God’s Healing and Health

God’s Healing and Health.

Hello again, I’m Randy Gaudet, founder and director of All Thailand Experiences. Those who have read my profile know how I first came to Thailand and my association with missions and churches since 1989.

We use funds from our tours to help the needy, change lives and spread the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We teach about the Holy Trinity, Love and Grace because of Jesus Christ and to tell Christians they are free from the Law, sin and death.

On all our Bible Truths Christian teaching blogs I will point to scriptures and explain the meaning on the topic. As our mission is to reach Thai people we will then watch or listen to Pastors Nathan and Solila Gonmei of Abundance Grace Church in Chiang Mai Thailand give a sermon on the topic in English and Thai Languages.

Today we’re going to talk about God’s Healing and Health.

Exodus 23:25, NIV: “Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,”

This is why we should pray over our food before eating.

1 John 5:14, NIV: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

After emphasizing confidence in eternal life, John comments on confidence in prayer. The believer can know he or she has eternal life and know God hears their prayers. However, this verse specifies that getting a positive answer to prayer is based on asking “according to his will.” This phrase is used only two other times in the New Testament. In Luke 12:47, a parable is told about a servant who did not act “according to his [master’s] will” and received judgment. In Hebrews 2:4, the author mentions gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed “according to his will.”

Verses such as this clear up the common misconception that God promises to give us “absolutely anything” we ask for, no matter what. God is not a vending machine, or a robot. He acts according to His ways, not ours. He hears our prayers, but it should come as no surprise that He responds to those prayers according to His will.

1 Peter 2:24, NIV: “He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.'”

Jesus chose this path because He trusted the Father to be the just judge, to make all things right. Jesus suffered for doing good, without fighting back, so He could fulfill His purpose. Verse 24 describes exactly what that purpose was.

If Jesus had not willingly endured unjust suffering, we would have remained lost in our sin. Instead, Jesus bore, or “carried,” our sins on the cross. He actually died in order to pay the penalty for our sinful actions. He became our substitute, dying the death we deserved. God, the one who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23) judged Christ for our sin in that moment, pouring out His wrath on His own Son to satisfy the payment for our sin. He endured suffering so we could die to sin and curse. In that action, by God’s grace and through our faith in Christ, we have been freed. Believers are free from the price of our own sin, and from the power of sin and curse to poison our choices. Now, thanks to Jesus’ suffering, Christians can live righteously and healthy. We don’t have to sin or live with sickness and disease; we are free to make right choices that please and honor our God (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The verse ends by quoting Isaiah 53:5, a profound play on words. As Christians, we have been healed from the penalty and power of our sin by Christ’s wounds, by His death in our place, by His suffering for our good. The wounds—the suffering—of Jesus are the means by which Christians are healed—forgiven by God for our sins. This reference is not 0nly about physical conditions, but our spiritual destiny.

1 Corinthians 12:8, NIV: “To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,”

Paul has been describing to the Christians in Corinth what spiritual gifts are. In short, they are manifestations of the Holy Spirit. That is, they are abilities that go beyond normal human capacity in some specific way, even if the display of God’s power is not always obvious. Paul has shown that they are given to every Christian by God to be used for the common good of the church.

Now Paul begins to describe some of these specific gifts. This first list contains nine gifts, and it is not exhaustive. Other passages in the New Testament list additional spiritual gifts (Romans 12:6–8; Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 4:10–11).

Some groups of Christians believe this specific set of gifts, sometimes called the sign gifts or confirmation gifts, to have been given to Christians in the early church to demonstrate the power of God and confirm that the gospel was true. These groups typically believe God stopped giving these gifts after the church was established and the New Testament was published. The same group may or may not believe these gifts are given today sporadically and under special circumstances. Other groups of believers, such as Pentecostals and Charismatics believe these gifts are still distributed by the Holy Spirit regularly and throughout the church around the world.

Paul starts the list with two gifts of “utterance” or kinds of messages. He says again that both are given by the same Spirit, though they are slightly different. The first is the “utterance” or “word” or “message” of wisdom, depending on the translation. The second is the utterance of knowledge.

The word of wisdom involves the supernatural ability to offer insight into truth from God in a way that helps others. The word of knowledge might be understood as the ability to proclaim God’s revelation to those who need to hear it or to offer understanding of how it applies to specific areas of life.

1 Corinthians 12:9, NIV: “to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,”

Paul is listing some of the gifts the Holy Spirit delivers to believers. Not every believer is given every gift. Paul wrote in the previous verse that one is given the utterance of wisdom, while another is given the utterance—or “message”—of knowledge.

Now he adds that one might be given the gift of faith, while another gifts of healing. In all cases, Paul’s emphasis is that these gifts are given by the same Holy Spirit of God. He is the source of each of them, and all the power behind them comes from God.

By definition, every born-again believer has faith in Christ and faith to believe God’s Word. The spiritual gift of faith, as narrowly implied here, seems to involve the ability to trust God with a confidence or certainty that is beyond the ability of other Christians. Some scholars suggest this gift is tied to the rest of the gifts in this list, including the gifts of healing.

The gifts of healing provide the supernatural ability for the person who possesses the gift to restore health or even to hold off death. This is not to be confused with the ability to practice the medical arts or sciences. Those with the gift of healing are empowered by the Holy Spirit to heal a specific ailment supernaturally, often immediately.

Acts 10:38, NLT: “And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Notice that all 3 of the Holy Trinity are involved, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you are born again the same Holy Spirit is in you, the same Power of God is in you and you have the righteousness of Jesus.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus blessed the vulnerable and held the powerful responsible (John 2:1–11, 13–16; Mark 10:13–16), He healed the demonically oppressed (Mark 1:23–26; 5:1–13; Matthew: 17:14–18), and brought the dead to life (Mark 5:39–43; John 11:38–44). Most importantly, not only was God with Him, He is God with us (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23).

In the previous verse, Peter described Jesus’ refusal to retaliate against those who mistreated Him. Jesus chose this path because He trusted the Father to be the just judge, to make all things right. Jesus suffered for doing good, without fighting back, so He could fulfill His purpose. Verse 24 describes exactly what that purpose was.

Mark 16:18, NIV: “they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.'”

This verse is the least authentic in Mark 16. Where most of Mark 16:9–20 is accounted for elsewhere in the Bible, one facet of this verse is entirely unique.

Jesus promised the disciples that in the course of spreading the gospel, they would be able to “tread on serpents and scorpions” (Luke 10:19). Outside of a short illustration (Luke 11:12), scorpions are not mentioned again until Revelation which seems to speak of locust-like demons with the sting of scorpions (Revelation 9:1–11).

Similarly, the Bible doesn’t recall the literal appearance of snakes except for Paul’s run-in with a viper (Acts 28:1–6). While Paul was tending a fire, a viper, drawn by the heat, bit him on the hand. He shook the snake off into the flames and went about his business, surprising the locals who expected him to die.

Disciples did heal in the course of their evangelism. First, Peter and John healed a lame beggar (Acts 3:1–10). Soon after, the Holy Spirit becomes so present that apparently even people who crossed Peter’s shadow were healed (Acts 5:12–16). Later, the Holy Spirit validated Paul’s ministry by healing those who touched an apron or handkerchief that Paul had touched (Acts 19:11–12).

Nowhere, however, does the Bible record the disciples drinking poison and living. The corroborating account is from the apocryphal text “The Acts of John.” The book says that the apostle John was challenged to drink poison; he did and lived. We have no way of knowing if this account is true, but that apocryphal work’s many other flaws make everything in it subject to serious doubt.

What we can say is that this verse does not tell believers to handle snakes or drink poison. If the disciples survived serpents and poison, it was because the Holy Spirit was validating their message through miracles. But as Jesus told Satan, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7).

The snakes and poison the Bible is talking about here is curse and deadly diseases. The curse placed on humans by the serpent at the garden of Eden included sickness along with the poison of deadly disease. Before the serpent (Satan) took possession of this earth after Adam’s sin Eden did not have any sickness or disease.

1 Peter 2:24, NLT: “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.”

If Jesus had not willingly endured unjust suffering, we would have remained lost in our sin. Instead, Jesus bore, or “carried,” our sins and physical suffering on the cross. He actually died in order to pay the penalty for our sinful actions. He became our substitute, dying the death we deserved. God, the one who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23) judged Christ for our sin in that moment, pouring out His wrath on His own Son to satisfy the payment for our sin. He endured suffering so we could die to sin. In that action, by God’s grace and through our faith in Christ, we have been freed. Believers are free from the price of our own sin, from the power of sin to poison our choices and sickness and disease. Now, thanks to Jesus’ suffering, Christians can live righteously. We don’t have to sin; we are free to make right choices that please and honor our God (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The verse ends by quoting Isaiah 53:5. As Christians, we have been healed from the penalty and power of our sin by Christ’s wounds, by His death in our place, by His suffering for our good. The wounds—the suffering—of Jesus are the means by which Christians are healed—not only forgiven by God for our sins but physical healing from sickness and disease.

Pastors Nathan and Salila Gonmei of Abundant Grace Church in Chiang Mai Thailand explain Biblical health and healing and how to walk in it in English and Thai languages in the 16 minute video below.