Is it God's WILL to heal ALL who come to Him for healing?

It's been a while since I have been on this forum but wanting a break from the usual bashing and arguing that happens on many other Christian forums I figured it would be good for me to come here and try my hand at discussing this issue here.

To see if I might be able to have a more reasoned and respectful discussion with some true believers.

Anyway I would like to discuss the issue, if anyone is interested, of whether or not it is God's WILL for ALL to be healed who come to Jesus for physical healing.

I have been thinking about healing and whether or not it is God's WILL for it to be done today as it was in the New Testament.

Please note that I am not saying that there is a promise of healing for ALL (though James 5 seems to be such a promise at least for Christians who fulfill it's conditions).

Only wondering if it is God's WILL for ALL to be healed.

Jesus healed ALL who came to Him. In so far as He was the exact representation of God the Father, expressing God's will perfectly in all that He said and did it stands to reason I think that the fact that He healed ALL was an expression of God's WILL to heal ALL.

I would appreciate hearing anyone's thoughts on this or any aspect of healing that you might have an interest in discussing.

Thanks.

Carlos

Jesus healed ALL who came to Him.

Jesus did not heal all who came to him. He healed those who came to him with faith that Jesus can heal them if it is his will.

I don't believe there is anything wrong in coming to Jesus for Physical healing, Jesus accepts everyone who comes to him. For example the prodigal son did not come for all good reason, he came back to his father for better food, but his father accepted him. Once you come here, the more you see Jesus you start loving him more and he becomes a part of life. But most of the preachers involved in Healing ministry keep their listeners interested in only healing throughout their life instead of making them focus on other important things in Christian life.

It seems to me that many answers may be ones that do not actually answer the question the original poster asked.

They asked

Is it God's WILL to heal ALL who come to Him for healing?

It seems to me that is a very important distinction.

If I understand them correctly they are asking if it is God's will to heal them. In essence does He WANT to heal them?

That is a very different question that if they are all healed or if lack of faith is the only, or primary, reason people do not receive physical healing.

So...is it God's will to heal all people that come to him in faith and ask Him to? Does He WANT and DESIRE them to be made well.... or does He WANT and DESIRE them to be sick, diseased, and hurt?

That's a really good question.

I've only got a minute before my computer power goes off for the night but yes...I meant...

Is it God's WILL for all who come to him in faith to be healed?

Everyone who came to Jesus to be healed, which shows some measure of faith, was healed.

Is that an expression of the WILL of God for us all?

I can appreciate how the Lord is using people who are sick or disabled but we must not base any answer to this question on whether God is using sick or disabled people. Rather we should base our answer on what the Word shows us about the WILL of God in this matter and go from there.

God willing...I'll post more tomorrow.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Carlos

Oh...one more thing.

A question really.

How do we know that Paul's thorn in the flesh was a physical ailment or disease as opposed to a Satanic demon or power that oppressed Paul as he went about doing the work of God?

Paul himself said that this thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan.

Could that not have been some kind of demon?

Carlos

Here we go again.

There will be 10 pages of responses and no one will change their minds.

There are some people who think that God wants people sick and suffering to teach them a good lesson and others who think that is a bunch on nonsense. There is scriptural evidence on both sides. There is no evidence from scripture that Jesus put sickness on anybody to teach them a lesson. But yet we know of saints in the NT who were not healed. And if God COULD heal them but chooses not to even when they ask, then in a manner of speaking He is putting sickness on them.

So Carlos, if you want to believe that God would rather have people well and not sick, then you can believe that.

And if others want to believe that God wants people sick for His purposes, they can believe that too.

That's a very good question. Everyone needs healing from something. I asked God for an answer.

One day as I was driving to church, this small voice spoke and said, "Roger, I could make all things new, but it would be back just lack it is."

I had failed to look at healing from God's point of view.
I realized yes, we all want healing; but all don't want to obey. I listen to prayer requests at church, often asked for others. I don't know them, their life, or how they are living.

Do I want my hearing restored so I can watch more TV, or gossip more, go dancing and partying again?

Take time to look at it from God's view. Maybe we need to meditate on His view more. Would he heal us if we were headed for the lake of fire?

Jesus ministry was what it was. It gave glory to God. If healing was happening today in the church, one couldn't find a seat. But then you have to remember the 5000 who followed Jesus who only wanted a meal and not his message.

There's a lot of unknown in healing. I think we see less physical healing today because of lack of people seeking God.

Every sickness has it's root in the devil.

There is no sickness in heaven,and there was none in the garden.

It is real simple.

God = good
Devil = bad

Sickness = bad

Some are not saved.Does this mean it is God's will for one of his children to be condemned to hell?

Sickness is not more powerful than God.But God respects the human will.Sometimes a bitter person can be afflicted and no prayer can help because the root of bitterness must be dealt with first.

Sometimes a con artist gets afflicted and there can be no healing till he is made right.

Some have demons and are demon possessed.The demons need to go,and the spirit made healthy again before physical healing.

Read some of Wigglesworth's adventures with the Holy Ghost.

Psalm1 wrote:

"It is real simple.

God = good
Devil = bad

Sickness = bad"
-------------------
It would be nice if it were as simple as that, but your equation, which I have heard many times and used to try to believe, is a gross oversimplification of the subject.

People who ascribe to this "formula" apparently don't object to it being God's will for Christians to suffer crippling injuries through accidents (like Joni Erickson Tada), or to die as a result of persecution or criminal violence. What is it about the common cold that God objects to, when he does not object to fatal car crashes or Christians being skinned alive and slowly roasted alive?

WITH ALL THAT SAID.... It is always my default position that when a person I know is sick or stricken with illness or injury that I will pray for a complete healing and command sickness to leave in Jesus' name. And I don't tack the phrase "if it be Your will" at the end, either. I think we need to boldly pray for healing, because I think that is what Jesus wants us to do. I simply cannot imagine refusing to pray for a sick person because "it might not be God's will."

So I guess the argument whether it is always God's will for a person to be well is something of an academic argument. Because regardless, I think we need to be praying for sick people to be healed. It is what Christians do.

"So Carlos, if you want to believe that God would rather have people well and not sick, then you can believe that."

And I could likewise say...here we go again with the Christian baloney that I am trying to get away from.

I do not WANT a thing respecting this issue other than discovering what God's will is. So this isn't what I WANT or do not WANT to believe.

It is a matter of whether or not the bible is clear on this or not.

Some of you maybe have hashed this out in the past and have seen no end to this issue. Fine. I haven't.

Just don't participate on the thread if you don't want to enlighten me or others on what you know about this issue and think there is no solution in sight in terms of united thinking on this.

I don't believe for one minute that this issue is one of those over which sincere believers who have a right heart before God can't agree on.

If you believe that too then let's discuss in a spirit of mutual respect and consideration.

That's what I am here for.

If this forum is infested with the usual Christian bashing and accusations and ridiculous baloney that passes for Christian discussion in many places online, I am out of here and will go elsewhere.

Carlos

I'd like to say something else.

People are bringing stuff up that doesn't mean a thing respecting this issue.

I quite frankly don't care how much the Lord has used Joni Erickson Tada. I mean that's wonderful and her life is a great testimony. I am not knocking what God has done through her but...what God has done through her in her disability doesn't mean a think respecting whether or not it is God's WILL to heal ALL as revealed through what the Lord Jesus did!

We don't establish doctrine by what we experience and go backwards to superimpose what that says or does not say on what the Word says!

We ought rather to seek the Lord and understand what the Word says and then seek to superimpose what IT says on our lives and our experience. Where the Word rises above our experience and calls our experience (i.e. a lack of healing) into question then so should we.

So please...let's set aside our experiences of healing or not at least in terms of using those experiences to embrace this or that belief and then superimposing those beliefs on what the Word says to make it say what our experience tells us (or that we think it tells us).

Let's just look at the Word and let the Word speak!

And shift our beliefs to embrace what IT says!

Whatever that IT may be.

Carlos

I think we are too quickly discounting what Jesus did in expressing the WILL of God regarding the healing of ALL who came to Him in faith that He would heal them.

Let me put it this way.

Would we agree that it was the WILL of God as expressed through Jesus to heal ALL who came to Him for healing in faith at the time that Jesus lived on this earth in bodily form?

Yes or no?

We would be hard pressed to answer no to that since in fact He healed ALL who came to Him in faith.

Unless you can show me a single instance of where He didn't such that God's WILL might have been different than that and not so all out conclusive by virtue of Jesus healing ALL.

Now if you agree that it was God's WILL to heal ALL as expressed in what Jesus did then the next logical question is whether or not that WILL has changed in some way to where today God's WILL is NOT that ALL be healed.

In other words if a person could come to Jesus then and expect to be healed through the demonstrated willingness of God in Christ to heal ALL then can we of today come to Jesus by faith and expect to be similarly healed today?

If not why not? What has changed?

Are there biblical grounds, not logical or experiential grounds, but biblical for believing that Jesus would have healed someone then but NOT today as a matter of it being His WILL that it be so where His WILL has changed?

Anybody?

Assume for a minute that I am a grasshopper and am wanting to learn and am coming here to seek the input of mature Christians on this issue. Teach me. Show me the biblical grounds if there are any but do it with the realization that I may question your grounds if there are reasonable grounds to question it.

Carlos

I had not read them until you reminded me of them just now.

I just read them in their entirety.

Not sure I understand the rest of your post here Jesus-is-God (don't know what else to call you). Can you clarify what you intended to say about Job and his friends and about judging God and how that relates to determining if it is the WILL of God to heal ALL today as it was in the days when Jesus walked the earth in physical form?

Carlos

I'd like to share a bit more about why I am asking about this.

When I have prayed for healing of various ailments lately the Lord has led me to realize that most all my prayers for healing are what I call prayers of hope.

Not prayers of faith.

Which serves to explain I think as to why it is that I have not seen much of any healing either in my own life or in the lives of others that I have prayed for.

I can hope for all kinds of things. I can hope that my favorite football team will win the championship. I may hope (or wish if you will) that I will make lots of money in my business. I can hope for this and hope for that.

But that's NOT faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In other words faith takes hold of God and believes Him for what we hope for based on His promises.

Faith sees what we hope for as a present possession. Faith looks past what we see with our natural eyes to what we do not see and sees evidence of it coming into being as though it was.

Mark 11:22 (AKJV - American King James Version)

Have faith in God. For truly I say to you, That whoever shall say to this mountain, Be you removed, and be you cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he said shall come to pass; he shall have whatever he said. Therefore I say to you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.

It seems to me that if we cannot believe that God WILL heal us then we likely won't get healed!

But to believe that God WILL heal us we must in turn be absolutely convinced that it is God's WILL to heal us.

If we cannot bring ourselves to believe that this is God's will, based on what the Word says, then we will never be in a position to be able to effectively pray healing into existence.

Prayers of hope won't cut it. At least not with God.

We must pray in faith. In the certainty that God WILL heal us not that He might.

Notice what it says in James...

James 5:14 (AKJV)

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;

Notice that it talks of the "prayer of faith". Not of hope as in wishing for something that may or may not happen but of FAITH. In the certainty that something we are praying for WILL happen.

So that is why I am asking this question. Because I want to determine if indeed it is God's WILL to heal ALL.

If it is I can come to God by FAITH and believe Him to heal with the likely result that I will see healings happen.

If it is not...then there is no certainty about praying for healing since we won't know if it is God's WILL to heal ALL.

And if it is NOT the WILL of God to heal ALL then we have no way of knowing whether or not He will heal us or anyone else in particular (short of a divine revelation I suppose).

Such that we have NO basis for praying in faith for healing either for ourselves or anyone else.

Prayers for healing that are NOT prayers of faith are a waste of time and unlikely to produce healing any more than prayers of hope offered up by any religious person anywhere who has no faith in the Living God.

Carlos