asking_about_healing

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I'd like to have a cordial discussion about miraculous healing, but we'll have to see how this goes. :)

As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens. They answer to that question would be rather obvious. But as we know "it is not God's will that any should perish" and yet some do, we know that God's will is not always done. I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time.

It would be nice if the responses to this could be thoughtful and respectful even if you believe I am completely wrong. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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I'd like to have a cordial discussion about miraculous healing, but we'll have to see how this goes. :)

As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens. They answer to that question would be rather obvious. But as we know "it is not God's will that any should perish" and yet some do, we know that God's will is not always done. I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time.

It would be nice if the responses to this could be thoughtful and respectful even if you believe I am completely wrong. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.
I find God heals the inside first, sometimes the body does not get healed.

It's God's will that we die sometime, so it may not always be His will, but we should always pray as if it is. Since according to James, if we even doubt a little, we get nothing.
 
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Sam91

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I have been healed twice of ailments.

First time I'd had two fingers in my right hand tingling non-stop for approximately 8 months. The doctor said it was probably a nerve in my neck and it would be better within 6 weeks. I was in the 'wilderness' at the time and not attending Church. My theology was all wrong and I believed that God wouldn't have me back because I sinned (addicted to smoking) and didn't love Him enough. I said to my husband 'If I was being a good Christian and was going to Church... if I believed 100% and it was in His will I would be healed.' That second the tingling stopped and I did not say another word until morning. I was too scared to speak incase the surprise was a lack of faith. The fact I was in error mattered not, He was still willing to heal me. I should have understood back then that God hadn't cast me off but it took many more years.

The other time was only a couple of years ago. In the past I have had mouth infections due to a flap of gum caused by wisdom teeth. Each time my face swelled up, one time I couldn't open or close my mouth due to the swelling. Antibiotics were necessary each time and quickly.

Well, I had the same taste in that section of my mouth, my jaw and head hurt. It was swollen. I prayed to God to heal me in order that I could give Him the glory instead of the dentist curing me with antibiotics. Immediately the pain started to subside. The swelling decreased over the next half an hour, by morning it was gone.

Dental care was free for me in my country. I genuinely wanted to privately praise the Lord for it and to rely on Him. I was delighted to be able to do that.

I know God heals and wants to heal. I wonder sometimes whether He healed me to teach me about Him.

As for the verse about not wanting anyone to perish, doesn't that refer to after death? Our home is with Him, not in this body.
 
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I'd like to have a cordial discussion about miraculous healing, but we'll have to see how this goes. :)

As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens. They answer to that question would be rather obvious. But as we know "it is not God's will that any should perish" and yet some do, we know that God's will is not always done. I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time.

It would be nice if the responses to this could be thoughtful and respectful even if you believe I am completely wrong. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.
God does heal, and this is shown in the Scriptures through James' instruction for the sick person to call for the elders of the church to anoint with oil and to pray the prayer of faith. Notice that it is not for the elders to initiate the process, It is for the sick person to initiate. Also, there is a facility for any believer to lay hands on a sick person for healing.

But it is not guaranteed and neither should it be. God is sovereign and although He accepts prayer, He is not a vending machine to give healing on demand.

The healing and casting out of demons in the ministry of Jesus were signs supporting His assertion that the Kingdom of God had now arrived and was among them. The miracles did not cause people to believe, as we see through the response of the Pharisees; and those who believed in Him just because of the miracles were not taken seriously by Jesus. We need to learn from this in light of the modern charismatic emphasis on signs and wonders over and above the preaching of the gospel. The power of God is not in the signs and wonders, it is in the gospel of Christ. Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God unto salvation to all those who believe."

It is the same with the healing that happened through the Apostles. They were signs that Jesus was alive from the dead and that the gospel was true. The signs and wonders arrested people's attention, and then the gospel was preached, leading to souls being saved. That is what happened on the Day of Pentecost and in Samaria.

There are the gifts of healing, along with the other spiritual gifts, for the building up of the body of Christ, but these are not given to believers to have as their own. They remain in the exclusive ownership of the Holy Spirit. He manifests a gift of healing through an individual as He wills. And when a gift of healing is manifested, the person is instantly healed. If someone lays hands on a sick person and they are not immediately healed, then the gift of healing as not been manifested, even though the person laying hands on the sick person has exercised faith. So a lot of what is done by "healing ministries" using what they say is "a gift of healing" is nothing of the sort, because there is no such ministry as a ministry of healing in the New Testament, and because hardly anyone gets actually healed in these "healing" meetings, it is debatable whether the gift of healing is actually been manifested at all!

So those are my thoughts for what they are worth.
 
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com7fy8

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As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens.
Hi, Asking :) Welcome to Christian Forums :) Thank you for inviting us to have a cordial and helpful sharing here.

About if healing is always God's will > I think of James 5:16 >

"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16)

I have learned that the healing here comes with confessing our trespasses . . . or confessing our faults which are indeed trespassing since they don't belong there.

So, what could the healing be which is meant here? I see this can mean being "healed" together with God in His love, so we are not available to the sin problems which we are confessing. So, we are "healed" of whatever in us . . . in our nature . . . has been making us able to sin and then to so suffer. Plus, we are "healed" more and more together with God in His love and how He has us become loving of any and all people and this in sharing with our Jesus family people.

And this confessing to other Jesus family people helps to bond us with each other; so the confessing, as well as the praying, I would say, helps in getting us more and more "healed" into family sharing, "tenderhearted" with each other (Ephesians 4:31-32), instead of isolating ourselves with our sin activities which are in us and not only what our bodies are doing.

So, this healing is sharing with God Himself in us, and interpersonal, and inside ourselves.

And because this is God's spiritual will for every child of God, God is committed to making this work. And though we are not perfect in this, God is committed to making our mutual confession and our mutual healing prayer so succeed.

James says to confess "to one another"; so this means to have mutual confession, in my opinion.

And pray "for one another" > so, to me this means to have mutual prayer.

So, in case I have understood this correctly, this shows how much any child of God can do, with God.

So, for us children of God, I would say this healing is always our Heavenly Father's will for us. And if we are not perfect at seeking this, trust God to have us doing better.
 
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I... I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time....

Bible tells also this:

Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
James 4:1-3

On basis of that, maybe it is not always God’s will to give what people ask. But perhaps the promises are also just for disciples of Jesus. If disciples remain in words of Jesus, they probably also pray things that are good with good motives.
 
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com7fy8

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Bible tells also this:

Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
James 4:1-3

On basis of that, maybe it is not always God’s will to give what people ask.
People can seek healing which they would use only or mainly so they can keep on living their own selfish lives.

But if we seek first God's kingdom, we are guaranteed all we really need. I think this includes however God knows and decides we need healing. So, when I have a medical issue, I trust God to have me seeking Him how He wants, and I trust Him to decide how He will add physical healing besides. And I find that most of all now at age 71 I feel better emotionally and have better loving with people, than I came close to having while I was younger.

There can be physical healing which is more or less really necessary. But being "healed" of our sin problems is not optional > James 5:16.
 
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I'd like to have a cordial discussion about miraculous healing, but we'll have to see how this goes. :)

As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens. They answer to that question would be rather obvious. But as we know "it is not God's will that any should perish" and yet some do, we know that God's will is not always done. I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time.

It would be nice if the responses to this could be thoughtful and respectful even if you believe I am completely wrong. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.
"perish" is often contrasted with eternal life, so God is not necessarily talking about physical earthly life: 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
 
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asking_about_healing

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As for the verse about not wanting anyone to perish, doesn't that refer to after death? Our home is with Him, not in this body.

Yes, the verse saying that God want's none to perish is absolutely about salvation and not about physical death. You are completely correct. My point, which I may have been unclear about, was only not everything that happens is God's perfect will; not everyone gets saved. It follows then that we cannot argue that because not everyone is healed that proves God does not always want to heal the sick.

Obviously, connecting those two ideas begs the question, "So how come we die? If God's will is always to heal, shouldn't we live forever?" That wasn't want you were saying, of course (at least, I don't think it was). Anyway, my brother-in-laws father was chatting to some people while sitting in a chair and passed away so quietly and peacefully, they thought he'd just fallen asleep. So dying doesn't necessitate sickness.

Thank you for sharing your stories. It's always wonderful to hear about the Lord's work in one another's lives.
 
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God does heal, and this is shown in the Scriptures through James' instruction for the sick person to call for the elders of the church to anoint with oil and to pray the prayer of faith. Notice that it is not for the elders to initiate the process, It is for the sick person to initiate. Also, there is a facility for any believer to lay hands on a sick person for healing.

But it is not guaranteed and neither should it be. God is sovereign and although He accepts prayer, He is not a vending machine to give healing on demand.

It's interesting that you quote James. Doesn't James 5:14-15 pretty much guarantee healing: "Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up." Or, would you argue here that the result is dependent on the prayer being "offered in faith"?

That's a genuine question, by the way, not a rhetorical taunt. James 1:7 says we have to ask with faith, and James 5:15 makes specific mention of faith.
 
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topher694

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I'd like to have a cordial discussion about miraculous healing, but we'll have to see how this goes. :)
Wouldn't that be direct evidence that God does still perform miracles? :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:

As an opening question, do you think healing is always God's will? I'm not asking if it always happens. They answer to that question would be rather obvious. But as we know "it is not God's will that any should perish" and yet some do, we know that God's will is not always done. I'm going to start out by suggesting that Jesus' example in Matthew (I pick Matthew because I am most familiar with the miracles in that Gospel and because of its emphasis on discipleship) indicates it is his desire to heal every time.

It would be nice if the responses to this could be thoughtful and respectful even if you believe I am completely wrong. Again, we'll have to see how that goes.

So my belief and experience says this: Yes, it is always God's will to heal. However...

That is not the only thing that is God's will. For instance it is God's will for Him to be glorified. And if that is also God's will, the two things cannot be separated. One does not happen at the expense of the other nor one does not happen without the other. God's will is not mutually exclusive to certain tasks. To put it another way, God won't heal where it does not bring Jesus glory. Now, that can mean a lot of different things, but glory of God means giving weight/honor to what God has done. This could be for the individual or for a larger group.

This is true of anything else that is in God will as well, for example it is also God's will that:
  • None shall perish, but everyone come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) (1 Tim 2:3-4)
  • For us to be give thanks in any circumstances (1 Thes 5:18)
  • That we be sanctified (1 Thes 4:3)
  • That we do good works to demonstrate and advance His kingdom (Eph 2:10, Heb 13:21, 1 Peter 2:15)
  • That we be wise (James 1:5)
  • And so on... you get the idea
So, more examples:

If healing ultimately leads to behavior that causes de-sanctification (is that a word?), or causes one to stumble, He will hold of on that healing until we are mature enough to prevent that.

If God heals someone who does not give Him thanks (thanks here is much more than gratitude... it includes proclaiming what He has done), then part of His will was accomplished and part was not.


The common denominator in all of these things is that we have no way of knowing how all of these things would work together with our healing (even if we think we do), but God does. So, is it His will to heal? Yep. But the timing and manner is 100% His, and His alone. Because He knows better.

With all of this in mind, some simple and practical advice for someone patiently believing for healing in their lives would be to pursue/learn about EVERYTHING that is in God's will for their life, and they will better position themselves for the manifestation of their healing.
 
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asking_about_healing

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God is sovereign and although He accepts prayer, He is not a vending machine to give healing on demand.

Oscarr,

I absolutely agree. But my question was not "should God always honor our prayers for healing." It was whether healing is always God's will. If it is his will, we are conforming to it rather than demanding he conform to our will. If healing is always God's will, he remains sovereign.

[Jesus] miracles did not cause people to believe, as we see through the response of the Pharisees; and those who believed in Him just because of the miracles were not taken seriously by Jesus. We need to learn from this in light of the modern charismatic emphasis on signs and wonders over and above the preaching of the gospel. The power of God is not in the signs and wonders, it is in the gospel of Christ. Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God unto salvation to all those who believe."

Please forgive me. My response to this will be a long one.

When Paul described his preaching to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:1-5), he wrote, "I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom." His message was simply "Jesus Christ and him crucified"--the gospel, as you so rightly pointed out. However, Paul also said that instead of aiming for "wise and persuasive words" he focused on making sure there was "a demonstration of the Spirit’s power," and he did this with the explicit intention that the faith of the new believers would not "rest on human wisdom," but would rest "on God’s power." I think you may be wrong to separate signs and wonders from the gospel and say that one but not the other are the power of God.

Actually, I would suggest that the practice of emphasizing signs and wonders was Paul's normal approach to evangelism. In Romans 15:18-19, he said he had fulfilled the ministry of the gospel, a broader claim than just saying he had preached the message. The Greek (πεπληρωκέναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) more literally says he filled or fulfilled the gospel itself, and does not specify the manner in which he did this. But as that is confusing in English, most translations add a noun as the object for the verb. For example, the NIV has "fully proclaimed", the NASB has "fully preached", the ESV has "fulfilled the ministry", and most other translations follow similar patterns. I like the ESV rendering because it avoids placing an emphasis on a verbal presentation of the gospel. The Greek word πεπληρωκέναι is perfect infinitive active form of πληρόω which, as I alluded to above, means to make full, or to complete. The same word in a different tense is used in Matthew 1:22 where it says, "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet."

In fact, although Paul mentions both word and deed in Romans 15:18, he follows this immediately by emphasizing the deeds: "by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God" (ESV). The result is that while Paul says he both preached and demonstrated the message, his emphasis is on the miracles. For Paul it seems, miracles were necessary to the gospel presentation: without them, his evangelism would not have been complete.

Further more, it is not just Paul who emphasizes the value of miracles. Jesus also does this. You mentioned this, but you emphatically stated the miracles demonstrated that the kingdom was at hand. That is definitely true, but it doesn't seem to be the entire purpose of the miracles. When the Jews want to stone Jesus, he pointed to his miracles as the reason to believe he is "one with the Father" (John 10:37-38). Later on, he urges Philip to draw the same conclusion for the same reason (John 14:11). We also have Matthew 9:6, where Jesus presents a miracle as evidence that he can forgive sin. Furthermore, in Matthew 11:20-24, he denounces the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not respond with repentance. So will you suggest we need to learn from "the modern charismatic emphasis on signs and wonders over and above the preaching of the gospel," I would suggest we ought to expect an equality between signs, wonders, and proclamation. Jesus did not, after all, say "Woe to you Capernaum, you did not repent on account of my preaching."

Things are definitely a little less tidy when we consider Jesus decrying the demand for a sign (Matthew 12:38-42, Mark 8:12, and Luke 11:29), but that is in the context of people who are actively disbelieving. Those people don't just have doubts, they've already concluded Jesus is not from God and are flaunting that conclusion by demanding he prove them wrong. By contrast, in John 4:48 when Jesus says, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe,” his point seems to be that we need miracles to help us understand who he is. He makes that statement in response to a desperate father's plea for help, and rather than saying "no sign will be given to you," as he did to the unbelieving group, he responds by answering the man's request and healing his child. If his statement to the man had been derogatory, he surely would not have performed the subsequent miracle.

Peter too saw the importance of miracles. After healing the paralytic at one of the entrances to the temple in Jerusalem, he says to the Jews there, "Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know" (Acts 2:22). I guess we could argue that Jesus was an exception, which is obviously true in regard to his divinity. But that argument doesn't really hold up in light of comments like Paul's when he wrote that he had persisted in demonstrating "the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles" (2 Corinthians 12:12). So miracles "marked" apostles, not just Jesus.

Given Paul's own testimony as to why he did miracles, it seems fairly clear that miracles in the New Testament were expected to illicit a response of faith. More than this, it seems they were considered a primary tool to that end.

So, we have Jesus expecting repentance because of his miracles, and we have Peter describing Jesus' miracles as God's attestation, and we have Paul presenting them as necessary for a solid foundation in faith. In light of this, can we really say that simply preaching the gospel is really all that's needed? Is our preaching so much wiser, more eloquent, or more persuasive than Paul's? And I think I could ask that same question switching Paul's name out for that of Jesus. Jesus, the disciples, Philip, Stephen, and Paul all did miracles. Why are we so against the idea that we may need to do the same?

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't go around making the lame able to walk, giving sight to the blind, cleansing lepers, healing the deaf, or raising the dead. I only proclaim the gospel. In light of the Scriptures though, I don't know that I can defend that behavior. Perhaps the reality is that I don't actually have any recourse but to pray, perhaps to repent and fast, and to entreat the Father to anoint me--or rather to anoint us with the Holy Spirit and with Power so that we can go around "doing good and healing all who are under the power of the devil" (Acts 10:38)? And until that power comes, what option do we have but to be obedient to the examples we've been given and imitate what we can, even if it lays bare our impotence. I really don't think we have any other option.

How can we properly present a kingdom we cannot demonstrate? How can we represent a master we do not emulate? Are we, in fact, proclaiming a king we hesitate to obey? Let's not forget that Jesus expected us to do what he did. His words were, "whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these." He did not say we would be able to do those things if we felt like it.

Surely it's better to fail while trying than to fail by doing nothing. Besides, doesn't God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6)?
 
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There are the gifts of healing, along with the other spiritual gifts, for the building up of the body of Christ, but these are not given to believers to have as their own. They remain in the exclusive ownership of the Holy Spirit. He manifests a gift of healing through an individual as He wills. And when a gift of healing is manifested, the person is instantly healed. If someone lays hands on a sick person and they are not immediately healed, then the gift of healing as not been manifested, even though the person laying hands on the sick person has exercised faith. So a lot of what is done by "healing ministries" using what they say is "a gift of healing" is nothing of the sort, because there is no such ministry as a ministry of healing in the New Testament, and because hardly anyone gets actually healed in these "healing" meetings, it is debatable whether the gift of healing is actually been manifested at all!

So those are my thoughts for what they are worth.

Oscarr,

I feel much as you do about certain high profile individuals who seem to see the gospel as a way to get rich, and may even fake miracles to get what they want. That is terrible behavior. Despicable behavior!

With regards to gifts remaining "in the exclusive ownership of the Holy Spirit" though, I disagree. Gifts are, by their very nature, freely given to the recipient. I think that's why Peter could so confidently say, "I don't have silver or gold, but what I do have, I give you: get up and walk" (Acts 3:6).

That said, I know various charismatic pastors have presented a theology that leans heavily on the idea that Jesus on did and said what he saw and heard the Father doing (John 5:19 & John 12:49), and that we need to do likewise. And the Centurion that Jesus commended (Matthew 8:4-13) made a big deal regarding lines of authority (at least, it seems that way to me). Perhaps I'm failing because I'm not waiting for God to say go do this. It's just that it seems like he's already said that in the Bible. Jesus did is. He told his disciples to do it. Paul instructed the church to keep doing it (only to do it in a less chaotic fashion) and to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts (which may imply we can get them if we don't already have them).
 
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People can seek healing which they would use only or mainly so they can keep on living their own selfish lives.

But if we seek first God's kingdom, we are guaranteed all we really need. I think this includes however God knows and decides we need healing. So, when I have a medical issue, I trust God to have me seeking Him how He wants, and I trust Him to decide how He will add physical healing besides. And I find that most of all now at age 71 I feel better emotionally and have better loving with people, than I came close to having while I was younger.

There can be physical healing which is more or less really necessary. But being "healed" of our sin problems is not optional > James 5:16.

com7fy8,

Odd that you use James 5 as an argument against physical healing. James encourages his readers to actively seek (and, it would seem, expect) healing if they are sick. You are, of course, right though that God wants more for us than that we go on living selfish lives. Even so, Jesus never sent someone away because their motives for wanting healing were not pure.
 
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asking_about_healing

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Bible tells also this:

Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
James 4:1-3

On basis of that, maybe it is not always God’s will to give what people ask. But perhaps the promises are also just for disciples of Jesus. If disciples remain in words of Jesus, they probably also pray things that are good with good motives.

Hmmm. Interesting. So, if I understand correctly, you're proposing that God's greater desire is for moral wholeness, so sometimes we don't get healing we pray for because we're too sinful? And if we got that issue dealt with first, then there would be no reason for him not to heal us?
 
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asking_about_healing

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Wouldn't that be direct evidence that God does still perform miracles? :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:

Well, topher694, let's hold out hope. :)

I am finding it surprisingly hard to respond to peoples' posts with my thoughts without it sounding like a rebuke of some sort. I hope I don't tick anyone off unduly.
 
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asking_about_healing

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So my belief and experience says this: Yes, it is always God's will to heal. However...



If healing ultimately leads to behavior that causes de-sanctification (is that a word?), or causes one to stumble, He will hold of on that healing until we are mature enough to prevent that.

If God heals someone who does not give Him thanks (thanks here is much more than gratitude... it includes proclaiming what He has done), then part of His will was accomplished and part was not.
...

With all of this in mind, some simple and practical advice for someone patiently believing for healing in their lives would be to pursue/learn about EVERYTHING that is in God's will for their life, and they will better position themselves for the manifestation of their healing.

Topher694,

Thank you for a thoughtful and internally consistent response. I really appreciate you taking the time to articulate those thoughts; they are very helpful. As for "de-sanctification," yeah, dunno, but it should be.
 
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