You've thought you've been a "good" Christian. You go to church, have devotions and are active in church events. You pray - well, especially now that you're sick and neither the medical community or alternative medicine has been able to help you. You've exhausted all avenues known to "man" and came up empty. So God is your last hope.
Like many "good" Christians you're not alone in taking this route first. In this modern age we've come to rely on human physicians instead of the Great Physician. After all, God has blessed doctors with knowledge and a gift for healing. But, many times we go to them as our gods for healing and many of them readily take on that persona and to go against their directives they feel may even qualify as blasphemy.
I'm not against doctors mind you. God has raised them up to be blessings. But, we are to seek God and His wisdom first and not set up other human beings as a replacement for God the Father, Son and Spirit.
And when conventional medicine comes short we seek alternative medicine.
Proverbs 3:5-8 talks about trusting God even more than you trust your own instincts for trusting God will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.
God's will is not that of miraculous healing for your body and mind but that you walk in His will first and by doing so live in divine health. It would be vain to miraculously heal a smashed thumb if the carpenter does nothing to prevent the possibility of hitting it with a hammer again thereby injuring it consistently.
So why isn't God listening to your pleads of anguish and your cries for healing? God is waiting for you to quit swinging the spiritual hammer. Sins prevent God's work in our lives and sometimes we don't even realize that we are sinning. The number one hindrance to being blessed is disobedience.
The following may be some reasons it seems as though your prayers are falling on deaf ears.
1. Holding a grudge or unforgiveness toward another.
God is not a bubble-gum machine. In Mark 11 we are told that we can pray to even have a mountain removed and be thrown into the sea and if we don't doubt it will come about. People so often want their prayers for health answered so badly that they fail to keep reading. Just the next two verses tell us to forgive so that our heavenly Father may forgive us. If we don't forgive neither will He. How can we be healed of a chronic disease if we fail to forgive others as we have been forgiven?
God's love is not conditional but He won't bless sin. He also isn't fooled. He knows forgiveness for us is sometimes difficult. But, forgiveness is an attitude of the heart and a choice. You don't forgive people who have wronged you because you feel like it. You make the choice to forgive and because we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, He gives us the ability to forgive. We won't necessarily forget, but the bitterness of being wronged can be removed from the memory of the wrongful action.
2. To be ignorant or to lack knowledge.
God created your body with the ability to balance it's functions and to heal itself if given the optimum circumstances. Your body operates at a cellular level. If large numbers of cells fail to communicate then the created balance is upset and symptoms of disease manifest.
Disease is the miscommunication of cells. What we have to find out is what is causing the miscommunication. God knows all things and to come to Him in prayer to ask for understanding and wisdom should be foremost. Wisdom is knowledge in action. Proverbs tells us that the beginning of knowledge and wisdom starts with the fear or respect of the Lord.
3. Knowing of God but not having a relationship with Him.
Do you need to accept Jesus in order to be healed? Will He heal you anyway? Yes, God will heal people who do not accept Jesus. We see this in scripture from Mark 7 when the woman from the border of Tyre and Sidon asks for her daughter to be healed. She was not a believer but Jesus healed the daughter anyway.
And take the ten lepers for example. All were healed but only one came back to give thanks. But if you can be healed physically isn't it up-most to be healed spiritually for salvation? In James 4 we are told that we don't receive what we ask for because we ask amiss. Our motives for asking are not right and our motives aren't right because we don't really know the one we are petitioning to. When Jesus healed He preached the gospel first then He healed.
Now you say that there are those who are not Christian and receive healing. They may be instinctively following God's truths by their own reasoning in their heart. Their rewards will be of this world.
In reading through Leviticus it shows us how serious God is about sin. The penalty was high in the Old Testament. Sacrifices had to be made. Much blood from animals was shed. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for all of our sins with His shed blood. We no longer need to kill animals for forgiveness. But God still views sin as serious. It causes physical and spiritual consequences.
4. Personal sins (unknowingly or flagrant) and inherited generational sins.
In Isaiah 59 we are told that the Lord's hand can save and his ear can hear but, our iniquities have separated us from God and our sins have hid His face from us so that He will not hear. In Exodus 20 it says God holds the fathers responsible for the spirituality of the family and that consequences of sin can go on for generations.
So we not only have to consider the sins we commit ourselves but also inherited family tree sins. Diseases run in families and so do spiritual dynamics; fear, worry, anxiety, resentment, bitterness, negativity also run in families.
Temptation is not sin. But if people habitually practice those things that God has said is wrong with a hardened heart as a way of life then the God's word in Galatians 5 says that the Kingdom of God is not theirs. As with forgiveness it's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway or knowing it's wrong and desperately wanting to change.
5. Not having faith that God is able to do what He says.
Praying and not really believing God can heal you is a major block for healing. Even Jesus was unable to do mighty works because of people's unbelief and doubt. As we trust in Him to work in us and with us we see His power revealed. Many books in the Bible talk about having the faith in God to know that He can do what He says; Mark, Hebrews, and Matthew. Take your belief to point of commitment!
6. Needing to see a miracle or a sign first.
How many people won't believe until they see a miracle or a sign first? They wouldn't believe Jesus was the Messiah unless He came down from the cross and delivered Himself. Thomas wouldn't believe until he saw the scars in Jesus' flesh. But Jesus said blessed are they who haven't seen and yet believe.
We are not to look to other humans for health and healing. We are to look to God, to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and to His Word. Doctors may be looked upon as miraculous healers when in fact it is God, who made your body, who heals.
We must seek God and His Word, and not wonders and signs for the foundation of our faith. Disease is a fruit of separation from God in some area in our life. Faith in God and His Word is the key to a relationship with Him not if you see miracles or signs and wonders.
7. Thinking God should heal you on your own terms not His.
First of all we are not to be impressed with our own wisdom as told to us in Proverbs 3. And if we respect the Lord and turn away from evil (sin) we will have healing for our bodies and strength for our bones.
A great illustration of this takes place in 2 Kings 5:11-14. The commander of the king of Aram's army, Naaman, had a spiritual problem of pride. Pride in thinking he knew what was the best way for God to heal him of leprosy. Elisha the prophet had sent a messenger to Naaman to tell him to wash seven times in the Jordan river. But Naaman got irate that first of all Elisha himself didn't come out to heal him and secondly that there were better rivers than Jordan to wash in. He left in a rage.
Naaman's officers confronted him with the fact that if Elisha had given him something complicated to do he would have done it. So why was he being stubborn in doing something simple like washing in the Jordan and be cured? Naaman conceded and washed in the Jordan river 7 times and was healed of leprosy.
8. Looking to man to be the source of your healing.
Are we running from one doctor or expert of a medical modality to the next trying to find the answer to our healing rather than turning to God in prayer and to seek a relationship with Him first and then His wisdom?
Psalm 118:8 says it's better to go to the Lord than to trust in people. We find this in 2 Chronicles 16 when King Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet and even though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians. He died two years later.
The Lord tells us that cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. Our salvation through Jesus Christ may be secure because we we trust in Him for forgiveness of sins but we can still suffer physically if we don't trust in Him for guidance in healing.
9. Trying to hide sins and faults from God and not being honest with one another.
Why do people lie about doing something they think is wrong? Why do they try to hide it? Because of pride and fear. Fear of what others will think, fear of rejection, fear of failure and fear of not being loved and too proud to admit that even you can make a mistake or have weaknesses.
Yet we are told to confess our faults to one another and pray for each other in James 5. God sees it all anyway so there's no hiding anything from Him. We need to bear one another's burdens as in Galatians 6.
Proverbs 28 lays it out on the line by saying that he that covers his sins shall NOT prosper: but if you confess and turn from them you shall have mercy. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. But we are to help each other build one another up. Team mates.
We are not to be angry and resentful of ministers of God's Word when they speak the truth to us regarding sin and turning our lives around. That's truth when it hits an open wound of pride. Destruction closely follows pride as a fall also follows a haughty spirit.
10. Not giving to God what is rightly His in tithes and offerings.
Everything is God's because He made it all. Malachi 3 talks about robbing God. When we neglect to see that all of our blessings come from Him and take and take and take and not respond in kind, then we rob from God. If you're a manager of a store,a department, or an executor of an estate you want to know how the owner or boss wants it handled. Your job is a steward of what you were given. But, to do the best job you can you ask how it should be managed. It's called embezzling if you take it as your own.
God has given us time, talent and money. To show our trust and gratitude for His blessings we are to give back a portion. Not just any portion, however, but the first portion of what He has given us. If we do that He promises to pour out blessings that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11. Looking to the symptoms and not to The Healer.
Anytime you concentrate on the problem instead of how to solve it you get nowhere. I know it's difficult to look past the symptoms especially when pain is involved. It consumes our present life and gives us the fear of pain in the future.
But just as Peter started to sink because he took his focus off of Jesus Matthew 14 so we must remain focused on the author of our faith and the creator of our bodies. We are to put on the FULL armor of God as in Ephesians 6. The enemy does not want to easily give up a stronghold. To distract you with symptoms is a great tactic to hold you in fear and paralyze you - maybe literally.
Look to the Healer that we see in Romans 8. If He can raise Jesus from the dead surely He can heal you. Don't negate that Christ took your sickness as well as your sins to the cross and by His stripes we are healed as 1 Peter 2 tells us.
12. Harboring fear in your heart.
Fear quenches faith. Fear put your focus on you and your problems and tells you that God isn't who He says He is. Fear produces doubt and doubt makes you think that God isn't omnipotent. God can't handle your disease. God wants you that way. Fear quenches prayer. After all God must not be listening to pitiful you.
Fear doesn't come from God. As a matter of fact over 300 times in the Word of God we're told NOT TO FEAR or FEAR NOT! God's antidote is His Spirit. His Spirit is found in reading His Word and hearing the truth of who God really is; creator, redeemer and sustainer of our lives. God gives us peace as in John 14 and a spirit of power, love and a sound mind in 2 Timothy 1.
Discern where the spirit of fear is coming from as it is keeping you from prayers being answered. Even in the secular realm we've been told we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
13. Neglectful lifestyle.
You expect healing when you neglect the care of your body. Unhealthy and risky lifestyles are directly opposite of God's command to take care of your body, His temple. We were bought with a price; we are not our own. We are to honor God with our bodies and to present them as a living sacrifice to our Maker. It is our spiritual act of worship.
So not getting the right nutrition, drinking enough water and getting enough sleep and rest have a natural consequence. So does watching vile media, taking in unhealthy substances and listening to negative and counterproductive music.
Don't keep blocking your own healing with a lifestyle choice you won't give up.
14. Not resisting the enemy and just giving up thinking God wants you that way.
Your premature death doesn't help God build His Kingdom one bit. Your being in disease doesn't fulfill God's purpose for you in the least. Can you declare His truth to others if you're dead? Can the dead arise and praise God as it states in Psalm 88 and 30?
God doesn't need disease to get you to heaven. We are of no earthly good to God if we die without ministering to other souls that need to hear His Gospel of Salvation! We are to spread the Good News and how can you do that if you are totally concentrating on your own physical health? We fail ourselves and God if we don't ask for wisdom for healing and stop being in His Word.
We are told to fight the good fight and give God ALL glory.
15. Past and continued involvement in occultism or other spiritualities.
There are a lot of healing practices and medical modalities. From acupuncture, meditation, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), yoga, diets, reiki, energy healing, biofeedback, tarot, New Age, angelology, breathwork, Chinese herbs, hypnosis, healing touch, imagery, reflexology, shamanism and the list goes on and on. We get so caught up with the finding THE answer or THE cure that we stay on this medical-go-round and totally miss who gives us life and health in the first place.
We look to other gods running from one thing to the next to relieve our fear or pain instead of to the One that has had the answers all along and has been patiently waiting for us to come and ask Him. To rely on Him only. Psalm 118 reminds us to trust in God and not in human means that will let us down. We also are not to turn to idols and that includes ourselves.
God has given us an inborn yearning for Him; a spiritual tug. But we must not confuse that yearning for anything other than the One true God; Father, Son and Spirit who created, sustains and saved us from spiritual death and carried our diseases to the cross. To do so may mean earthly rewards but spiritual sabotage.
Don't be deceived. God is foremost concerned with you going to heaven but He needs healthy soldiers who give Him ALL glory to carry out the spiritual warfare to win others to Christ. We must clean up our spiritual act so we have the energy and zeal to fulfill our purpose in His Kingdom. Times of trial and pain test our commitment, faithfulness and trust in a God who loves us dearly and gave His Son so we may have life, and have it abundantly.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. ~3 John 1:2
God is dealing with you; His body in this world. If you are Christian in your beliefs and know that God raised Jesus from the dead then He surely can bring healing and health to your body and mind as well as forgive your sins. But just as Jesus followed His Father's will so must we.
Christian Natural Health Coach, Patti Olson, was inspired to become a health and wellness coach after her victory over 23 years of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and assisting her husband's victory over Farmer's Lung, sleep apnea and arthritis.
Since then she has helped many others overcome their chronic conditions by following the same basic steps. Get her free report titled Overcome Chronic Illness: 5 Steps to Reclaiming Your Life from:
http://www.OvercomeChronicIllness.com
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