How God Heals

Mark 8:22-25
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"  24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." 25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

After my last posting someone asked about what we consider to be healing. This is an important question especially in an age where cessationists claim that the Gifts of the Spirit and miracles ceased with the completion of the Biblical Canon and the passing of the Apostles.  It is also important because when we talk about the here and not yet of the Kingdom of God we need to address how God heals.

First let me say that I believe in physical healing. Yes, emotional healing is also an important ministry of the Church, but the power of the Holy Spirit is not limited to emotional healing only.

These verses show us that even Jesus needed to apply the healing power of the Holy Spirit more than once in order to complete the healing. In the Vineyard, we follow Wimber’s five-step model for praying for the sick which includes asking the person being prayed for if God is moving and what they are experiencing. Jesus did this with the blind man and the answer was that, yes, he was getting some sight, but that the miracle was not complete.

In my own experience I have come to the follow conclusion regarding how God heals.

First, I’ve experienced many times that God heals in the instant. Sometimes the person knows they've been healed and sometimes they don’t. I remember when I was ten years old my mother asked me to pray for her because she was experiencing the pain of shingles. I laid hands on her and I prayed a childlike prayer full of compassion for the pain my mother was feeling. Nothing seemed to happen in the moment, but when she went to the doctor the next day all the rashes had dried up and she had no pain.

Second, and this is by far the most common, is that God heals within the context of a process. For many people what is given in the moment is not as appreciated as that which takes time and effort. In addition, through the process, God always has some lesson that He is communicating to us.

Third is the fact that God heals ultimately. The Apostle Paul was told that God’s grace was sufficient for him. When Christ comes back and we receive our new bodies, those will be forever free from sickness and disease. For now, even if He heals us today, it does not mean that we won’t come down with something else tomorrow. Even if He resurrects us, we are destined to experience physical death again before the ultimate resurrection.


Our job then, is to be obedient and lay hands on the sick. It is God’s job to decide how He will bring about healing.

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