Jesus On Healing: 'I Am Willing' (Part 1)

Matthew 8:1-3…”1) When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. 2) And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’ 3) Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.’”

Back in Jesus’ day, leprosy was the most dreaded of diseases. When one contracted leprosy, they would be banished from society and even shunned by family and friends. People with leprosy were considered outcasts and were required to wear a bell or something to alert people they were in the vicinity of one with leprosy .

In this particular account in Matthew chapter 8 above, Jesus had just completed His famous Sermon on the Mount. As He was coming down from the mountain, we read in verse 2 that a leper had called out to him. In verse 3, Jesus reaches out His hand and touches the leper.

I want to stop right here and try to get an idea of the reality of the situation. One thing that is so important to do while reading Bible history, is to put yourself into the story and try to imagine being there. Many who read the Bible read the stories like they are just fairytales with a moral meaning. True, they have a moral meaning with lots of powerful lessons we can take away from them, but we must remember these are true stories with real people just like you and me, with the same feelings and emotions that we have.

Now, with that said, let’s try to put some reality into this story. In verse 1, we read that when Jesus came down from the mountain, a “great multitude followed Him.” Put yourself into that multitude—remember, leprosy was considered to be a very contagious disease, and thought was in biblical times that just being in the presence of someone with leprosy would leave that person vulnerable to contracting the disease. Although, today scientists still do not know for sure how the disease is contracted, it is not considered to be a very contagious disease, as it was thought of in those days.

Since lepers wore a bell of some sort around their necks, this leper who saw Jesus coming, was surely recognized by the multitude as a leper when he called out to Jesus, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Just imagine being there within the multitude and knowing only what people knew of leprosy then. As he came near to Jesus, you can imagine some in the crowd screaming and scattering out of the way, so as not to be near the leper.

Yet, amazingly, Jesus reaches out and touches the leper and says, "I am willing; be cleansed"— I could hear the gasps as I type. The compassion that Jesus showed this leper, who was an outcast and considered dead by family and friends, was probably looked at as an act of lunacy by some who wouldn’t even consider looking at the leper, let alone touching him. But, just imagine the amazement over the crowd when the man was healed! I'm sure most of the crowd still didn't trust enough to go near this man.

Although Jesus was a man made of flesh and bones, just like you and me. There was one gigantic difference, Jesus knew what was inside of Him— the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus had available to Him all the power of God the Father. Jesus understood the magnitude of that power and that through this power, nothing was impossible to Him. In Matthew 10:1, He gave that same power to His disciples, "And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease", and for the most part they did go out and perform many miracles, but there is one particular incident where they failed.

This account can be found in Mark 9:17-29. In this account, a man calls out to Jesus from a crowd and says in verse 17 and 18, “17) Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit., 18) And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus’ replied in verse 19, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?”

I could picture Jesus looking over at His disciples, not in disrespect, but in disappointment that they just haven’t grasped what He had made available to them. The power that was theirs through Jesus. If we look at this same account in Matthew chapter 17, we get a better description on why the disciples could not heal the boy or cast out the demon responsible for the sickness. After Jesus healed the boy, His disciples came to Him and ask Him in Matthew 17:19, “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus replied in verses 20 and 21, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

There’s a lot of important information Jesus gave in these two verses—first we learn that it was not their faith that was the problem, because Jesus said, “if you have faith as a mustard seed” it would have been enough. Well, the disciples must have had at least that much faith, because they did perform miracles before this situation. But, Jesus said in verse 20, that it was "because of their unbelief" . Many translations of the Bible, translate the original Greek, “apistia”, meaning "unbelief", as “lack of faith”. The King James Versions, translates it as “unbelief”. Strong’s Concordance also interprets this verse as “unbelief”.

“Unbelief” would be the correct translation for two reasons: the first reason for unbelief being the right translation is because, the Greek word for “lack of faith” would be “apistos”, but apistos was not used here. The second reason would be that by saying “lack of faith” it would contradict the meaning of what Jesus was saying. If we use another translation that reads, “Because of your lack of faith” and continue on with the mustard seed analogy, when comparing it with the amount of faith that you would need, it distorts the point that Jesus was trying to get across.

You see, Jesus was not telling the disciples that they were lacking faith because, a mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, yet as we learn in Matthew chapter 13 that small seed becomes a very large tree. What does Jesus mean here? Well, it only takes a small amount of faith to receive great blessings from God. So, by comparing the disciples faith with a mustard seed, He means that’s all they would need to perform any and all miracles. Let’s face it, just to be with Jesus and leave their homes, businesses and families and dedicate their lives to Him, they would have had to have at least a mustard seeds size faith. You don’t just abruptly leave your family and livelihood without some sort of faith.

What Jesus was telling the disciples is that they were corrupted by unbelief. This may sound contradictory as well, but it is not. In Mark 9:23, Jesus says, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” In verse 24 the boys father replies “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” Bingo! There you have it, you can have both faith and unbelief at the same time. The Greek word used here for “believe” is “pisteuo” and is also defined as “to have faith”, so I am not stretching the meaning here to make my point.

If this all sounds confusing to you, please be patient, we have a lot more information to go through. One question you might have, is how can a Christian have "unbelief"? Did you ever pray for something and knew God was capable of doing all things and answering any prayer; yet you weren't sure if He would answer it for you? That is a form of unbelief. James 1:6 tells us, "But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind." What happens to ones prayer request when this kind of doubt or unbelief is present? James answers that in verse 7, "For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." Wow! If you have been troubled by unanswered prayer, its quite possible that unbelief is your problem.

Listen, carefully! As long as any request you make to God in prayer is Scriptural and not self-serving, He always answers yes! Now, some might ask, if I am praying for healing, is that self-serving? No! Not as long as you tell people what God has done for you. There is nothing that God does, that will not glorify Himself. That's why He heals, so others will see and turn and seek Him as their Lord and Master.

If a prayer goes unanswered, there's either one of three reasons why it didn't get answered. First, it may not have been a Scriptural prayer request. Praying for money to get the latest home theater system is not a Scriptural prayer and will not be answered by God with a "yes". Second, you have unbelief that is blocking the manifestation of the blessing in your life. How does this happen? Well, Wherever evil is present, and unbelief in God is of the devil, it will block the works of God. Romans 8:7 tells us, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."So, any thought that enters the human mind that you accept as truth, yet is not a Godly truth, will separate you from God's blessing.

Let me put it this way; If you accept Jesus as your savior, yet still feel the need to hold onto some of the worldly things of your former life in the flesh, that are not Godly in nature, is like entering a new room that represents your new life in Jesus. But, when you enter the room you want to keep the door open to the room (prior life in the flesh) that you came from, just a little, because there are some things you liked about that room (or life) that you do not want to give up totally. If you do this, you are double-minded (James 1:8 ) you are not shutting out Satan, he can come and go in your life as he pleases because you haven't shut the door on him. Matthew 6:24 tells us that you can't serve two masters. You must choose God totally by being born again and living your new life in the Spirit.

The third reason for unanswered prayer, could be ongoing sin in your life, and that can be any number of things. You can find examples of this in Galatians 5:19-21, "19) Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21) envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Let’s take a look at another example in Scripture where this same principle comes into play. Let’s take a look at Mark 8:22-26, “22) Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. 23) So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. 24) And he looked up and said, ‘I see men like trees, walking.’ 25) Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. 26) Then He sent him away to his house, saying, ‘Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.’”

First, I want to preface my explanation here by saying that the town Jesus was in here, Bethsaida, was a town known for its unbelief and paganistic views. How do we know that? In two Scriptures, Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13, in which both Matthew and Luke quote Jesus as saying of Bethsaida that, “If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” Now Tyre and Sidon were considered to be deep-seated in paganism. Yet Jesus makes it sound as though Bethsaida was even worse.

I also want to add that this explanation is not biblical—there is no where in the Bible you will find this explanation, but I do believe God has impressed this upon my heart through prayer and study, through other ministers, and evaluation of relating Scriptures. Putting all that I have learned together, I do believe that this explanation is on target.

With that said, let’s dig in! Now, in verse 23 of Mark 8, it says that before Jesus healed the blind man, he took him by the hand and led him outside the village. Now, here is where my reasoning comes into play as to why Jesus led him outside the village. I believe that the crowd around Jesus was so full of unbelief, that it was hard, not for Jesus to release the blessing unto the man, but it was hard for the man to manifest that blessing into reality to where he could see, because of the unbelief that he received from being conscious of the crowd around him.

(I base this on Mark 6:4-6, “4) But Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.' 5) Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6) And He marveled because of their unbelief.” Jesus could not do miracles here because of the unbelief of the people, not because He lost His power. Unbelief blocks God’s blessings in ones life, even when God answers “yes” to prayer, if you have unbelief or doubt in you about His answer, you will not see that blessing manifest in your life until you rid yourself of unbelief. More on that as we progress here.)

If Jesus could get him away from the crowd and get him to just focusing on faith without the unbelief or negative feelings, his eyes will be healed. It is also the only time recorded in Scripture, that it took Jesus two tries for the healing to manifest, which I believe, is further proof of this negativity or unbelief that was so ingrained in this man from living in a society of unbelief. Similar to the society we live in today and the reason why people, who do believe in the principles of godly healing, are looked at as lunatics.

I also want to point out that Jesus spit on the mans eyes and rubbed them with His hands. There are many instances where healings were manifest with just a word from Jesus. It was not common for Him to use anything physical, such as spit or touch, to manifest a healing. I believe that this society in general, which again is eerily similar to ours today, needed something physical to believe in. For example, in today’s society, if you don’t want to jinx yourself when saying something in particular, many people will look for something made of wood and knock on it—like that is going to bless you and keep Satan from you.

This, ironically, comes from the days of idol worship of wood carvings which was wide-spread in Jesus’ day, where man would create their own gods of wood. They would touch or knock on them to receive blessings from that god. I’ve seen some people in this situation when not being able to find anything made of wood nearby, would then knock on their own heads, sort of as a joke, but my reaction, and of course I would keep it to myself, would be to think, ‘I guess that is wood up there instead of brains, if you feel you need to knock on wood to protect yourself against being jinxed.’ I know that is uncalled fore, but I never said I was perfect.

One more example to corroborate my explanation, is in Matthew 14:22-32, we read the account where Peter walked on the water during a storm after seeing Jesus doing the same. I am not going to go into all the details of the story here, but I do suggest you read this account for yourself, if you are not familiar with it. The basic premise of the story is that the disciples were on the lake in a fishing boat late at night and a storm cropped up tossing their boat about the water—in fear for their lives, the disciples fought the waves to keep their boat from over-turning. Jesus, knowing that the disciples were in trouble, walked out on the water toward the disciples boat. After seeing Him the disciples called out to Jesus; after Jesus responded by telling them, “not to fear”, Peter called out to Jesus in verse 28, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”

Peter displayed a faith here that must have even surprised his fellow disciples, because none of them attempted to do the same. But, after Jesus said, “come”, Peter stepped out of the boat and walked on the water. Peter was fine while his focus was on Jesus, but suddenly carnal reality stepped in (unbelief through thoughts planted in Peter’s mind by Satan, no doubt) and Peter became aware of the natural circumstances around him, such as the wind, and he began to sink. Immediately, Jesus reached out and caught him and said, “You of little faith, why do you doubt?”

Now, this is interesting because Jesus didn’t say that Peter did not have faith, He said he had “little faith.” Jesus said in Matthew 17:20 , that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. So, that little faith, that Jesus was referring to, was enough to allow Peter to walk on the water, that is until unbelief or doubt entered the picture. What happened as soon as Peter’s natural instincts kicked in? He began to sink!

Matthew 17:20

20) So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. (NKJV)

There is a separation between our physical lives and our spiritual lives—a huge separation. So large and so different that our physical being cannot see, nor comprehend this spiritual aspect of our total being. Jesus said in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Considering the whole account in which Jesus said this in John chapter 3—He was saying to Nicodemus that you need to be born of the spirit to understand spiritual things. How are you born of the spirit? By accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior and committing yourself to living according to that lifestyle.

I hope you can see that it is possible, and it is biblical to have faith, yet, still have unbelief because of societies view on things based on the natural or physical consciousness around you. So, to conclude part one of this study, we have determined that just having faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains, that is, unless you allow unbelief to enter the picture.

Unbelief and faith together, are like oil and water, they do not mix. Just as the spiritual being and the physical being of man do not mix as well. In part two, we will go further in depth on how unbelief spoils the recipe for healing and other blessings, and how all this relates to your healing in today’s society.

I hope part one of this study on healing has helped you, please click on the link below for part two of this study, and don’t forget to bookmark this site for easy future reference.