It has been a while since I posted a Scripture on one of the topics I’m passionate about, healing, and oversimplified a passage so as to leave us without excuse for why we aren’t doing what it teaches. This will not be a long essay, as I have a link in the righthand column of this blog site linking to a lot of other articles and blog entries on the subject. But I was reading Scripture the other day (which is a regular occurrence in my life, and I hope if you call yourself a follower of Jesus it would be a regular occurrence in your life too!), and this passage hit me, like it and others like it do every time I read them:
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.
And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Matthew 4:23-25
This is early on in Jesus’ ministry, according to Matthew, right after choosing His disciples. He did both things: preached, proclaiming the kingdom AND demonstrating it. Is it any wonder then that His fame spread and more people got brought to Him to be healed? His reputation went before Him. What was his reputation? Just good teaching that sounded different than what they were used to? Nope.
How sad that in the Church today, we often take Scripture and excuse away why we, the “little Christs” if you will (Christians) only seek by and large to exhibit the character of Christ, but not the power as well. Yes it is good to be compassionate like Christ for those sick and hurting, but all we’re doing is sympathizing with people if we don’t have anything of substance to provide those around us for their troubles and illnesses. Jesus had a two-pronged approach, yet the Church today is happy with a one-pronged intellectual toothpick of a Gospel, and wondering why we aren’t making much impact in the culture around us.
Don’t you think just a few people getting dramatically healed in our midst would generate word, and get more people brought to our midst to see us “deliver the goods” and have their lives impacted? How much more so if EVERYONE received. It worked in the Gospels and in the early Church for a reason.
Something is wrong. When we see Scriptures that contradict what things are like now in the 21st century, we are not the ones who are right and Scripture wrong, needing some kind of altnerate explanation. The Scriptures are always right, not us. If the Scriptures say something, they mean it, and we must live it if we are believers.
What is in your “every”. Are there any limitations inside that word? Are you hurting emotionally? Jesus will heal you. That is part of “every”. Are you physically ill? That is a part of “every” as well, and Jesus will heal you. He never failed to heal anyone that came to Him. He never has, and never will. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
As He taught AND demonstrated the kingdom of God, multitudes followed Him and brought others to hear Him and see Him. I bet you we’d have similar results and effects if there was more to our Gospel than just intellectual reasoning and emotional healing—something more that the dying world around us can see and not rationalize away or be able to balk at.
How would atheists and skeptics rationalize away a dead-raising in our midst? Or limbs growing back? Or eyes that never could see, opening? How would they rationalize it if that were common place all the time amongst all believers, not just the high peak of our spirituality?
Jesus healed them all, of every thing.
What is your “every”?
