Healing

Is anyone among you in trouble?  Let them pray.  ...  Is anyone among you sick?  Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.  If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. - James 5:13-16

There is another aspect of these verses that came to me a year or so ago.  "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.  If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."  There is a direct connection between healing and forgiveness.  Jesus also addresses this when He heals a paraplegic man as recorded in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5.  He tells the man, "Your sins are forgiven" and the man is healed.  Once questioned on whether He can forgive a man's sins, Jesus asks, "Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?"  In essence, Jesus is saying that the two are the same.

There are a lot of rabbits to chase in these verses.  But the one that was revealed to me was that we need to be healed from our sins, not our physical infirmities.  People do not see their spiritual condition until they are praying to God and He reveals it to them slowly, or a man of God delivering a message of God shows it to them.  I have to be healed from my sins.  I have to be healed from the sins people commit against me.  Jesus came to forgive sins and He heals us; we depend upon Him and nothing else.

Our spiritual condition is what matters and nothing else.  Jesus will heal us of this or that if it causes our belief in Him to be improved and it's not just a sideshow of His power.  How many more will believe in Him because of the miracle and our great testimonies of Jesus?  While I think that is the real question behind any healing, I also know He listens intently and sincerely to His children and He is ready to ease our suffering.  As a sinful man and a father I have compassion for my children, how much more a perfect Father has for His children!

Yet I long to have the friend relationship with Him.  The one where we are always together and I can say to Him, as I would say to anyone "Hand me that screwdriver", "Heal them" knowing He will or that He will answer the thought in truth.  This is the way I think Paul and Peter walked in Acts and that is the way I want to walk.