Healing Today

By Jeremy Groves

I am deeply moved by the transformative power of God's love, especially when I witness it change someone’s broken world forever in a single moment.

Growing up, I was not in an environment that fully embraced the concept of healing for today.

However, my perspective shifted when I experienced God's healing firsthand. In a single moment, He cured me of a debilitating respiratory infection, sparking a fervent desire within me to understand Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.

Healing is powerful. In a moment, someone’s world is changed forever. What used to be a dark room filled with sadness and struggle has become filled with light, freedom, hope, and a newfound purpose.

Healing breaks into the impossible situations of our lives and flips the script, rewriting our story from one of brokenness and disease to strength and life. This is our God.

Healing is a significant aspect of God's love, a love that is committed to eradicating sin and its effects from His creation.

This love was demonstrated through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Redeemer of all humanity.

I am thrilled to share with you the insights I have gained on my journey with the Holy Spirit, particularly about the transformative power of healing, its relevance in our modern context, and the future of the Church.

Let’s remember, all sickness and disease must bow to the name of Jesus, a name that means victory and power above all other names! Amen!

Healing: The Key to Kingdom Advancement

Romans 15:18-19 declares:

“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.” (NIV, 1973/2011)

Healing is vital to the advancement of the kingdom of God. Healing is a facet of who God is. If we are not demonstrating the healing power of God, we are not fully preaching the message Jesus entrusted to us. We are called to do the same things Jesus did (see John 14:12).

If we could look at the spiritual gifts as an arsenal of weapons, healing would be the broadsword that cuts through death and disease, destroying the enemy’s plans with maximum ferocity.

I have heard many say that healing is the calling card of evangelism. I genuinely believe that. Evangelism is where we take the fight to the enemy, freeing people from the bondage of satan.

Many people are acquainted with suffering and sickness, believing it is our everyday reality that we need to deal with.

This is the lie that the kingdom of darkness has been spreading, which began through sin when they twisted and corrupted God’s perfect creation.

Healing is God’s love demonstrated to the recipient as proof of Jesus’s victory and the enemy’s defeat. It signals the redemption of humanity from the effects of the fall.

Healing enforces the reversal of the curse through the reality of becoming a new creation in Christ. It draws those who are broken to experience the new life God has reserved for them if they believe.

Healing is unlike any other miracle in its ability to hit the weak point of most people, fear of death and disease.

The writer of Hebrews illustrates this truth in Hebrews 2:14-17:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (NIV, 1973/2011)

Post COVID-19: Uniquely Positioned for A Great Harvest

Jesus was broken so that we could be whole. I often say that the blood of Jesus was shed to remove sin, but His body was broken to remove sin’s effects.

Healing demonstrates the authority of God given to His Son because of His sacrifice for humanity. And when we, as believers, decide to stand in the gap for humanity, we can walk in the same power He did.

This is but a glimpse of the power of healing issued from the divine presence of God through His chosen people who surrender to His will for a reconciled humanity.

We are called to bring the fight to the enemy, who is working to keep the world blind to the love of Jesus Christ.

Through the healing anointing God has made available for us, we can destroy the devil’s work in people's lives and introduce them to a personal and present God.

In the 21st Century, the United States has experienced continual war, civil unrest, famine, and disease outbreaks. The world is just starting to recover from the massive outbreak of death and sickness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, I have observed an increased fear of sickness and disease, higher anxiety, and other mental and emotional issues due to long periods of isolation.

I believe that healing is uniquely positioned to transform society significantly and bring in a great harvest in our current context. It is a powerful demonstration of the love and power of God, delivering people from the fear of death and disease.

An outbreak of God’s healing power through His Church in this hour of history would do much to solidify that God is greater than death and disease, and that His people carry His authority over the works of the enemy. It would show that death and disease are not God’s orchestration; it is the enemy's.

I believe that if we grasp God’s will for healing and the other gifts of the Spirit, and partner with Him to demonstrate His love to the lost, sick, and broken, we will see a great harvest.

We will witness a monumental growth of corporate faith in the miraculous as an everyday reality of a Christian. This is our potential, our calling, and our pursuit.

The Church and Healing: Unity in Purpose is Vital

There has been much contention over the role of healing in the Church age for several decades. Some views range from only the “holy” can receive healing to God does not heal anymore, and even that it is not always God’s will to heal.

I believe it is always God’s will to heal, just as He wills that all people be saved (see 1 Timothy 2:4) and has made provision for it.

However, fulfilling His will requires the partnership and faith of humanity to bring it into realization. What is lacking in our understanding within the global Church concerning healing is knowledge of God's ways.

When we pursue to know Him intimately from a posture of surrender and not simply pursue him so that we can build theological dogma to validate our beliefs, we can clear the fog of misunderstanding and begin to see the scriptures faithfully through the lens of the nature and character of God revealed to us in intimate contact and communion with His Spirit and the illumination of His Word.

There has been much abuse surrounding doctrinal positions on healing. Upon closer examination of these doctrines, I have found that the majority are based on experience or, rather, the lack thereof, much like the doctrine of cessationism.

For example, I was discussing healing with a former Sunday school teacher who had a cessationist background, and while he shifted to believe that God can heal, he adamantly taught that it is not always God’s will.

Upon further questioning, I ascertained that he had experienced hurt when he prayed for someone and they were not healed.

We must not determine the will of God by our experience. We must offer ourselves to God in surrender and allow His nature through His presence and implanted Word to transform us into the living expression of His will.

If we make that our goal and decide to pursue learning the ways of God from that posture, much of the division the Church has experienced would fade because of the humility required to live that way.

When we hold our positions open-handedly to God’s loving correction, we will find that we will be more unified in our doctrine, and our experiences will begin to line up.

The Church at large would see the proof in the pudding of what we preach and be much more receptive because we are not preaching healing through a lens of opinion or hurt, but through scriptural integrity and testimony of the miraculous because of the love of God demonstrated through His people.

This place of unity would create a platform for God's favor to land, and I believe we would see many more healings than we do now.

In his book, “Authority to Heal: Restoring the Lost Inheritance of God’s Healing Power,” Randy Clark, a prominent voice for healing in our day, said, “If we as believers are to co-labor with God to advance His Kingdom here on earth, we must know His ways. It is in that intimate relationship of knowing who God is that we find His enabling favor.” (2017, p. 140)

Healing is for Today!

We are in an hour of history where the power of our healing God is ready to be manifested and put on display for all in need of our savior God.

Healing is for today, and it takes a Church grabbing hold of the Word of God and obeying it until they see the realization of their faith as the manifestation of God’s healing power touches the sick and diseased, bringing them freedom and a revelation of Jesus, the healer.

I have often seen God heal someone through my hands, and there have also been many times when healing did not come.

I am committed to persevering in the Word until my life aligns with what scriptures and the voice of the Spirit tell me is possible so that the Church and the world see an accurate picture of the healing nature of God and grab hold of it by faith for themselves and the world around them.

A Church clothed in healing power is the divine solution to delivering a generation enslaved to sickness and disease.

In the closing pages of “The Essential Guide to Healing: Equipping All Christians to Pray for the Sick,” Randy Clark commissions us, “In the name of Jesus, go. Go do the stuff. Heal the sick and cast out demons.” (2011, p. 240)

As we obey this commission, we will see our generation transformed. Let us take up our healing mantle in Christ and go forth!

I encourage you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the wonder of the healing power of God in your life and how you, too, can partner with Him to see impossible situations eradicated by the love of Christ.

References

Clark, R. (2017). Authority to heal: Restoring the lost inheritance of god's healing power (1st ed.). Destiny Image.

Holy Bible: New International Version. (2011). Zondervan. (Original work published 1973)

Johnson, B., & Clark, R. (2011). The essential guide to healing. Chosen Books.