Healing

We believe in a God who heals. In Southampton, during the Worship Central Tour, we were wonderfully reminded of this. During the evening one of our team had a picture of a twisted spine which we shared from the front.

As we continued to worship and pray for people a young man approached the front clearly overwhelmed by what God had just done in his life.Four years ago Scott was in a nasty trampoline accident where he severely damaged his back. Since that day he's been in constant pain, with 14 trapped nerves down his back. The only solution was surgery. On Wednesday 10 November at Southampton's Central Hall, Scott was prayed for and the pain instantly left - the first time in four years. The following week he was due to have an operation on his back. Still with no pain he explained to the doctors what had happened. They did some X-rays and in Scott's words here's what happened next:

"As I said, I was due for an operation on Thursday 18th, so as scheduled I went in and explained to the surgeon exactly what happened. He X-rayed my back and shown on the X-ray my shoulder blades were perfectly inline with each other and there looked to be absolutely nothing wrong with any of the muscles down my spine. The doctor was speechless and he said that there is no way that that could be physically possible without surgery, so praise the Lord, for he is beyond our wildest dreams."

An amazing testimony to the power and wonder of our God - the God who heals. Scott's story is an encouragement and reminder that we should continue to pray for the sick and expect to see God heal. The challenge is will we stand on God's Word or our own experience.

God's Word says “…I am the Lord who heals you.” (Ex 15)

In Luke 9:1, we see Jesus calling the 12 disciples together giving them, ‘power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal those who were ill.’ In Luke 10:9 Jesus commissions the 72 saying, ‘Heal those who are ill and tell them, ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you.’ In Mark 16:18, Jesus in a post resurrection appearance said of those who followed him, ‘they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.’ Jesus has given us authority to heal the sick and has given us the Holy Spirit to do it.

I’ve been challenged by John Wimber’s words, that he’d rather pray for 100 people and 1 person get healed, than pray for no one and no one gets healed. We live in a broken world. We live in the midst of many unanswered questions. Why are some healed and others not? I'm not sure we'll ever really know the answers, but the call for us is to keep on praying. To keep on trusting and to keep on believing. These stories and breakthroughs of God at work, the Great Physician restoring bones and muscle are reminders that God's Kingdom is at hand. With God all things are possible!