I've been asked to explain why I believe so strongly in Christian healing. There are several reasons. The first, as I've pointed out before, is that Jesus healed everyone who came to him in faith asking for it. There is no record in the Scripture that he turned anyone away. Jesus said that this was part of his mission. In Luke 4:16-21 we have the occasion when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, his home town. He read from Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. Then Jesus proceeds to do just that in his ministry. The second is that he told his disciples to go and do likewise. Matthew records it as (10:7-8), "Go and preach, 'The Kingdom of heaven is near!' Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, heal those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases, and drive out demons." Luke has Jesus sending the disciples out twice. In Luke 9:1-5, Jesus sends out the 12. Giving them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, he sends them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 more men to do the same. The third reason is that the disciples were successful in healing people. Mark says, "So they went out and preached that people should turn away from their sins. They drove out many demons and rubbed olive oil and many sick people and healed them." (Mark 6:12-13). Luke tells us about the 12, "The disciples left and traveled through all the villages, preaching the Good News and healing people everywhere." (Luke 9:6) The 72 sent out in chapter 10 return to report (10:17), "Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we gave them a command in your name!" Then Jesus rejoices at their success and gives praise to his Father (Luke 10:18-24). Three reasons are enough for today, but there are more. Let us pray with Jesus today the prayer of praise upon the return of the 72 (Luke 10:21). "Father, Lord of heaven and earth! I thank you because you have shown to the unlearned what you have hidden from the wise and learned. Yes, Father, this was how you were pleased to have it happen."
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Following God is seldom easy. We can look to the record of the prophets in the Old Testament and Jesus' closest disciples in the New Testament. Only John seems to have died of old age. Following God's directives, doing what Jesus told them to do, got them killed. It is the same today in many places in the world. Sometimes those who follow Jesus do, or want to do, the wrong thing. When Peter cut off the ear of the servant of one of the men who had come to arrest Jesus, Jesus healed the man's ear. Even in a time of high stress, Jesus showed compassion and offered healing. Another time Jesus had to rebuke James and John. When they had been refused hospitality in a Samaritan village (another case of no room in the inn?), they asked Jesus, "Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?" (Luke 9:54) Calling down fire from heaven seems like an extreme response to a small rejection, and certainly Jesus tells them they are out of order. But what else does that question indicate to us? That they believed they had the power to call down fire from heaven. For reflection: Jesus never called down fire from heaven, as far as we know. What made James and John think this was possible and appropriate? Is there a time when this might be appropriate? Let us pray. Lord of Justice, Lord of Mercy. You who want all people to be saved and none to be lost, help us to curb our baser instincts and listen to your guiding wisdom. Help us to know how to use the power that you give us to increase your Kingdom on earth. As I looked around the church on Sunday, I noticed how many people in the congregation were using canes, walkers and crutches. Those are great testimonies to the treatments of modern medicine, but not such great testimonies to the healing power of Jesus. When Jesus saw the faith of the man's friends, he healed the paralytic. We looked at this story of healing on Monday (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26). We don't know if the paralyzed man had faith. Maybe he did; maybe he didn't. But we know that his friends did. They carried him to Jesus, tore a hole in the roof, and, using ropes, lowered him in front of Jesus. That took planning, preparation and persistence. This may be the case when we pray with someone. They may not have much faith, but their friend does or we do. The person in need of prayer may be hope-filled but not faith-filled. They may be doubtful or skeptical. They may be incapable of getting to Jesus on their own. We may be the only one praying who has faith. We may need to plan, prepare and persist so that the experience of healing can bring them to faith. What would have happened to the man who was paralyzed if he hadn't gotten a little help from his friends? He could not have gotten to Jesus on his own. His friends helped him get his life back. For reflection: Is there anyone among my friends with a knee, hip or ankle injury? Anyone facing joint surgery with weeks of rehabilitation afterward? Am I the friend who will take them to Jesus? Can I help them get their life back? Let us pray. Jesus, you instantly healed the man who was paralyzed because his friends brought him to you. I bring to you today _____. I don't want him/her to suffer any longer. I don't care what the doctors say about the length of their recovery. I care about their health and their relationship to you. Jesus, according to the Gospels, worked miracles large and small. There were so many that the disciples didn't even try to record them all. When they did record them, they didn't always give specifics. Take for example just a few sentences of Matthew's gospel - 8:14-16. The first two verses are about the healing of Peter's mother-in-law. Probably the only reason this healing was mentioned is because it was Peter's mother-in-law. She had a fever. From just the touch of Jesus' hand, she was made well enough that she got up and started cooking and feeding them. It's not a big miracle unless you are the one down with a fever. But it was enough of a miracle that word spread because the next sentence gives it away: "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." It's a big jump to go from healing a woman with a fever to healing the demon-possessed. But somehow people had hope that if they brought people with any kind of sickness to Jesus he would heal them. Their hope was not misplaced. He healed all the sick. For reflection: How did we get from the evidence of the gospels that a big part of Jesus' ministry was healing people to the state of many Christian churches today where it is not normal to pray for healing, except in a general way? When was the last time I prayed with someone for healing? Let us pray. Jesus, I want to do your will. If that means praying with people to be healed, so be it. If I see someone this weekend who needs prayer for healing, even if they only have a cold or a fever, help me to be bold enough to offer to pray with them. Thank you for always being with me. How many miracles did Jesus perform while he was on earth? Lots, but we don't know precisely now many. John says toward the end of his Gospel that Jesus did many miracles that are not recorded, but that John wrote his gospel so that we might believe that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing have life in his name." (John 20:31) Let's spend some time looking at a few over the coming weeks. More than once Jesus healed lepers. At that time lepers were shunned from society because leprosy was contagious. So being healed of leprosy was a life changing event. The man approaches Jesus on his knees, begging to be healed. "If you are willing, Lord, you can make me clean." Jesus replied, "I am willing. Be clean!" There is no doubt in the leper's mind that Jesus can heal him. The doubt is in whether or not Jesus would want to heal him. Jesus' response is to assure the man that he does indeed want to heal him. (This healing is recorded in Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45 and Luke 5:12-16.) There was no medical cure for leprosy until the 1990s. For reflection: Jesus does indeed want to heal me. What do I want healed today? Will I believe more strongly in Jesus if I am healed? Will someone else believe in Jesus if I am healed? Let us pray. Jesus, because you healed a man instantaneously of a disease for which there was no known cure, I ask for your healing. I need to be healed of _____. Like the man with leprosy, I will tell others what you have done for me. It is no small thing to be a son of God. Paul says, repeatedly, that we are sons of God through faith in Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior. What does being a son mean? Sons inherit from their father. And we are not minor children. We are old enough to not only inherit but also to manage the estate. As Paul says, we have the full rights of sons. Because we are sons, we have clothed ourselves with Christ and received his Spirit into our hearts. Now we can call God "Daddy." (Galatians 3:26-4:7) So, we are sons, clothed in Christ, having the Spirit in our hearts, our Dad created the heavens and the earth, and He put us in charge of managing the estate, the kingdom of God on earth. For reflection: Daddy, thank you for making us your sons. You have given us great rewards and great responsibility. I'm glad that you have other sons and I am not in this alone. Help me to clothe myself with Christ, to put on Christ every day and to walk in your Spirit as I go about the work of the Kingdom. When God calls people to do his work he accepts no excuses. Take the example of Moses and his conversation with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-4:17). When God tells Moses he is sending him back to Egypt to free the Israelites from slavery under Pharaoh, Moses' first objection is, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Next Moses tries "What if they ask me what your name is?" Then, "What if they don't believe me or listen to me?" Still not willing to go, Moses objects, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." Like any good salesman, God answers every question and meets every objection. Finally Moses gets right down to what he really wants. "O Lord, please send someone else." And God gets angry. Even so, he doesn't let Moses off the hook, he simply assigns Aaron to go with him. When God wants us to do something, he accepts no excuses. Arguing with God is useless; he has all the answers. When God calls, he qualifies, equips and empowers the person called. As reluctant as Moses was, he still succeeded. For reflection: What has God called me to do? What excuses am I giving for not doing it? Let us pray. Father, you are the God of No Excuses. You are God Who Calls, God Who Qualifies, God Who Equips and God Who Empowers. I come to do your will. Let us spend today praising the Lord for his goodness. Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. From everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children - with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (Psalm 103:1-5, 8, 11, 17-18) "He'll have to change his mindset for this race," the speed skating commentator said as another group prepared for a qualifying race. The young people in the Olympics are often described as envisioning their entire routine before they take to the ice or the slopes. They've been taught to picture themselves perfectly executing their routine, their race, their downhill run. If they can't picture it, they won't attain it. To return to the sports world, for many years no one ran a mile in under 4 minutes. It was thought to be impossible, until someone did it (Roger Bannister). The bar was raised and runners began to think in terms of less than 4 minutes. We too can raise the bar of what we expect God to accomplish through our lives and in our world by putting on the mind of Christ and remembering that he can do more than we can ask or imagine How hard was it for Joseph to believe the angel who told him Mary was innocent? It is an incredible thing to believe - that Mary is having a child by the Holy Spirit. Even today it is one of the hardest things to credit that God became man through a woman. And yet it is a founding pillar of Christianity. It helps that it had been foretold that God would send a Messiah, a Savior. More specifically, Isaiah prophesied that "The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). Did Joseph remember that prophecy? Did he ever doubt? For reflection: When I have doubts, do I turn to God for answers and reassurance? Let us pray. "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. . . . Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior" (Psalm 25:1-2, 4-5). |
AliceI started this website and blog on May 1, 2012. I am a Catholic who has been in ministry for many years. I first developed what I would call a close relationship with Jesus in the early 1970s. Ever since then I have been praying with people for healing and other needs. It is because I have seen so many of these prayers answered that I am so bold as to offer to pray for you individually through this website and phone line. Archives
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