Tuesday, December 21, 2004

A Benefit of Salvation: Health

“Who His Own self bare our sins in His Own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by Whose stripes ye were healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

As we read the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John one thing becomes very clear, Jesus is all about healing the sick. Jesus healed lepers, He healed the blind, the lame, and He even raised the dead. “Now when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much of the people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, weep not. And He came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say to thee, arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him unto his mother.” Luke 7:12-15 Jesus had not yet gone to the Cross and He had not yet received a single stripe, yet we see that His purpose and His ministry was to make people whole, and healing is part of being whole! If this was Jesus’ Ministry before He was sacrificed and if this is how He acted before He was raised from the dead, how much more do you suppose that it is how His Ministry is now? Now that He has shed His Blood and ushered in the New Testament, the better Testament?

Let me ask you this as well, did that mother, whose son had died, come to Jesus and ask for a miracle? Did her son ask to be raised from the dead? No, Jesus was just walking by and He had compassion and acted on His compassion. Look at John 5:5-9. “And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.”

This lame man at the Pool of Bethesda showed no faith whatsoever; he only had doubt and when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be whole, he said that he couldn’t be, because someone else would beat him to it. Did this man’s complete lack of faith stop Jesus? Absolutely not! Jesus just told him to be whole and he was. There are a lot of people that will try to tell you that your healing depends solely on our faith, or our ability to believe that we can be. Well here are two examples where there was none and yet there were healings! Faith can play a role in healings, Jesus told the woman with an issue of blood, Luke 8:43, that her faith had made her whole. But grace and compassion are a huge part of our Father's personality and our Father is not limited!

Go back and review the Greek words for salvation and saved, they both mean health and deliverance from sickness and disease. Soteria (salvation), Strong’s 4991: means deliverer, health, rescue, and safety. Fourfold salvation: saved from the penalty, power, presence and most importantly the pleasure of sin. Deliverance from the molestation of enemies, future salvation: the sum of benefits and blessings which the Christians, redeemed from all earthly ills, will enjoy after the visible return of Christ from heaven in the consummated and eternal kingdom of God. Sozo (saved), Strong's 4982, means to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger and destruction. To save one from perishing, to save from disease, to make well, to heal, to restore. To preserve, to deliver from the penalties of sin and judgment and finally to save from the evils which obstruct the reception of deliverance.

Jesus healed so many people during His earthly ministry that when they couldn’t get to Him with the sick they literally ripped the roofs off where He was, so that they could get to Him, Mark 2:4. We can’t read the Gospels and ever come up with the conclusion that our Father wants us sick; it’s just not the Truth! Not once does Jesus say that He wants someone sick. He never says that He has allowed sickness on a person to teach them a Truth about God, nor does He ever deny to heal anyone. Jesus never said that He couldn’t heal because it was our Father's will for them to be sick! Everywhere that Jesus went He healed, whether they could accept it or not! Even in His hometown where He marveled at their unbelief, the Word says Jesus healed! Now Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He changes not. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 So if God acted that way through Jesus 2000 years ago, He is the same way today. If He was healing the sick back then, He is healing them today, He ever lives to intercede for us and that is why we are saved, and healed to the uttermost! By Jesus’ stripes we are healed!

Ask yourself this, when does the Word of God say that we were healed? Our Father had Peter write that it was when Jesus went to the Cross. Now God just didn’t have Peter write this, He also had Isaiah write it hundreds of years before Jesus was born. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 Hundreds of years before it happened; God was talking as if it already did.

I have heard it said that our Father allows sickness on us so that we can minister to those who are sick. That’s just foolish, do I need to be gay to minister to a homosexual? Do I need to be convicted of a crime to minister to those in jail? Do I need to murder to minister to a murderer? Let’s say I have had a cold, does that qualify me then to minister to someone with cancer? And what if I have had a curable cancer, does that then give me the ability to minister to those with terminal cancer? It’s absolutely foolish to think this way, but many do. The scripture teaches us that we can minister because we have the Holy Ghost abiding within us teaching us all things. We need not to have endured the specific situation to minister to the person who is in it. We have God; we have His Spirit dwelling within us, and that is what gives us the ability to minister to each and every need! We are born of God; we are of His seed. We are born of the same seed that bore Jesus; we have the same Spirit within us that God gave to Jesus, the Holy Spirit. Did Jesus need to have leprosy to minister to the lepers? Did Jesus need to die to raise the dead? Did Jesus need to sin to minister to the sinners? Well, how did He do it, how did He minister if He had not suffered all of these things? He did it because God’s Truth ministers to all situations and the gifts of God minister to the needs of the people! We have God within us and He knows how to use us to minister to each and every situation!

What are the gifts of God that allows Him to use us to minister and profit those in need? “And there are distinctive varieties of operation [of working to accomplish things], but it is the same God Who inspires and energizes them all in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of the [Holy] Spirit [the evidence, the spiritual illumination of the Spirit] for good and profit. To one is given in and through the [Holy] Spirit [the power to speak] a message of wisdom, and to another [the power to express] a word of knowledge and understanding according to the same Holy Spirit. To another [wonder working] faith by the same [Holy] Spirit, to another the extraordinary powers of healing by the one Spirit; To another the working of miracles, to another prophetic insight (the gift of interpreting the Divine will and purpose); to another the ability to discern and distinguish between [the utterances of true] spirits [and false ones]; to another various kinds of [unknown] tongues, to another the ability to interpret [such] tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12:5-10 Amplified Bible

Our Father never says there is a gift of sickness! There is no gift of disease to educate or allow us to minister, but there is a gift to heal! These are the gifts to profit and the gifts that do good, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and sickness and disease are not one of them!

God’s desire for us is to be in health and for us to be prospering, 3 John 3:2. It is an absolute lie of satan to think anything else! Jesus paid a high price so that we could live righteously and so that we could have health. Salvation means health, it is one of the greatest earthly benefits of salvation. Jesus went about healing all who were sick, and He even gave His disciples the power to do the same. We read that when the Holy Ghost came to dwell in man, one of the results was healing. Jesus marveled when people refused it. Never once do we read anything that remotely resembles a desire or willingness of Jesus for us to be sick. If it were true that sickness was to be used as a teaching or strengthening tool of God, don’t you think there would be a least one chapter in the Gospels that taught about Jesus releasing sickness on someone? I hear it all of the time in Church that sickness is allowed on us by God to teach us to minster to the sick, if it were that true, don’t you think we would read plainly about it being so in the Word? But it’s not in there, the Word proclaims that by His stripes we are healed, He came that we might have life and that we might have it abundantly! Our darkness is as the noonday and glory be to God we are His Temple, flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone! Salvation means health, and now is the day of salvation!

Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. An abundant life is one of health. The Greek Word that means abundance is perissos, Strong’s 4053, it means exceeding, over and above, more than necessary, supremely, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon, more remarkable, and more excellent. If an abundant life meant we were to be sick, than we should be sicker than any one else, far more than necessary, we should be uncommonly sick, far above those who aren’t saved. People who are sick are trying to be well. You know anyone who is sick that isn’t. They go to the doctor, people are trying to eat right and exercise to avoid being sick, abundance does not include sickness.

The Bible teaches us that as God is, so are we on this earth, 1 John 4:17, is our Father sick, can He be sick, does He need to be sick to minister to us? Our Father proclaims that if we are saved than sickness will not even come near where we dwell. “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” Psalm 91:9-10 Is God lying here? Did God lie when He said that by Jesus’ stripes we were healed? Did Jesus respect those people He ministered to some 2000 years ago more than He does us? Jesus said it was better that He went away, because if He went away then the Holy Ghost would come. So shouldn’t healing and health be even more prevalent within us, for it to be better for us?

These Truths are why salvation is so great! No man can steal them from us; words only begin to scratch the surface of the power of these Truths. These Truths of health and abundance, about wisdom and knowledge, and a victorious life through Christ are for all men. There is no reason each and every one of us can’t live fully within them. Through God all things are possible and with Him no foe is able to stand! God will provide complete and total victory, in every area of our lives, every day, from now throughout all of eternity! Grab a hold of God, and you will never experience the disappointment of failure. God will lead you into the paths of righteousness and virtue will be yours! You are a child of God; Jesus is our example, the first born among many brethren. If God did it through Jesus, it is a pattern for how He will do it through us as well! Salvation means health, any other doctrine, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing!

Go and read how Jesus healed the Centurions servant, how He healed Peters mother-in-law, how He healed the ten lepers, the man with the withered hand, and the little girl that had died. Read about Lazarus, read how the Apostles would walk by and people were instantly healed, read how Paul anointed handkerchiefs and the people who touched them were healed. Go and read how Paul was preaching and a guy fell to his death during the sermon, and how Paul went down and raised Him from the dead, and went on preaching until morning. Go read how Paul was stoned and taken out of the city, and was raised from the dead. Read all of these and allow God to reveal to you that salvation means health, Godly Health, abundant health, more than needed health, health in excess, and uncommon health! Jesus is Lord and He is a Lord of abundance!

1 comment:

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