Healing Is the Will of God for You

Faith begins where the will of God is known, and as long as a person wavers concerning God's will, he is not going to receive anything from God.

James 1:5-7
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For HE THAT WAVERETH is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

James 1:7 says of the person who wavers: "... Let not that man think that he shall receive ANY THING of the Lord." Well, "any thing" would include healing, wouldn't it?

You're wavering in your faith concerning healing when you think, It might be God's will to heal me. You might hear someone say: "It is God's will to heal some people, but for other people, it's not His will to heal." And immediately the devil will tell you, "That's right, and you're one of the people that it is not God's will to heal!" Then you begin to waver in your faith, and you don't receive your healing.

No, what you need to do is go to the Word of God. Don't just accept what some man says is true.

There are many New Testament passages that bear out the fact that it's God's will to heal all. But I want to give you three main reasons you can know beyond a doubt that it is the will of God to heal you.

From the standpoint of the promises of God, it is clear that it's the will of God to heal the bodies of men and to do "whatsoever" anyone asks of Him in faith (Mark 11:23,24)

Mark 9:23
23 ...If thou canst believe, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH.

Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain, where He was transfigured before them (Mark 9:2). When they came down from the mount, a man cam to Jesus saying: "...Master I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit... And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but IF THOU CANST DO ANY THING, have compassion on us, and help us" (vv. 17,22).

In one sense, you could say the man just threw the whole situation into the lap of Jesus, because he said, "If You can do anything, have mercy on us." But then Jesus turned around and put it right back in the man's lap when He said, "It's not a matter of what I can or can't do. It's a matter of what you can believe."

Notice Jesus said, "...If thou can't BELIEVE, all things are possible to him that BELIEVETH" (v.23). Now that would have to include healing or else Jesus told a lie. In other words, if healing weren't included, He would have said, "All things are possible -- except one." But Jesus didn't say that. He said, "...If thou canst believe, All things are possible..."!

Now look at Mark 11:23 and 24, the scriptures that brought me off the bed of sickness as a young Baptist boy reading Grandma's Methodist bible.

Mark 11:23, 24
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that hose things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have WHATSOEVER he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto ou, WHAT THINGS SOEVER YE DESIRE, WHEN YE PRAY, BELIEVE THAT YE RECEIVE THEM, AND YE SHALL HAVE THEM.

I get amused at folks who say that Mar 11:24 won't work for everyone. I smile and think to myself, I wonder if they've ever actually read that verse.

You see, in this verse Jesus is talking about prayer. If Mark 11:24 won't work for everyone, that means prayer won't work for everyone -- and then we'd have an unhappy dilemma, because we've have find out which ones of us are supposed to pray, and which ones are not! But when we read the rest of the Bible, we see that we are all encourage to pray.

No, Jesus said, "When you pray, believe." Believe what? Believe that you receive whatever it is you are praying about!

For instance, when you pray concerning healing, believe that you receive healing, and you'll have it. When are you going to have your healing? After you believe you receive it. Well, when do you believe you receive it? When you pray -- before you actually have or see it!

Years ago, a preacher who was dying of a terminal disease said to me, "I'm not going to believe that I have something I can't see or feel."

Not trying to be harsh, I said to him, "Do you believe that you have a brain?"

He said, "Why, certainly!"

I said, "Well, did you ever see it? Did you ever feel it?"

"No."

"Then what makes you believe that you have one?"

"Oh," he said, "that's different."

No, the truth is, every day we believe in things that we can't see or feel, but isn't it strange that when God asks us to do the same thing, people get all upset about it!

You ask, "Well, what happened to that preacher who didn't believe?" He died at age fifty-four. He wasn't very old, and the sad part is, he didn't have to die in that condition.

Now there was another pastor I ministered to who had a similar situation. He didn't have the same disease, but the doctors had also told him that'd done all they could do and that he was dying. I shared the same thing with this pastor, giving him my testimony and the same scriptures.

He said, "I see it! I see it! What I have to do is, while I'm still lying here in bed, not a speck better, I have to believe I receive my healing. And if I believe I receive it, then Jesus said I'll have it!"

I said, "That's it. You've got it!"

Well, this pastor was raised up from his deathbed. The last I heard, he's still preaching today. But someone who didn't know the facts said, "Now, see, that proves healing is not for everyone. There were two preachers, both members of the same denomination. God healed one, but the other one died. If healing were for everyone, that other fellow would have received it too."

No, the fact is, the first preacher rejected the Word of God. Because he didn't act on God's Word, it couldn't work for him.

Now take a look at what Jesus said in Matthew 21:21 and 22, which goes right along with Mark 11:24.

Matt 21:21,22
21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, IF YE HAVE FAITH, AND DOUBT NOT, ye shall not only do this which is done in the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
22 And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, BELIEVING, ye shall receive.

Notice in particular verse 22: "And ALL things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer...." How many things? A few things? No, all things. (That would have to include healing or it wouldn't be all things!)

If Jesus hadn't mentioned the word "believing," we'd have it made, because then our prayers would just work automatically -- whatsoever we asked in prayer, we'd have it. But that's not what Jesus said. He said, "...all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, BELIEVING, ye shall receive."

You can readily see, from the standpoint of the promises of God, that it is the will of God to heal the bodies of men. Why? Because He said He'd do anything -- "all things" -- that you ask in prayer, believing.

I've had folks tell me, "God knows what is good for me; I don't. If He wants me to have healing, He'll just give it to me." That's an example of how some people have been religiously brainwashed because according to Matthew 7:11, we're bound to know what' good for us.

Matthew 7:11
11 If ye then, being evil [natural], KNOW how to give good gifts unto your children, HOW MUCH MORE shall your Father which is in heaven give good thins to them that ask him?

Jesus said, "...how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give GOOD THINGS to them that ASK him?" Well, if we didn't know what was good for us, we couldn't ask Him, could we!

Then notice two other New Testament scriptures dealing with the subject of "good" things."

Acts 10:38 says that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power, and Jesus went about doing good. What was the "good" that Jesus went about doing? Healing!

Some people will tell you that it may not be God's will to heal you or that it might not be for your good. But isn't it funny, God say it is! According to Him, healing is good!

We just read from the Scriptures that Jesus went about doing good and healing. Not only that, but every good gift comes from above, from the Heavenly Father. And if an earthly father knows how to give his children good things, how much more will our Father which is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

So you can be confident that it is the will of God to heal you -- because the Heavenly Father gives good things to His children!

A third reason you don't have to question whether it is God's will to heal you is that healing is the children's bread. In other words, it belongs to you.

Matthew 15:22,25-28
22 ... a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him [Jesus], saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil....
25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord help me.
26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take THECHILDREN'S BREAD, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And HER DAUGHTER WAS MADE WHOLE [healed] from that very hour.

The same Greek word that is translated "whole" in verse 28 is also translated "healed" in the New Testament. Therefore, healing is the children's bread that Jesus is referring to in verse 26.

Well, since healing is the children's bread, then it must be God's will to heal His children!

Now I want you to notice something in the Twenty-Third Psalm, a familiar psalm to most Christians, and yet I think that many miss what it's saying.

Most people think "the valley of the shadow of death" in verse 4 is talking about physical death, but it's not referring to physical death at all. It's talking about the believer's walk, right now, here on earth.

You see, there are at least three kinds of death mentioned in the Bible: spiritual death; physical death; and "the second death," when the spiritually dead are cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8).

If you take scriptures that deal with spiritual death and apply them to physical death, you'll become hopelessly confused!

For example, Psalm 23:4 must not be referring to physical death, because when you read the whole psalm, you see that the psalmist is talking about this life. He said, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE..." (v 6). So we're walking in this life through the valley of the shadow of death -- spiritual death.

Spiritual death -- sin, poverty, sickness and disease, and everything else that's of the devil -- is all around us; it's reigning in the world. But it's not part of us. It shouldn't affect us. Why? Because we're just in the shadow of it! Even though we're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we're lights in the valley! We're the light of the world, showing the Way to those who are still in darkness (Matt. 5:14). Praise God!