is healed when they get prayed for. None of us have yet learned to be as close in relationship to God as Jesus was, and therefore none of us have ever gotten to the point of faith where all sickness would wipe away in front of us. But could it? Jesus was fully man as well as God right? We have the same spirit now as He did right? So I believe we could get there. I believe we were meant to get there. Even Paul got so close to God that even the cloths that touched him would heal others. Why is Paul more qualified than us? He wasn't. He just said yes.
But just because not everyone is healed right away through prayer does not mean it's God's failure. It also does not mean it's God's will for that person to stay in sickness. God CAN use it for good, because He is good and ALWAYS blesses us no matter our circumstances (Romans 8:28), but that does NOT mean it's His will. Just like it's not God's will that babies are dying, or girls are being raped, or people are being murdered. Just because something bad happens even when we pray against it does not mean it's God's will. God's will gets frustrated by the fact He gives us free will all the time, and by the fact that we are in a spiritual war every day. Peter writes, "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Pet. 3:9.
Do people still perish? Does everyone come to repentance? NO. When it comes to us, God gives us power to go against His will.
So what about those who fight for healing in full faith, and still don't get healed? I don't know. But what I do know is that it's not God's will for them to stay that way, because there's nowhere in the Bible that I can draw that from (and don't get me started on the thorn in Paul's flesh, or we'll be here for another 5 pages. Let's just say there's nothing that says it was a sickness). I also know that none of us have gotten to the full relationship of God that Jesus had yet, and as a result not every physical battle in our lives will be won, for there have only been two perfect men free of all illnesses that we know of; Jesus and Adam before the Fall. But both of them, in their perfection, were never sick. Physically the only difference between them and us was that neither of them had experienced sin (until Adam did). I'm not saying it's our personal sin that causes sickness in us, because I know innocents who are sick while wicked people prosper, but I am saying that the only cases of perfect health in the world history were from those who had never known life apart from God, and there's a key in that somewhere.
Notice God never made Jesus sick, even though He had to grow in favor with God before He was ready to fulfill His mission (Luke 2:52). God didn't use sickness to grow that favor with Jesus, why would He with us?
The Bible ultimately is clear; sickness is never a part of God's will for us.
My Experience
This has gone on long so I'll keep this short. But I used to believe that God allowed sickness in order to grow His children up. I believed that because my mother was sick most of my life. I believed it because it hurt so bad and I wanted to find good in it. I believed it because that's what the Christians around me taught me. I believed it because, in some sick way, I found comfort in it.
But now looking back from a place of much closer relationship with God, I know His heart was never for my family to suffer the way it did from her being ill. I should never have accepted it for her. I should never have let myself think so poorly of God. Did God sometimes bring good out of her sickness? Absolutely. But overall that sickness almost ripped my family apart. We all went through seasons of depression from it. Three of my siblings were bitter at my mom for years because she couldn't be a full mom to us most our lives, and they resented that, even though it wasn't her fault. People often believed she was faking it for attention. People were cruel.
And I'm supposed to believe that was God's will for us? For her?
No offense but, that's a big ol heap of crap.
God is good. He is loving and amazing. And He only knows how to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11). A brother who turned to drugs because he was depressed at home, a sister who struggled with anorexia because she needed more attention, and a father who dealt with his own church congregation gossiping about his wife for 20 years was NOT God's will for us. I don't know why we had to endure those things, but I know that believing the disgusting lie that it was God's plan for us didn't help.
I know this battle. I have lived it. I have struggled with the questions and pleaded with God for answers. He has given me one; "It's not My will." Everything else that tells me otherwise is a lie from satan.
Since I have overcome that lie in my life I have seen amazing things. Now that I believe God always wants to heal I pray with faith for everyone who comes across my path with sickness or injury. I have personally seen dozens of healings occur by God through my own hands. I have now seen thousands of healing total at the hands of others who refuse to believe this lie.
I have watched as a teenage boy's legs grew out to be equal size. I have personally seen the tears of a girl as her deaf ear popped open for the first time ever. I have been there as a woman who couldn't bend over because of back pain started twisting and shouting and running. I have lived with a wife who had celiac disease and would get violently ill every time she had even a grain of wheat seasoning; she now eats gluten products daily without fear.
These things happened in places where the lie of God allowing sickness was not allowed to take hold. Because it's a lie that isn't true. It's time for it to die, and for the church to start becoming the healthiest place on earth.
That, is God's will.
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