There is healing today

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5

We were in a village in southern China that was overflowing with people–farmers, students, housewives, and small-scale business people (a new emerging class in China). "How do you account for the growth of your church?" I asked a pastor.

He related that it started with a dying four-year-old girl. Doctors couldn’t do anything to help her, and it would be merely a matter of hours until the sad wail of a funeral would be heard. "I went to the parents," he told me, "and asked them if I could go to the hospital and pray for her." "Yes, yes," they exclaimed. No, they were not Christians. They were involved in what he described as a kind of satanic cult.

The pastor went to the hospital and prayed for the little girl, who was immediately healed. Word spread like wildfire. This little girl, destined to die, was restored perfectly whole. The pastor further related, "Her mother and father, her grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends, half of the people in our church came to faith in Christ as the result of what happened."

"Ah," you say with a bit of disbelief, "that was in China!" But you live in the western world where hospitals are equipped with gleaming stainless steel and the latest technology, and doctors who are trained in the art of healing the sick, prescribing miracle medicines and applying the latest skills and techniques medical science has to offer.

Has the church gone out of the healing ministry in the West and been replaced by science and technology? Many of us thank God for the healing and help which the medical profession has brought, yet we deeply believe that God would do more if we only believed Him to exercise His power.

The early church believed in physical and emotional healing that often worked in tandem with each other. Read through the New Testament and notice that an expiration date wasn’t placed on the biblical manadate that a sick world needs. James, the half-brother of Jesus, in what was probably the first New Testament book to be written, said, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven" (James 5:14-15).

The reformers also believed in restoration and healing. When Martin Luther’s friend and associate Melanchthon was dying of an illness, Luther prayed for him and commanded, "Give no place to the spirit of sorrow, and be not your own murderer, but trust in the Lord." Melanchthon recovered within two days!

"Healing," says Charles Farr, whose ministry has touched the lives of thousands of hurting people, "is any sign of God’s kingdom in a person’s life–not necessarily an answer to every medical or phsical need. Healing in Scripture," he says, "does not refer to becoming as you were; it is becoming what you should be."

Healing should not be the focal point of worship but healing of all kinds should take place in the lives of hurting people who have been ignorant that God heals the brokenhearted and is still the medicine for the pain and suffering inflicted by our wounds today. - Resource reading: Isaiah 53

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