What were those conditions for health and healing?
- listen carefully to me
- do what is right
- pay attention to my commands
- obey my instructions.
Many of God's commands are for our own good, for our own health and wellbeing. God promised to guard and heal His people if they sought to live the way He had shown them.
Does that mean that people who follow God will never get ill?
No, that's not what God is saying here. We live in a fallen world and sickness is one consequence of that. In both the Old and New Testaments we read accounts of believers who became ill. God doesn't promise that we'll have perfect health till our dying day... but He does assure us that He is able to step in and heal us - usually in answer to prayer. Healing the sick was one of the main ways that Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom of God.
David wrote in Psalm 103: 3 that God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. When the prophet Isaiah foretold the suffering of the Messiah, he wrote in Isaiah 53: 5 that because of His wounds we are healed.
But rapha is an interesting word that refers to more than just physical healing; in the Bible it also refers to healing hurts, fixing defects and restoring wholeness.
Psalm 147: 3 says that God heals the broken hearted. Jeremiah and Hosea both write that God wants to heal the nation's unfaithfulness and backsliding. There are several verses about toxic water sources being "healed" (made pure and healthy) and there's the well known promise in 2 Chron 7: 14 that God will heal our land/nation if we humble ourselves and pray. Yahweh Rapha wants to bring healing, restoration and wholeness in all areas of our life and relationships.
People often ask me where I stand on this personally. They know I believe that God heals; they know I've led KKI outreaches where kids have prayed for people in the street and seen them healed... but they also know that I have several health challenges personally that have not been healed. I've lived with a lung condition and a mild heart murmur for the past 35 years. I face musculoskeletal challenges due to arthritis and fibromyalgia. At the moment I'm struggling with the limitations caused by having a painful neuroma on the sole of my foot. All of these conditions have been prayed for at different times over the past few decades. "How can I believe God heals," people ask me, "if I am not seeing His miraculous healing in my own life?"
My answer may seem simple, but to me it's part of what it means to "live by faith." I don't know or understand why I've never seen a dramatic, miraculous healing of some of the physical challenges I face, but I do know that I've experienced His grace and His strength in remarkable ways over those decades. My personal physical limitations have not prevented me from being able to serve God in several different nations of the world. I've experienced something of what Paul describes in 2 Cor 12: 9 when he says that God's strength becomes even more obvious when we ourselves have weaknesses. It takes faith to pray for healing, but it also takes faith to keep trusting God if the healing doesn't happen as you hoped for.
So I continue to believe that God is a God who heals. My subjective experience might raise questions or doubts for some people, but our own individual experiences can never change the truth about who God is. We need to observe and evaluate biblical truth by looking at the bigger picture and not at one small detail or individual experience.
In what ways do you need to experience God as Yahweh Rapha this week?
