Let's discount specific waves of the Spirit, for a moment - the ministries of Kathryn Kuhlman and other documented faith healers. Instead, let's do a simple headcount of those who get miraculously healed in an average church.
We may find that less people are healed supernaturally than those who die, or those who get healed through medicine.
If medicine is how God is healing nowadays, shouldn't we prioritise it and ensure people have access to universal health care? Shouldn't churches subsidise medical treatment like Catholic and Baptist churches do with their hospitals?
I REJECT the narrative that people are not healed because they don't have enough faith. I personally think it's an evil message of condemnation and presumption. This is because Jesus said mustard seed sized faith is enough.
I find it hard to believe that a desperately sick Christian doesn't have mustard seed faith or that their family members do not. So I don't believe it's strictly a faith or belief issue. My personal experience doesn't even lend credence to an absence of faith.
I don't think we appreciate "fatherhood", when we ACCUSE Christians of lacking faith. I had a wonderful dad. If I fell ill, he'd drop everything for me. If I lacked the faith required for healing, he'd stay on my case and do EVERYTHING necessary to get me on the path to belief.
We portray God as WICKED, when we say he will stand by and do NOTHING until we somehow attain a mystical level of faith that heals some and kills others who do not possess it.
I think when people are ill, we need to be there for them PHYSICALLY. There is a level of exhaustion that hits you when you are ill. You have no energy to eat, pray or think. Others need to pray for you.
Sometimes what staves off fear is having someone with you during complicated, invasive medical tests. You need people to distract you from the pain and to remind you it will be okay. You also need MONEY.
Sometimes people don't do the full spectrum of tests needed for a correct diagnosis, because they can't afford to. Sometimes they don't have the funds to go to the best hospitals for care. Beyond praying for people, please send them MONEY, feed them or drive them to the hospital.
Let's go back to this issue of faith. I like how Paul describes it in I Thessalonians 1:8 (AMP): "For not only has the Word concerning and from the Lord resounded forth from you unmistakably in Macedonia and Achaia,...
...but everywhere the report has gone forth of your faith in God [of your a leaning of your whole personality on Him in complete trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness].
That kind of faith doesn't sound like simple head knowledge to me. Trust is an emotional and reasoned response to someone who has proven himself to be trustworthy. Do you have history with God? Can you recall the times he's been there for you? Then, you should trust him.
For me, leaning my personality on God means, despite my tendency to want to control things, I need to let go and let him run my life programme instead. I can't bully and threaten God to heal me. I can only trust him to.
