There are many ways in which God heals people. Some require faith on the part of the recipient, others are gifted through God’s grace and provision. Everything to do with healing has been set up by God and is accessed through His provision.
Even when medically trained staff apply recovery processes for the sick, the solutions they access are provided by God at some point or other. Medical cures that we still don’t have today will be eventually discovered, but the building blocks for these are available today. We just haven’t found them yet.
Most of medicine deals with human body’s capacity for fighting disease. This is inherent in Creation. God put the ability to be healed in our makeup. Occasionally, though, we need an intervention when our body is unable to cope with sickness on its own.
God has given us the capacity for wisdom and the wonderful sense of curiosity that is often enhanced by necessity. In past generations scientists sought discoveries to demonstrate the existence of and interaction with God.
The tools are there, then, but we are also blessed with the supernatural. Anyone who has followed the works of Jesus will know that there were occasions when He countermanded science and nature with miraculous cures and interventions.
This, we are told, was to demonstrate the power and majesty of God the father. He came to show us that access to God’s healing virtue was available.
Healing by mercy
There were occasions when Jesus healed people who were in need by simply being available to them. One can think of the lame man who was by the Pool of Bethesda, where an angel stirred the waters and the first into the pool was miraculously healed.
This man was not quick enough to enter the pool. When Jesus spoke to him He offered another means of healing.
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. (1 John 5:6-9)
The man’s faith isn’t mentioned. Jesus simply healed him with a word. Did the lame man have faith to be healed? We won’t know from this passage, except that his faith was in the stirring of the waters, but the important thing is that Jesus was willing to heal him.
Did Jesus heal the other people at the well? Again, we don’t know. Did He have the power to heal them? Evidently, but in this instance compassion was the motive for reaching out to the lame man.
Why faith?
There were other occasions, though, when the individual’s faith came into play. We cannot negate these. The woman with the issue of blood, who had tried many cures by many physicians and agencies, and was now an outcast from her community came to Jesus in faith. He commended her for it.
When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, "If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well." Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My clothes?" But His disciples said to Him, "You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. (Mark 5:27-34)
Her faith had made her whole. Jesus felt virtue, or healing power, go out from Him. He was charged with the virtue, but it was the woman who plugged her faith into the charge.
He was not actively engaged in approaching her. She came to Him and touched the hem of His garment. It was her faith and His virtue that cleansed this woman. She believed before she saw Him. She determined how she would be healed before He arrived.
There are times when we need to approach the Healer with faith. This can only come by hearing the Word and acting on it. There is still great power to believing and acting on the Word of God.
Faith can come to us. It can be received through hearing and accepting the Word. If God healed then He can heal today. It depends on His grace and our capacity to believe what He tells us
Clearly there are diverse means by which God heals, but we cannot negate the truth that our faith can tap into His virtue.
