We as Christians seem to be stuck in a dilemma between believing God or believing something else. We know that we love the Father and we know that His Word is true. We also know that what we've learned all of our lives has some merit as well. It's like turning loose of what we're holding onto to keep from falling (like grabbing someone's hand to pull us up). I know that as long as I hold on I will be okay, but I know I can't hold on forever. We want to hold onto what we know, but want to reach out to what God says. We're constantly in the same kind of position that the man in the Gospel of Mark 9:24 (Amplified) when Jesus was to cast out a devil from the man's son. Jesus told him that "all things are possible to him who believes." His answer was one that seems to be echoed down through history. In Verse 24 (Amplified), "at once the father of the boy gave (an eager, piercing, inarticulate) cry with tears, and he said, 'Lord, I believe! (Constantly) help my weakness of faith!'"
We've all run into the same kind of thing in our own walk with Jesus. We find ourselves in a place where we are constantly believing, yet not able to obtain what we seem to believe. Unbelief isn't a lack of faith, but a lack of understanding. We have faith already because you used that faith to become born again. So, it's not a matter of understanding what our faith can do. Sometimes, it's just a matter of misplaced faith.
We can't have faith for healing until we first have faith in the Healer. Everything that was done for us was done all at the same time on Calvary. We're still trying to get God to heal us, when as far as He's concerned, He already did. Matthew 8:17 (Amplified) says, "And thus He fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah,' He Himself took (in order to carry away) our weaknesses and infirmities and bore away our diseases,'" Isaiah 53:4. We read this and come back to "Lord, help my unbelief." We can still look around and see people who aren't healed and we wonder why. We believe what the Word says and yet we also believe what our eyes see around us and then we still don't believe. We know that God can heal us because He is God and can do all things. We still hold onto the branch to keep from falling (because at least I won't fall) when all the time the hand is stretched out for our deliverance. Even then we still won't turn completely loose and trust Him.
I,too, see people who aren't healed and I have questions as well. I can also look around and see people who aren't saved, but I never ask whether Jesus still saves. I know in my heart that it isn't a matter of whether or not Jesus is still a savior, but a matter of of receiving the salvation that was already provided for me two thousand years ago. We have always heard and been taught that Jesus is a Savior. We put our faith in His sacrifice so long ago to save us. We never thought for a moment that He had to go to the cross again in order to save us. Yet, when we see that the same man on the same cross who took our sin, also took our disease. It wasn't something He just did on the day I got saved, but something already done. He was waiting for me to believe and partake of what is a finished work. It was easier to receive forgiveness for sin than healing for sickness even though both were in the same sacrifice.
Once again we come back to what we feel more than what we believe. We can feel the infirmities in our body more than we can feel the removal of sin in our spirit. Because we can still feel it, we hang onto that rather than turn loose to take the hand of the Healer. Does this make you less of a believer? No! This only means we don't know as much about Jesus our Sin Bearer than we do about Jesus our Healer.
Romans 10:17 (Amplified) says, "So faith comes by hearing (what is told) and what is heard comes by the preaching (of the message that came from the lips) of Christ (the Messiah Himself)." We have put faith in what we have heard, but we haven't heard it all. We hear many messages on forgiveness and the new birth, but we don't hear that much on healing and other things that were won on Calvary for us.
We find in this same chapter of Romans 10:14 (Amplified), "But how are the people to call upon Him when they have not believed (in whom they have no faith, on whom they have no reliance) and how are they to believe in Him (adhere to, trust in, and rely upon Him) of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?"
We haven't heard much preaching about Christ our Healer in these last forty or fifty years. Oral Roberts, F.F. Bosworth, Smith Wigglesworth, Katherine Koulman and others used to preach on healing and had great results in the last century. As the people heard, they put forth their faith and God met their faith for healing as He met their faith for the new birth.
Perhaps we have been afraid to teach about our Healer because we were afraid it wouldn't work. But, I have also preached about salvation to people who didn't receive it. Whether it works or not,is not the job of the preacher, but the faith of the hearer. If I had stopped preaching salvation based upon those who didn't receive it, then I would have been out of the ministry a long time ago. Over the years, I have preached the same message to some of the same one who rejected it the first time, only to see them believe and receive after they heard it the next time.
If we keep preaching the Word long enough for folks to begin to put their faith in it, then it will still work. Don't just believe what we see, but believe in Jesus' sacrifice to have covered all the bases for us.
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