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Healing! Many people desperately need it. Just a healing touch. Some seek natural healing.
One of the more popular types of healing people seek is holistic healing. Holistic healing is described as taking into account
an individuals physical, mental, and social conditions. It is a spiritual type of healing, but divised by man and not based
on God. Sounds like they are stealing the godly principles of healing your spirit, soul, and body, because that's what God
promises those who seek Him and know Him.
With God, healing is one of the gifts of the Spirit found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
There is a great divide among Christian's who believe that all the gifts
of the Spirit are still effective today; and those who believe that
many of those gifts were no longer available to Christian's after the apostles.
For clarification purposes, here's a list of the gifts we find in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
There are nine in all, including: 1) the message of wisdom (NIV) or the word of wisdom (NKJV);
2) the message or word of knowledge; 3) the gift of faith; 4) the gift of healing; 5) the working of miracles (NKJV);
6) the gift of prophecy; 7) distinguishing between spirits (good and evil spirits. This is NOT astrology!);
8) speaking in tongues; and 9) interpretation of those tongues.
Of course, these nine gifts, we are told in 1 Corinthians 12, are distributed by God
through the Holy Spirit for His glory. I don't think there is any disagreement with the first three gifts
being active today, because we do have our teachers of the Bible today, in our pastors, theologians, and
ministers of God's Word. And without faith, Jesus would not even be spoken of today. But, my question would be, why would God cancel out some of those gifts, but not
all of them.
I would like to focus on one particular gift that I know is at work today in particular,
because I've experienced the benefits of it. That is the gift of healing. Many detractors will focus in
on those Christian's who pray for healing and do not get healed. There are a variety of reasons for this
deficiency, but I submit that the number one reason is that Christian's do not know God today.
It's amazing, because a Gallup poll says that 92% of American households have at least one
Bible in it. That 92% does not only include Christian's, but atheist's as well. Here's where my reasoning comes into play
as to why we do not know God, on a whole. Of the 92% of households polled in 2000, only 59% of those people polled
say they read the Bible occasionally. That is down from 73% in 1980.
The percentage of Americans who read the Bible at least once a week in 2000 was 37%.
This is down from 40% in a 1990 poll. This next statistic is alarming to me; in that 2000 poll, only 14%
of people who read the Bible, go beyond just reading it to doing a study about what they read. This is a sharp
decline from a 1990 poll that showed 21% of Bible readers went beyond just reading.
What's most alarming is that these polls include Christian's, who, by calling themselves Christian,
are claiming to be disciples of Christ. Jesus chastised His disciples while on earth, could you imagine how disappointed
He would be in those Christian disciples today.
When it comes to the gift of healing, there are many who claim to believe in the gift and
and have prayed for healing and received it, but yet, found that sickness or disease returned after receiving that miracle.
Again, there are many who will say, that those people were never healed in the first place. But, I beg to differ.
Satan is at work in this world, and his main goal is to keep you and me from finding these wonderful
gifts that God has blessed us with through the restoration of our relationship and fellowship with Him in
the atoning sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. I've written a study based on a Scripture in Matthew 12:43-45,
which refers to just this problem.
If you would like to read further on this subject, please click on the link provided below.
I will discuss in more depth why some failed healings occur.
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