Mathew 8:1-3
When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him.2 And behold, there came a leper and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”3 And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, “I will: be thou clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
The Leper was very humble that Jesus will heal him. Maybe because of the state of his condition which has made him to be an outcast among the people. But when he approached Jesus he came with humility and believing that Jesus can heal him. This shows his faith towards Jesus. It is God’s will for you to be healed, as Jesus also demonstrated that he is willing to heal the leper, but your faith cannot operate beyond your knowledge of God’s Word.
The Word says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” Hosea 4:6. In the physical realm this is literally true. The bodies of born-again believers are being destroyed because they do not have the knowledge of God’s Word that it is God’s will for them to be healed. Many die young even though it is not God’s will. God said, “I will take sickness away from the midst of thee….
The number of thy days I will fulfill” (Exodus 23:25-26). He says in Psalm 91:16, “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.” It is not the will of God for you to die young. It is God’s will for you to live long on the earth without sickness in your midst and to live satisfied! Healing is not just a New Testament blessing.
God has always provided healing for the obedient. Psalm 103:2-3 says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.” Many have forgotten God’s benefit of healing for their bodies. If you had been taught that it is God’s will to heal you in the same way that you have been taught it is God’s will for you to be saved, you would have a different attitude toward sickness. Jesus bore your sicknesses and carried your diseases at the same time and in the same manner that He bore your sins. You are just as free from sickness and disease as you are from sin. You should be as quick to refuse sickness and disease in your body as you are to refuse sin
Plant the Word of God in your heart
To live free from sickness, you must plant the Word of God concerning healing in your heart. The Bible says that the Word is the incorruptible seed. You are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). You are healed the same way—by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Incorruptible means that “the seed cannot be destroyed; it cannot be spoiled.”
Disease cannot stop it. Men cannot spoil that incorruptible seed. Satan can not stop the power of the Word of God. I can prove that to you with salvation. Once you hear the Word and decide to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, there is no power that can stop the new birth from taking place in your spirit. No devil in hell can stop you from being born again. It is the same way with healing. You receive everything from the Lord in the same way—by faith.
Results come when you hear the Word, receive it and act on it. You receive healing exactly the way you received the new birth, by hearing the Word and by believing that Word enough to act on it. You have to put the supernatural seed of the Word of God in your heart. Plant it and it will grow and produce fruit. When you are dealing with God, His time is now. He doesn’t have to wait 60 days to get a crop. When you plant the Word in your heart, you get the harvest. Today is the day of salvation.
Faith should be as highly developed in the Church concerning healing as it is for the new birth of the spirit. If the Church had been told what the Word says about healing, Christians would be as quick to believe that they are healed as they are to believe that they are saved.
The Traditions of men
However, other things have been sown in our hearts. Seeds of doubt and unbelief have been sown by the traditions of men, by men who try to teach the Word with head knowledge instead of by His Spirit. God’s Word doesn’t make sense to the carnal mind. Men try to explain the Word through their own natural thinking, but they never succeed. Men in pulpits across our nation have preached things that simply are not true because they have no revelation of knowledge of the Word.
Traditions cost people the healing power of God. Jesus said the traditions of men make the Word of no effect (Matthew 15:6). One tradition that has robbed the Church of healing is the practice of praying, “If it be Thy will.” You should know that it is God’s will to heal you before you ever pray. You can know because God’s Word tells you His will. The Word of God is the will of God. “If it be Thy will” is unbelief when praying for healing. There is no faith in that kind of praying. It is the opposite of faith. If you are praying, “Lord, heal me, if it be Thy will,” then it is obvious that you don’t know what the will of God is, and until you know what God’s will is, you don’t have any basis for faith.
You are like the farmer who sits on his porch and says, “I believe in crops. I know they are real, so I’m not going to plant any seed this year. I’ll just believe for my crop to come up.” That farmer will sit there forever! It is a principle of life that first you plant, then you reap. Many Christians today are like that farmer. They are trying to reap a healing harvest when they’ve not planted any healing seed. “If it be Thy will” will not reap a healing harvest. It will keep you from receiving from God. You can know from God’s Word that it is His will for you to be healed.
Another tradition we hear is that healing has passed away. There are no miracles today. God said, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). We all know that God doesn’t change (James 1:17). He has not changed since the beginning of time (Malachi 3:6). For healing to pass away, the word of will pass away as the bible says in Psalms 107:20″
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” He is still the Lord that healeth us! Miracles and the healing power of God are just as available now as when Jesus walked the earth. You can believe that God heals today. Miracles have never passed away—some people just quit believing. It takes active faith to receive from God.
We need to believe that healing is real and that God is healing His people, Just believing in healing is not enough. You must believe that it is God’s will to heal you. You have to believe that healing is yours, that it belongs to you. “Healing belongs to me!”
Another tradition tells us that God gets glory from Christians being sick. But the Bible says people gave glory to God when they saw the lame walk and the blind eyes see. People glorified the God of Israel when they saw His power in manifestation (Matthew 15:30-31). Jesus said the Father is glorified when we bear much fruit (John 15:8). Cancer is not fruit. Arthritis is not fruit. The world is not impressed by your sickness. They are not impressed because you bear up under pain and agony.
They have all the pain and agony they want. They are looking for a way out of sickness and disease—not a way into it. They have enough problems. They want some answers! People are oppressed by Satan and need deliverance. They want victory in their lives. They want to know how to pay their bills and to be free of sickness in their bodies. That God gets glory from His children being sick makes no sense; but more importantly, it does not agree with the Word. As believers, we are to be lighthouses of deliverance and help in a dark world.
God’s will is that we show forth His love and power to the world around us in need of help. The Bible says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The world is supposed to see good works in our midst, not sickness and disease. “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life…” (Philippians 2:15-16).
Our commission is to give forth the Word of life—that is the Word of God concerning salvation, healing and deliverance to those around us. Instead, because of the traditions of men, we have tried to tell the world that the God we serve has made us sick. What a lie to tell on the Father God who is the God of love and mercy. Jesus said that we are to lay hands on the sick and they would recover. His will is that His Body be the answer to the problem of sickness and disease. We have been told to alleviate the problem, to teach people that God wants them sick.
