Does God Heal?

Exodus 15:26
For I am the Lord (Jehovah Rapha) who heals you.

Heals how?
When?
To what degree and type of healing is God able to bring to my life?
To me, it is the easiest of questions to answer.
He is able to heal whatever needs healing.

The idea of a God being able to heal the disease and sickness that seems so much a part of human existence, is hard for some to wrap their heads around.
I confess from time to time, I have a hard go at wrapping my understanding of a God who can speak disease away. Heal the body in ways that cannot be explained. It seems to me that we tend to fall in one of two camps.

On one hand, we have the doubters and skeptics who claim such foolishness as "divine" healing's aren't real. Never have been and never will be. Oh, they don't doubt God's existence. They just believe such things somehow stopped when the last apostle died out.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have those who believe that God heals everyone, every time. They can quote chapter and verse as to the capability of God. But let someone come for healing and nothing happens, then it sends them into doing spin control. "Well, they didn't have enough faith." Or "There is sin in their hearts that is blocking God's healing.

To be honest this morning----I have camped in both of those views at one time or another during my life.
It wasn't until I came to the Vineyard and listened to John Wimber teach on healing, that everything made sense. You see, I believe that there is a middle ground that has a view to God and His ability to heal that makes sense to my feeble brain.

Does God heal? Yes.
Does God heal every time we pray? No.
So what is this....a holy crap shoot? We roll the dice and hope we hit the numbers? No.
The answer is found in the Kingdom of God.
What do we know to be the truth about God and His desire to heal?
Here is a quote from John Wimber's book Power Healing by Richard Foster.
At the very heart of God burns the desire to give and forgive. Such a thought should encourage us to believe that God is good and that He desires to pour out His goodness into our hearts and lives. It warns against locking God into a safe, distant past. It urges us to invite the winds of the Holy Spirit to blow freely----healing and liberating, loving and forgiving."

Some folks use Isaiah 53:5 as the basis or foundation for their belief that God heals.
"But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes we are healed."

Their belief is that healing came in through the atonement of Christ. Jesus satisfying the sin debt that every man, woman and child has to pay. He became the payment for what sin demands.
I too believe that healing was ushered in through the atonement of Jesus.
But healing is carried out within the Kingdom of God.
A kingdom that is near but not yet.
A Kingdom that is in our midst but is not complete.
We are the beneficiaries of a "NOW" work of Christ that comes from a future Kingdom that has not been completed in our midst.
The kingdom of God is the dynamic rule and reign of God in our time and space.

We only need look to Revelation 22:4 to see what the Kingdom of God will look like in its fullness. "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Thee shall be no more death, no sorrow, nor crying. Thee shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
Do we still see pain? Death? Sorrow and crying? Sure we do. But we also see God's hand at work in the midst of these terrible days. So we are kind of caught in a time between the times when the Kingdom of God is being established here on earth.

I know this answer will not satisfy some as to why God heals some and others He doesn't. But I do know this. I will continue to pray for everyone who needs healing, because I know that if I don't then no one will be healed.
God is still in the healing business.I think I'll trust Him.

God on you.....
mb