Healing Is A Person
He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, obeying his commands and keeping all His decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.” 📖 Exodus 15.26 NLT
It was here in the wilderness (Exodus 15) that God reminded the children of Israel that He was not only their Provider materially, but that He was also their Healer. It was at this moment that God revealed Himself not just by what He could do (heal) but as Who He was and is — Yahweh-Rapha — our Great Physician, or, “The Lord Who heals.”
We don’t need a cure when we have the Healer.
– William Murphy III
The Healer & The Healing
It’s an incredible thing to behold that God is not just able to heal us, but that He is the literal embodiment of healing itself. Notice the tense of His declaration here: “… for I am the Lord who heals you.” It’s a tense that isn’t necessarily past or future, but present and continual. Yahweh-Rapha, The Lord Who heals, is a continual source, then, now, and forever. ♾
This distinction is important but it attributes God as the fountain and source of our healing. Even when God decides to operate through doctors and medicine, and He does, He’s still the ultimate Source (Romans 11.36). Remember that He created them too. God doesn’t want us to forget this (Psalm 103.1-3).
When God Doesn’t Heal
Sometimes this can be hard to grasp, especially following a year like 2020 marked by so much death. But the reality is that God, in His sovereignty (1 Chronicles 29.11-12, Psalm 115.3) sometimes chooses not to heal on this side of Heaven. We remember the story of Lazurus, his death, and how Jesus healed and raised Him from the dead (John 11). Yet, Lazurus is not with us today. He eventually died again and Jesus did not raise him again on this side of Heaven.
So, we can also take courage that whether in sickness or death, that’s not the end of the story. We can look forward to the day that when we’re absent from these bodies, we will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5.1-10). We can also look forward to Jesus’ return where there will be no more pain and death (Revelation 21.1-4).
When we put our faith in the Healer rather than just a healing, we can trust God for whatever outcome His will desires. It’s in our trust that we affirm Him as our Source so that His Glory can be on full display. It’s with a yielded heart that we can be open to however God wants to use a sickness or death for His Glory — even in the most unexpecting situations and outcomes. Sometimes nothing unifies us like a tragedy.
Though I haven’t always personally experienced God’s healing when and how I wanted it, whether, for myself or family and friends; I’m so grateful that sickness and death have to bow. I’m joyful that sickness and death will never have the final say. Because He’s God, and God alone. And He is healing.
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