Hope City has really been emphasizing what God’s Word says about healing over the past couple of months. But let me be very clear with something here: All the messages you’ve heard don’t exempt you from the attack of the enemy; he’s still going to come at you.
The enemy is always going to try to make you sick and steal your health (John 10:10); it’s not going to stop him from attacking, but it WILL prepare you effectively for the fight! We do NOT negotiate with the enemy.
One trap Christians fall into is that although they first stand against the enemy when symptoms come, if symptoms persist after they’ve confessed God’s Word, they stop confessing and start asking questions. Instead of boldly confessing, “By the stripes of Jesus, I am healed!” they start asking God, “Father, you said ‘by Your stripes I’m healed’…what’s going on?”
Their declaration changes and starts to become a question. Next thing you know, they’re questioning themselves: “Man, I know I’m healed by Your stripes, Jesus, but I must’ve done something wrong.” Then, they fall into the lie: “Gee, God, I guess it must be Your will for me to be dealing with this right now.”
When a person starts to question the will of God, it opens wide the door for the enemy’s attack.
God is NEVER bad; He is ALWAYS GOOD! And healing is a demonstration of the goodness of God! We ought to celebrate that!
“Healing is a demonstration of the goodness of God!”
We’ve been using Psalms 107:19-21 as the core scripture of our Healing is Here series, but it’s good to look at verse 22 as well. We need to “declare His works with rejoicing”!
God demonstrates His goodness all the time. When Jesus was on Earth, He used every opportunity to demonstrate it as well! Acts 10:38 reminds us that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power and that He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil”! He even did it when it riled up the religious leaders of the day!
Jesus regularly would go into the synagogue and preach. On one particular Sabbath, Jesus noticed a man in the synagogue whose right hand was withered; the scribes and Pharisees watched to see if Jesus would heal the man on the Sabbath, supposedly breaking Sabbath law (they were always looking for a way to accuse Him so they could destroy Him).
Jesus knew their thoughts, but He told the man with the withered hand, “Rise and stand here.” Then, He posed a question: “I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy?” (See the account in Luke 6.)
The word “good” in that scripture is the Greek word agathopoieó which means “to profit or benefit others.” Jesus was asking, “Is it lawful to do what’s profitable to others on the Sabbath?”
Think about this: If God actually wanted to teach people a lesson by putting sickness and disease on them, why would He then teach His Word in the synagogue and then heal an infirmed man? He wouldn’t
The Pharisees stayed silent; they were too scare to open their mouths because they knew the answer: God is ALWAYS good and healing is a demonstration of that goodness! “And when He had looked around at them all, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.”
This is yet another example of the goodness of God through healing! Each and every day, you can experience that goodness of God! If you’re His child, you belong to Him and His goodness has already been made available to you 24/7, 365 days a year!
To watch the entire Oct. 31, 2021 service on which this message is based, CLICK HERE.
