You are a healer

Are you a healer?  Perhaps that causes you to think of the ‘divine healers’ that put on a big show, praying dramatic and loud prayers over those who suffer. Maybe the ideas of ‘divine healing’ and snake oil are one and the same in your mind. Before you dismiss the whole idea because of the abuses of frauds who try to profit from the gullible, consider the truth. The gift of healing is given by the Spirit to the Church.  Jesus went about healing during His entire ministry. James offers practical instruction about the ministry of healing.  A serious student of the Bible will soon realize that healing, in the fullest sense of the word, is woven through Christian experience.

The Bible, from Genesis on, tells us that sin’s curse causes affliction and death. God sends us salvation so that we may enjoy wholeness and life. Jesus was not just a teacher of morals with a mission to help people make better choices! He came to confront evil and to defeat sin for us and in us so that we could gain eternal life as well as life that is abundant.  In other words, He came to heal! "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10, NIV)  “Save” is a word that includes the idea of restoration, of removal of suffering, and making whole; in other words, healing.

Healing is not just limited to broken bodies. Healing is for the heart, the mind, the soul, too. In fact, wholeness starts on the inside, with a transformation of the person. The Gospel of Christ, when received by faith, restores the identity of the person as God’s child and brings eternal life. That is the best healing, isn’t it? And, then there is healing for our relationships, healing our world with peace, and even healing of our bodies through prayer. Every Christian is a healer. By the Spirit of God, we are given the privilege of setting wrong right, of praying powerfully to defeat evil, and yes, to give our lives in the pursuit of bringing His reign to a world that rebels against Him.

The Word promises so much. We read that "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:17-21, NIV)

In the letter of James, the Spirit teaches us that experiencing wholeness requires authentic confession, too. We cannot divorce our choices from consequence, but we can face the past, look at our lives honestly, and find forgiveness and healing. "Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master." (James 5:14, The Message)  "Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with." (James 5:16, The Message)  We know that ultimately all sickness, disease, and even death are the result of sin and the Curse. However, we need to be careful about judging those who suffer (and even ourselves!) by attempting to draw direct cause and effect lines from sickness to personal sin.  Only God ultimately judges in that way. However, when we suffer, when we are sick, we do well to ask the Spirit to reveal if there is something in us, some choice we make, that literally is making us sick. Things like forgiveness, bitterness, hatred, faithlessness will negatively affect our health – emotional, spiritual, and physical.  That’s why confession is so important to healing.  We deal with cause rather than just symptom.

Healing is a blessing.  Remember, we are not healers in ourselves, we are given the ministry of healing.  Only God heals, and He does so in His will, and in His time.  So, full of faith (the kind that trusts radically) let’s pray to make our world a better place, to restore what Satan and sin have stolen, for the glory of God. "Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help." (Hebrews 4:14-16, The Message)

Mercy Me sings "Hurt and Healer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeNSlQWdgec