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Is It God’s Will to Heal You?

2 Sept2017 KEHarticle TimelessTeaching// Kenneth E. Hagin

SCRIPTURE REVEALS the nature of God to us. It also reveals the attitude of God toward sin, sickness, and disease. God's nature has not changed through the ages. Neither has His attitude changed toward sin, sickness, and disease.

You need to know this to understand divine healing. In fact, the first principal fact you should know about divine healing is:It is God's will to heal you, because healing is in His redemptive plan.

The Bible says that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established (Matt. 18:16). Notice that the following texts from Isaiah, Matthew, and First Peter all agree that Jesus took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.

ISAIAH 53:4-5
4 Surely he [Jesus] hath borne our griefs [sicknesses], and carried our sorrows [diseases]: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

This passage of scripture is taken from the King James Version. A good reference Bible will have a marginal note by the words "griefs" and "sorrows" (v. 4) to tell you that the Hebrew words are literally "sicknesses" and "diseases." Dr. Isaac Leeser's translation of The Hebrew Bible, a translation authorized for use by Orthodox Jews, reads: "Our diseases did he bear himself, and our pains he carried: while we indeed esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."

MATTHEW 8:17
17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

This text is clearer yet. Matthew is quoting Isaiah. If you check the reference, you'll find that he is quoting Isaiah 53:4. I like to say it this way: "Jesus took my infirmities and bare my sicknesses."

I read this verse for years before I understood what it was saying: Jesus actually—literally—took the cause of our sickness and disease. He took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.

We know that Jesus was made to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). The object of His sin-bearing was that we might be free from sin, and the object of His sickness-bearing was that we might be free from sickness. This truth is also reflected in First Peter 2:24:

1 PETER 2:24
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Thus, three witnesses—Isaiah, Matthew, and Peter—tell us not only that Jesus shed His blood for the remission of our sins but that with His stripes, we were healed.

Our Legal Right

Jesus not only redeemed us from sin, He also redeemed us from sickness. So it is God's will to heal you. Never doubt it, because healing is in His redemptive plan.

Not only is healing in God's redemptive plan, but because Jesus sealed the New Covenant with His own blood, we also have a legal right to divine healing (Heb. 8:6; 12:24; 13:20)!

The New Covenant guarantees us the rights and privileges that Jesus secured for us, which include divine healing. In Mark 11:24 He said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Therefore, we have a prayerful right to divine healing!

Then in Psalm 23:5, the Psalmist talks about Jesus as our Redeemer, saying, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." Therefore healing is our provisional right—our Heavenly Father has prepared a table of provision for us, and it includes healing!

Incline Your Ear

The Master is calling you to take your place at the banquet table and dine! He invites you to partake of divine healing and every other privilege that belongs to you in Christ! How? By inclining your ear to God's Word, because God's Word is His will

Since God's Word is His will, you could say, "The Bible is God personally speaking to me."

Someone said, "Yes, I know what the Bible says about healing. But I don't believe it just that way."

Well, if you have that attitude, you are not inclining your ear to God's saying—to His Word. Instead, you are inclining your ear to your own beliefs and opinions.

Some Christians don't incline their ears unto God's saying because they always want to hear something new from the Word. When someone preaches or teaches on the subjects of faith and healing, they say, "Oh, I've heard all that before." But those folks aren't inclining their ears to God's sayings!

The Word doesn't work for you because you have inclined your ear once or twice to God's sayings. No, "incline your ear" is present tense. That means it's an ongoing, continual action.

Proverbs 4:20 and 22 says, "Incline thine ear unto my sayings. . . . For they are life unto those that find them, and health [medicine] to all their flesh." Why should you incline your ear unto the Word of God? Because God's Word is medicine. It's a never-failing remedy for all your flesh, which includes everything that pertains to your life.

[Editor's Note: This article was adapted from Kenneth E. Hagin's study guide Healing—Volume 1: God's Word on Divine Healing.]

FAITH NUGGET

Stay in Faith

Healing is not always instant. Sometimes it is gradual.

By not realizing this, sometimes we make a mistake and lose out with God.

Someone once said to me, "Brother Hagin, in Bible days, people always got healed instantly."

I replied, "What about the 10 lepers? The Bible says that they were healed as they went" (Luke 17:14).

A woman wrote me, I came in your prayer line 10 months ago. When you laid hands on me, I fell under the power, but I didn't feel any different. I had had a stroke that left me with no feeling in my left arm and leg, and I had to get around with the help of a crutch.

I guess people didn't think I got healed, because I still was on that crutch when I left the meeting. When I got about two blocks from the church, suddenly a warm glow came through my leg and feeling was restored to my arm and leg. Now both are all right.

The Bible says, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover" (Mark 16:18). Sometimes it works that way. We need to know that healing is not always instant. When it is instant, thank God for it, but sometimes it is gradual.