True Healing

Grace was the perfect name for her. She was physically and spiritually graceful. She gave grace to all and received the grace of God. When she was in a car accident, she received many injuries, and took months to heal, but afterward Grace continued to have headaches. She prayed to know what the problem was, and the Spirit told her it was because her bones in her head were out of alignment and she needed them to be adjusted. She had no money to go to a practitioner, so she prayed and asked the Lord to heal her. The next morning, she woke up for the first time in months without a headache and hasn’t had one since.

There are many forms of healing the sick, most of which relieve the symptoms of illness.

·         Chemical healing

·         Physical healing

·         Mental healing

·         Energy healing

·         Medium healing

Each of these is power, the power to heal illness and each works in different ways. Some illnesses will respond better to one, or another, depending on the many factors that affect the causes of illness.

Chemical healing: chemistry like drugs and herbs, vitamins and minerals, may take away the symptoms of an illness so that the person doesn’t feel ill  -- they still have the illness, they just don’t feel it, it is in remission.

Physical healing: Surgery, acupuncture, chiropractic, laser light, and other physical modalities can also improve the function of the body and provide relief of symptoms.

Mental healing: When people believe, they can be relieved of the effects of an illness. The mind-body connection is real. Talk therapy can enter the mind and since the mind controls everything in the body, a person can be healed.

Energy healing: homeopathy, acupuncture, Reiki, EFT, Emotion Code, and other energy modalities can produce healing results. People can be healed, even at a distance with energy from another.

Medium healing: There are those who work by spirits to heal others. This is just as real as using chemistry to heal and may alleviate illnesses of all types.

However, all these modalities are missing something. They can relieve symptoms, they can change the chemistry or anatomy, they can do energy work to change the mind or the spirit, or the energy field around the body and bring healing and change, but they can’t heal the soul, or the lost connection to God. We may be relieved of symptoms, but still be estranged from our Creator, who knows and loves us, and desires to re-connect with us and heal us on every level.

In some cases, such as a broken bone or an accident, it may be best to use a physical modality to heal. In cases of abnormal chemistry, it may be good to use a chemical to heal. In other cases, energy healing or another modality may fit. However, if our illness will bring us to God, there is only one way. Sometimes illness can make us turn to Him, to seek His presence and His power to heal.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
       John 9:2-3

The works of God is the salvation of His children, or all mankind. When the Lord, Jesus Christ, heals all sins are forgiven. Anyone else who heals without Him, only gives relief of symptoms, at best. Even if a surgeon can fix what is broken, this doesn’t heal the soul, there is no forgiveness of sins.

For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
      Matthew 9:5-6

Jesus Christ heals body and spirit, the entire soul, by bringing us into the presence of God. His way of healing is conversion, a mighty change of heart. When He heals there is a remission of sins, our sins are forgiven, and we can come into the presence of God through the reception of the Holy Ghost. None of the other ways of healing can forgive sins. This is the highest form of healing. It is what Jesus and the apostles did for others.

John

A man in his late 60’s came to me after he had a heart attack and almost died. He had health problems that included pre-diabetes and heart disease, a deadly combination. We did some testing and found the root of his problem and he started working hard on it. Within a couple of years, he remarked that he was “in the best shape of his life,” after playing three pick-up basketball games in a row. However, less than a month later he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The following year included radiation treatments, chemotherapy, and surgery. It was hard. He lost a lot of weight, and energy. Some days all he could do was stay in bed. He couldn’t eat and was given a tube in his stomach to feed him. After all the treatment he gradually came back to health, started eating again, and then exercising. Within a year he was feeling well and is back to playing basketball.

With tears in his eyes he related many blessings that brought salvation to him, how it was the Lord who healed him by changing his heart. He told me he knew the time he had to get into really good shape was given to him from God. It was a gift of strength to help him through a hard time. The Lord knew what he was going to need and prepared him. He also told me that he believed every experience we have is given to us to help us come to know God. He found God in his extremities, and salvation, and healing of his body and soul.

The apostles healed only in the name of Jesus Christ. They did not pretend to any power of healing. When Peter and John healed a lame man at the temple gate, everyone came running to them.

And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
      Acts 3:12

Peter then made it clear that he did nothing to heal the man, but it was by the power of the Lord, Jesus Christ, that he was healed. Peter didn’t use a healing modality, He didn’t adjust the man’s bones, He didn’t know some trick, or do energy work, he simply had the authority from the Lord to heal, and the Spirit told him who could be healed.

Not everyone who hears the word is healed. Jesus did not go to the pool of Bethesda and heal everyone there. Only one man was approached and healed. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian saints that he was given a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him humble. He asked God three times to heal him but was told that Jesus would make up for his infirmity. (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

I had one patient many years ago with anxiety disorder who had difficulty sleeping. She had tried many different sleeping pills and supplements, but they didn’t work, or they caused her to feel like she was in a fog. One day, a neighbor told her to read a passage from the Bible, and she was comforted and slept all night. She found that if she read every night in the New Testament, she was able to sleep, but if she didn’t, she was unable to sleep.  Like Paul, her “infirmity” brought her to know the Lord through her readings, which she has continued throughout her life.

Those who are humble, who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit, who are willing and obedient, and who come to the Lord for direction are healed by His power. When we are converted to Him, He heals us, body and spirit. Like John, who had cancer, the healing was part of his conversion. His eyes were opened to the reality of salvation in the Lord, Jesus Christ.

...lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
         Matthew 13:15

Sometimes, like Paul, we must accept His will and not be healed immediately. Even Jesus, in His own suffering pleaded for relief, “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:42) He did suffer, He still carried His cross, and was nailed to it. Out of love for us He finished His work. We will never have to suffer as He did if we turn to Him, but we may be asked to suffer a little more than we would like, out of love for Him, believing that He knows what is best for us. Paul also told the Romans “we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:” (Romans 5:3-4)

We could go to any of the available modalities of the world to seek healing from our illnesses.

·         If we go to a chiropractor, we’ll probably get our back adjusted.

·         If we go to an acupuncturist, we’ll certainly get poked with needles.

·         If we go to surgeon, they’ll perhaps recommend surgery.

·         If we go to a medical doctor, we’ll likely go home with a prescription for some chemical.

·         If we go to a naturopath, they’ll doubtless give us a vitamin or herb.

However, if we turn to the Lord for healing, we never know how the Lord will work in us. He might tell us to go to any of the above practitioners, or to dip seven times in the River Jordan, or to make some sacrifice, or to just suffer with our illness, patiently waiting on His healing. Through our obedience to His word, accepting His righteous will in whatever we are told to do, we will be healed, body and spirit. Whether in this life, or the next, our soul will live. We will be forgiven of our sins and be enabled to receive the Spirit of God and come to Him. Conversion is the purpose of illness and healing, true healing. It is the healing of the Lord, Jesus Christ. There is no other way.

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