In many cases, those who were healed were those who came to Him for healing. They believed He could heal them, and He often said distinctly, "Your faith has made you whole."
There were times; however, when Jesus would come upon someone of His own volition to heal them, without their initiative. For example, Jesus took His disciples across the Sea of Galilee to an area that was not Jewish. When they arrived, they were confronted by a demon-possessed man who was living naked among the tombs. The demons recognized Him and begged Him not to send them to the abyss. He sent the demons per their request into a large herd of pigs, which ran into the sea and drowned.
When those from the community came to see what had happened, they found this infamous demoniac clothed, in his right mind, sitting at Jesus' feet. In their fear, they asked Jesus to leave.
So, Jesus traveled across the sea for the sole purpose of delivering this man. Oh, and interestingly, on their way to meet him, they were struck by a severe and nearly deadly storm. Jesus simply rebuked the storm and it immediately calmed. For some reason this man's deliverance was worth fighting for!
Since His death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus by the Holy Spirit continues to heal and deliver those who are suffering. But does He heal and deliver all who ask Him?
No. I have a friend, the faithful Christian daughter of my pastor. A young woman who was for a time a missionary. She married and had children. One of her daughters was born with a condition that caused her to experience epileptic seizures regularly. This believing mom and her entire believing family prayed earnestly for her healing. They also took her to some respected healing ministers for prayer. She was not healed and subsequently endured brain surgery to help her. She is on quite a long road to recovery.
So, why? Why did God not heal her?
Although we do not know the reason, I believe God has a definite compassionate reason for her situation. I believe God is love and however He responds to our prayers, He does so for a specific reason, a reason for a more loving and powerful outcome. Do we know what that reason is? We don't now, but I believe we will in eternity, and that it will be one more reason for us to praise and thank Him.
I am going to give one example of this. Jesus, Himself, lived out an example of One whose prayer for rescue and protection was not answered as perhaps His heart would have wished at the time. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to the Father, "Let this cup pass." He spoke of the cup of His coming suffering death. But Jesus added, "not My will but Thine be done."
Even John the Baptist, the first one to recognize Who Jesus was, believed He was the Messiah Who had come to "thoroughly clean out His threshing floor and gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He
(would) burn with unquenchable fire." When John saw Jesus' ministry was not what he expected, i.e. that rather than His ministry leading to His kingship and His kingdom's creation, that Jesus' ministry was heading toward His death, John sent to Jesus asking if He was the Messiah or if there was someone else they should be looking for. (BTW, John was himself in prison, soon to be executed.)
Jesus responded, "the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them." All those who knew Scripture, knew there was a prophecy in Daniel detailing the Messiah's appearing in Jerusalem presenting Himself as King. And Jesus did fulfill that prophecy to the very day. However, there were two pictures of Messiah presented in the Jewish Scriptures: The Son of David - the conquering King Who would rescue and free Israel, setting up His kingdom and the Son of Joseph - the suffering Servant who would be rejected and die. Everyone looked for the conquering King to deliver them from Roman rule and oppression.
However, Jesus had come with a greater purpose than the deliverance of Israel and continuation of the keeping of the law (which no one could keep and which justified no one). Isaiah 49:6 says, "it is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved one of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach the end of the earth."
God could definitely have saved Jesus from the cross and His suffering, allowing Him to set up His kingdom on earth, defeating and displacing the Romans. However, if He had done so, the non-Jewish population would have remained outside of God's people and the Jews would have remained under the law, striving for justification and continuing to fall far short.
God had such an amazing purpose, beyond our comprehension and expectations. His plan opened His can and His reach to the entire earth, bring together believing Jews and Gentiles into one family of God, even calling them His children. And even more amazing, Christ died on the cross, taking our sins upon Himself, dying in our place, that we might be freely justified forever in Him. He also defeated death!
The whole point of all of this is to say, in sickness, suffering and trials, we as children of God turn to Him for healing, deliverance and rescue, but we do so even as Christ did, adding "not my will, but Thine be done." We do so because we trust in His merciful love for us, that He does not carelessly leave us to face hardship. We know that if His answer is "not now" or "not in this way" He does everything from a heart of love that is far deeper than we can imagine. We trust that whatever His answer may be, it is from His very heart of profound love and grace (favor that we have not earned). And we know whatever He allows us to face, He will see us through, He will face it with us.
Oh, and I am going to add, we know all this from experience, from evidence of that loving grace and goodness. I am not talking here of a blind faith of wishful thinking. Rather, besides the amazing examples of His great love we have recorded in Scripture, we experience that love and grace day by day in our lives. We can look back at the many, many times that God has taken what we saw as expected tragedy and loss, and blessed them in such a way that they became our greatest blessings and joys. In some other cases, we may not see the blessed results of each experience in the present, but we have learned that God is OVERWHELMINGLY GOOD and KIND and LOVING, and so we trust Him and we entrust every situation in our lives to His will.
Posts
