Options & Expectations

I’m still giving thought to the Life, Death & Healing theme, and here is today’s offering. If you want to follow my thoughts from the beginning, you can find the first post here. Make yourself a cuppa, get comfortable, and when you’re done, feel free to either post a public comment below, or share privately and directly with me what you’re thinking via the contact page.

Options

As more and more scientific knowledge becomes available, there are increasingly more ailments that can be successfully treated, or at least managed with regular medication. Having easy access to medical or surgical interventions means we are less afraid of sickness because we perceive the risk of death as diminished. We have faith that a doctor with medical training can diagnose what is wrong with us, and we have a high expectation that they will also be able to prescribe a solution for whatever ails us.

For those of generations past, sickness and death were expected because medical knowledge was sparse, and medical interventions limited. For those in poorer countries today, there may still not be the level of access to medicine that we enjoy; therefore medical intervention is less of an option.

The advances in medical science have been so vast over the past century that we tend to take them for granted today, because that knowledge has been enveloped into what we now regard as our normal way of life. Our culture has become highly medicalised, meaning that sickness and the practice of medicine are not only considered a normal part of life, but there is a high expectation that medical intervention will produce or hasten recovery, or at least suspend or hinder the approach of death. This might be good news if you’re unwell, but that medical knowledge and our largely unquestioning acceptance of it can create a type of invisible barrier in our minds that I believe can effectively repel faith or our ability to receive healing from God.

Oil & Water

If, at some point, we get saved and become a believer, the concept of being healed by faith is introduced to us. But unless we allow God to completely renew our minds on the subject, our underlying expectations will not change. That effectively means that the concept of healing by faith is likely to just sit on top of the medicalised mind-set we already have, much like oil will sit on water. And like oil on water, the two do not successfully mix. Considering that most of us have been conditioned all our lives to look to medicine for a cure, how much more difficult does it then become for us to look to God instead? Even if we go to God in faith, aren’t we likely to have the possibility of medical intervention still sitting somewhere in the back of our minds? And whether we mean to or not, aren’t we likely to keep that possibility tucked away like some kind of back-up plan?

Perhaps it isn’t surprising then, if we struggle to receive a healing. Ideally, our medicalised perspective needs to be replaced with an understanding of divine health and wholeness that precludes any expectation of sickness and therefore minimises or eradicates any need for medical intervention.

Healing vs. Divine Health

Interestingly, something I’ve noticed about the subject of healing amongst born-again believers is the fact that the topic is generally always referred to as ‘healing’. That alone gives us a clue as to the way our thinking has been orientated. Using the word ‘healing’ infers that we expect to experience sickness or ill-health as a normal part of life, so it doesn’t occur to us to resist it beforehand. ‘Healing’ suggests a degree of powerlessness when it comes to sickness, as though we feel unable to resist it, but must instead look to medical intervention, or to God, in hopes of being made better. In that context, ‘healing’ seems to infer an after-the-fact approach that is reactive to symptoms, rather than proactive against actually receiving them. But perhaps that perspective is a little like looking at a reversed image within a mirror, as though we somehow have things back to front?

By using the word ‘healing’ in that way, it’s as though we regard it as a future possibility, rather than a present truth. But doesn’t the truth of the Word declare that by his stripes we are healed (1 Pet 2:24), meaning that it has already happened because it took place that day on the cross? Jesus has already taken all the consequences of sin upon himself at the cross, which included sickness as well as salvation. If you think of sin as a corruption of all that is good and whole; sickness is just how we signify the corruption of our bodies – and this is that same corruption that Jesus destroyed by His death and resurrection. ‘Healing’ may also be inclined forget that Jesus is no longer on that cross, but rose on the third day, victorious over death and ALL the power of the enemy. It forgets that the devil is a defeated foe over whom Jesus has triumphed (Col 2:15). It forgets who we are in Christ, and the position of authority in which we ourselves stand over all the powers of the enemy (Luke 10:19).

Same thing…

Over time, Christianity also seems to have separated that completed work upon the cross, and divided healing as something apart from salvation. But it was the same thing. Getting saved means receiving an inheritance not only of eternal life, but of being able to live in the here and now wholly, and in divine health. If we are complete in Him (Col 2:10), then why shouldn’t that apply to our bodies as well? Why not exercise our God-given authority to cut out the middle-man of sickness? Why not skip the being sick part and instead choose to believe that we have inherited wholeness in our body just as we have in our spirit? Divine health and wholeness are part of the inheritance we became entitled to when we became adopted into God’s family. Our sickness has already been paid for by Jesus, so doesn’t that mean there is no need for us to receive it ever again?

I get it

I do get it though. In 1996 I was seriously injured in a car accident, and without medical intervention I would have died. So I understand that if medicine or some medical intervention has had a beneficial effect on us or someone we love at some point, then it’s inevitable that we will have come to trust in medicine. And I think it would be fair to say that when we are sick or unwell, there is a certain comfort in being able to entrust yourself into the care of those with medical knowledge. I’m not against medicine, but I think that perhaps the more we understand our inheritance in God and the less we need to look to medicine, the better.

Consider the principle the apostle Paul was getting at here. He was saying that whatever carries the greater weight in our thoughts and beliefs is what will influence our actions, and we get to choose. If we carry the expectation of getting sick, then in effect, that expectation enslaves us to sickness.

At some point we each have to decide what we believe carries the greater weight: God, or medicine? I think that perhaps we have to reach a point where we can choose to trust in God and what He’s already done more than we trust in what we believe medicine can do. To my way of thinking, it’s not really a question of faith either, because if we have exercised the measure of faith God gave us to believe and receive that we are saved and redeemed (Rom 12:3), then we already have enough faith to receive healing. What needs to change is our mindset and perspective.

Of course that doesn’t mean our wellbeing won’t be bothered from time to time, because the devil is always on the lookout for an opportunity to bother us. If we’re not taking care of ourselves properly, then we can make ourselves vulnerable. And just like a predator will pick off the weakest in the herd simply because it takes less effort, the devil likes to try it on with us with an odd symptom from time to time. But from the moment we perceive the first symptom we are free to shoo him away like a fly at a picnic, and tell him NO THANKS!!