Healing – Light from the Word

A Roof and a Crowd

“Where there is a will, there is a way.” Life is full of surprises coming from every direction. It becomes reality for the pursuer of dreams. Mountains, we did not expect are sometimes present in the fulling of a dream, or a plan. I call this an obstacle. The Bible tells us a story of a crippled man, desperately needed the attention of YAHSHUA for his healing. Mark registers the incident in chapter 3:1-5: And YAHSHUA having returned to Capernaum, after some days it was rumored about that He was in the house [probably Peter’s]. And so many people gathered together there that there was no longer room [for them], not even around the door…Then they came, bringing a paralytic to Him, who had been picked up and was being carried by four men. When they could not get him to a place in front of YAHSHUA because of the throng, they dug through the roof above Him; and when they had scooped out an opening, they let down the quilt or a mat upon which the paralyzed man lay. And when YAHSHUA SAW THEIR FAITH, He said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven and put away. Something must be reasoned in the words of YAHSHUA:” son, your sins are forgiven.” We understand here that sin, in many cases, is the result of diseases. YAHSHUA, in His divinity had the power to save that man from hell and at the same time, heal him physically. He had to deal with the cause for his disease first, so that he would be healed in its entirety. The realization of sins in our lives should be the primary concern when directing our petition to our Lord YAHSHUA for healing.

On another occasion, there was a certain man who had suffered with a deep-seated and lingering disorder for thirty-eight years. When YASHUA noticed him lying there, knowing that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, Do you want to become well? He answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me. YAHSHUA said to him, Pick up your bed and walk! Instantly, the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked… Afterward, when YAHSHUA found him in the temple, He said to him, See, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was YAHSHUA Who had made him well. For this reason, the Jews began to persecute and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on a Sabbath (John 5:5-9,14-15). Here there is no obstacle for the healing of this man, except his own sin. YAHSHUA warned him not to continue in sin, otherwise, worse was going to happen to him.

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Healing Was Included in YAHSHUA’S Atonement

When YAHSHUA completed His work of atonement to save the world, He said, “It is finished!” What did He mean by that? We were redeemed from hell and healed from diseases. The Prophet Isaiah says: For many the Servant of God became an object of horror; many were astonished at Him; His face and His whole appearance were marred more than any man’s and His form beyond that of the sons of men… He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men. A Man of sorrows and pains and acquainted with grief and sickness, and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him; surely, He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows and pains, yet we considered Him stricken, smitten and afflicted by God; but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon Him and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole (Isaiah 52:13; 53:3-5). And Psalm 22 Continues: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from the words of my groaning?… Many [foes like] bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have hedged me in. Against me they opened their mouths wide, like a ravening and roaring lion; I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is softened [with anguish] and melted down within me; my strength is dried up like a fragment of clay pottery; my tongue cleaves to my jaws and You have brought me into the dust of death (Ps. 22: 1,12-15). Here, He describes the horror of His sufferings; that was when the Romans broke His body by scourging Him without mercy. That was for our healing, my friend. These prophetic utterances were fulfilled and registered in the New Testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Acts.

Matthew writes: Then the governor’s soldiers took YAHSHUA into the palace, and they gathered the whole battalion about Him. And they stripped off His clothes and put a scarlet robe upon Him. And weaving a crown of thorns they put it on His head and put a reed in His right hand. And kneeling before Him, they made sport of Him, saying, Hail king of the Jews! Mark says: And they struck His head with a staff make of a reed and spat on Him and kept bowing their knees in homage to Him. And when they had finished making sports of Him, they led Him out to crucify Him (Mark 15:19-20). Luke describes YAHSHUA’S agony in the Gethsemane Garden saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done. And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him in spirit. And being in agony [of mind], and prayed more earnestly and intently, and His sweat became like great clots of blood dropping down upon the ground. (Luke 22:42-44). After being scourged severely, without strength left, they made Him to carry our cross. Six hours hung on the cross, He suffered the worst pain, the separation from His Father, when our sins were put on Him. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me”? He suffered the pain of hell. His sacrifice was completed when He affirmed,” It is finished!” Salvation for the world, and also physical healing. We Praise You, YAHSHUA! Thank you for our healings. We have learned to accept His sacrifice for our salvation, but we struggle receiving the gift of healing. The fact is, the healing was part of His atonement. He gave us faith, and hope, which we must mingle together to receive our healing. Hope is empty without faith. Faith is the “spark plug” of hope. Faith and hope were in the words uttered by Him on the cross- IT IS FINISHED! The Word of God will not return to Him void of accomplishing that for which He sent. When we pray His words back to Him, He will answer us, no matter how long it will take. In Isaiah 55:10 He said: For as the rain and snow come down from the heavens, and return not there again, but water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout, that it may give see to the Sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

If then the Bible says, By His stripes we are healed and made whole (Isaiah 53: 5), What do you think it means? Why is that that we can’t grasp His word to believe with hope and faith for it to be accomplished in us? Psalm 91 says, You shall tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot (Ps. 91:13); YAHSHUA gave to the seventy disciples authority and power to trample upon serpent and scorpions and over all the power that the enemy possesses and nothing shall in any way harm you (Luke 10:19). These are our enemies!

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Good News Nourishes the Bones

(Proverbs 15:30)

Who would think that good news would have an effect on the bones? Emotions, the carrier of whatever happens, have a way to internalize news- good or bad on the bones. The mind receives everything that looms around it and translates into happiness, joy, contentment, and more, or worries, fears, anxiety, bitterness and more, depending of the kind of news that are flying around, personal or not. The body receives the happy news as nourishment to the bones, but the bad news stirs the negative emotions and establishes them in different parts of the body, destroying it with diseases. If not dealt with, it will continue from generation to generation, as in the sin of iniquity, leading to inherited physical diseases. There is a connection between a stuck emotion and certain diseases that we must rid of, not to suffer the consequences. Since the body is intrinsically connected, it will feel the emotional and the mental pains through diseases. We have learned that the emotion translated as worry lodges in the stomach, weakening it to be vulnerable to serious problems. So, it is that when the stomach suffers, the digestive system also suffers. The emotion of fear is lodged in the kidneys. But fear, can be very destructive to other organs besides the kidneys. Fear, they say is physical. It affects the heart by quickening its beat, by increasing the pulse and the blood pressure; by changing the breathing patterns – shortness of breath or rapid breathing. (Well ahead blog). Many of us are unaware of the correlation between anger and the liver. As a matter of fact, the way we feel and express our emotion shows the state in which the liver is in. The emotion of grief is the emotion affecting the lungs. When we hold onto grief too long a time, like any other emotion, grief will become stuck, causing the constriction of breathing and of the chest, bringing discomfort to the lungs. Long time contraction of the lungs will affect the dispersion of nutrient to the body. Stress, the culprit of many diseases, is lodged in the heart. When stress lasts for a while, the heart will respond with high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. Happy emotions will affect the bones, as Solomon said, Good news nourishes the bones; a happy life- happy bones; depressed life, unhealthy bones as in arthritis, brittle bones as in osteoporosis and several other bone diseases, including cancer. We see in this short summary that our body is not immune from what happens in the world, or around us.

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In Remembrance, I Bow Down

(Lamentations 3)

The cries of Lamentations’ writings detail the sufferings of Israel’s people when taken away as captives by Babylon. “How solitary sits the city that was full of people!… all Zion gates are desolate… all her people groan and sigh seeking for bread; should and shall women eat the fruit of their own bodies, the children whom they have tended and swaddled with their hands?” (Lamentations 1,2).

Calamity had come to the city of Jerusalem-Judah and its people for their sins were grave before the Lord. Israel had been warned by Moses when yet in the wilderness of the consequences if they deviated from obeying the commandments of the Lord. The prophets also warned them of the coming judgment if they continued in their idolatry. But Israel’s heart was hard toward the Lord. “Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore, she has become an unclean thing and has been removed…her filthiness was in and on her skirts; she did not consider her final end (1:8a,9a).

In 589 BC Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem; In 587 BC the culmination of the destruction of the city and temple happened. The Jewish people were then deported to Babylon, including Daniel and his friends, who God used mightily to change the heart of the King; He used Daniel to serve as prophet for the Jewish nation. God, in His love and mercy, allowed seventy years of captivity for the Jewish nation for having failed to keep seventy Sabbath years. It is written in the book of Leviticus that a Sabbath year comes every seventh year: But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord, you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes on your uncultivated vine you shall not gather, for it is a year of rest to the land…and you shall number seven sabbaths or weeks of years for you, seven times seven years, so the total time of the seven weeks of years shall be forty-nine years (Lev. 25: 4-8). The number seventy is embed in the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9:24: Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] are decreed upon your people and upon your holy city to finish and put an end to transgression, to seal up and make full the measure of sin to purge away and make expiation and reconciliation for sin to bring in everlasting righteousness… When the disciples asked YAHSHUA how many times should one forgive, He gave them the answer found in the period of 490 years given the Jewish people in the prophecy of Daniel, illustrating the validity of Daniel’s prophecy’s time frame given them for forgiveness.

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He Sent His Word and Healed My Diseases

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needed to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded Him] we are healed and made whole (Isaiah 53:5).

No disease is greater than God’s healing power. However, diseases have their roots deeply in sin; it is a result of the fall of men. When God introduced man to the garden He had beautifully created, He commanded Adam saying, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2: 16-17). Why was it so important for Adam to obey the Lord’s command, “But the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat?” Because this particular command was key to men’s blessings. Disobedience of this command would bring serious consequences, not only to Adam’s family, but to the entire human race and nature. The perfect world God had created was going to be changed from order to chaos; from peace to war; from love to hate. Consequences were devastating for all. As a result consequence demanded the death of God’s Son to restore men to Himself, to order, love and peace. The importance of that command demanded obedience. God had created the world in perfect harmony of beauty; He created man to tend the garden, which provided Adam with his sustenance. Adam had everything he needed in that garden. A simple command not to eat the fruit of one tree should have not been a problem for Adam. Obedience is the result of trust, faith and respect for someone; it is also submission of the spirit. Adam, even though knowing what God had commanded him, decided not to harken to the command of the Lord, but to follow his wife’s idea. The apostle Paul tells us that Eve was deceived, but not Adam. If he were not deceived why then did he disobey the Lord? Where was he when the serpent deceived Eve? Created to be the head of the family, Adam was to protect Eve. But he failed and he is to be blamed for the original sin. Although Eve sinned first, God’s question was directed to Adam (Gen. 3: 9)

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A Call to Repentance and Healing

The entire world is sick with incurable diseases called sin. Sins of iniquity, which is inherited through our ancestors, dominate and weaken the spiritual immune system. Submerged in lies and deceits roaming around, the world is about to sink into its own mud. A horrifying situation, indeed. Judgement for certain is coming in the speed of light to cleanse the evil spread all over it. It is like leprosy, which slowly destroys the body; this infectious skin disease degenerates and disfigure the body and death follows. A disease that isolates men from society for its contagious ability. It is a disease symbolic of sin, for it carries a curse. Leprosy is symbolic of sin, because it originates within. It is a result of sin; just as men became spiritually separated from God because of sin, leprosy separates men from society. The world is suffering the last stage of leprosy, so contagious that it needs to be dealt with by God’s judgments. In the days when YAHSHUA walked the earth, He healed several lepers who came to Him for healing. One of them came up to Him and, prostrating himself, worshiped Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You are able to cleanse me by curing me. And YAHSHUA reached out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing; be cleansed… and instantly was cured and cleansed (Matt. 8). There was faith in the heart of that leper to believe in YAHSHUA’S power to heal; a contrite heart to humble himself before YAHSHUA, recognizing and declaring Him to be the Son of God, in order for him to worship Him. “If You are willing,” he started the petition. It was in the willingness of the Lord now to heal that leper. He said, I am repenting of my sins and if You are willing, You are able to heal me, and that the Lord did in the willingness of His forgiveness and love for that man.

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