The Conditions Under Which Healing Can be Asked of God

Health Not an End in Itself
Health is not an end in itself. The same way that a car is not manufactured to simply sit in your garage and be an object of beauty, and it has a definite purpose to its creation; health is a means to a much higher end than itself, and our bodies and minds have an objective purpose, a specific function for which we were designed When you look at a car you see a vehicle. Every part of a car contributes to its function as a vehicle. And health is a vehicle too; a vehicle to a life of active service.

The greatest commandment is this: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

Matthew 22:37

In the greatest commandment, which is a summary of the first four commandments pertaining to one's worship of God, we see that the worship of God involves the zealous use of one's mental and physical ability to the uttermost. The one who truly loves God doesn't want to give Him a half-way love. Thus this person will endeavor to become as healthy as they can in order to be able to use more of their mind and body in the service of God. They won't settle at half-way health.

In saying this I don't mean that everyone who pursues health will have glowing, perfect health. Many may not be able to achieve perfect health for various reasons, but this will certainly be their goal. If God allows things outside of our power to limit how much health we can have, this same kind of person will bow to His Sovereignty and accept it, but they won't want to be the reason behind why they haven't achieved better health.

Praying for Health to Carry Out Personal Dreams
Unfortunately it's become very common in our day for people to pray for health from God so that they can live out their dreams and goals. Celebrities credit God for being involved in their secular career where they write songs with humanistic messages about personal power and ambition. Even though the person is mostly serving self, with God being in their lives on the side, it's believed they can appeal to God and receive health and success from Him. If they come down with a serious illness they ask friends and family to pray for a recovery of their health. If they recover from their illness, they assume God helped them recover. But living in this manner virtually secularizes God. It paints Him as a physician only, and He is appealed to the way a person might go to a doctor's appointment to be treated, rather than submitted to and worshiped as the Savior of one's sins, the Lord of one's life, and in whom glorifying Him is not only our highest purpose, but our only purpose. Our organic created purpose cannot be substituted for anything else, and still result in us retaining our innocence, happiness, and health. When Adam took up another purpose besides obedience to God and service of God, it brought in the misery we experience in this world.

Healing as a Sign
In the last chapter of Mark Jesus tells His disciples “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature… and these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons… they will place their hands on the sick, and they will recover”.

Healing is meant to be a sign that God's church has the true doctrine. It's meant to point back to the Bible and to draw people to Christ. Healing is not meant to be used to get us well so we can live out our dreams and goals. It is meant to magnify Christ.

When we pray for healing for our own purposes, we put God in a position where if He were to grant us our petition, it would do the opposite of being a sign that pointed back to Him and His truth; it would testify against Him and support humanism as the truth.

God cannot work against Himself. He cannot support causes that steal honor from Him and that confuse people about what is true.

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

Matthew 5:45

In this verse Jesus makes it clear that He can't answer prayer requests with a "yes" if the person is asking for something with selfish motives and for selfish purposes.

Contrast this verse with one from the book of John.

"And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him."

1 John 5:14-15

Our confidence that we will have our prayer answered in the affirmative comes from selecting something we know is God's will, for instance, forgiveness of sin. We can have confidence God will say yes to a prayer asking for forgiveness of sin, if we are ready to forsake that sin and follow Christ.

But we can't have confidence in a "yes" answer to prayers for physical healing; we must allow God's will tp be done. The confidence we can have in this case is that God will do what is best for us.

However, if our goal for getting healthy is to live out our personal dreams, like get the job we want, and have the family we want to have, and we aren't putting God and His kingdom first, then we can forfeit a healing that may have been in God's will for us to receive if we were surrendered.

And I think many are doing this exact thing.

Promise of Healing
While God does sometimes choose to heal unbelievers, people who aren't fully surrendered to Him, as this may be necessary to prolong their lives so they can come to believe in Him, and while He is merciful and gives life, air, rain and sunlight on both the believing and the unbelieving (Matthew 5:44-45), the conditions for healing for the Christian really are that we accept God's full Word, make a complete surrender to Him, and that we take up the yoke of service. The great commission is the mandate to spread the gospel and make disciples of all nations, teaching others to also obey the full teaching of the Bible and follow Christ.

Must be Willing to Wear the Shoes in the Armor if We Want God to Heal Us
We must have our feet shod with the gospel of peace, if we desire God to heal us from sickness and bless our health (Ephesians 6:15). Not only this, but after God grants us the initial healing, the only way we can maintain our health is by having our feet shod with the gospel of peace. Just as no one can maintain health without exercise, no one can maintain spiritual health and psychological happiness, without being enlisted under Christ's banner, taking up the yoke of service, and moving forward to deliver the gospel of peace to needy sinners.

But if a person's main drivers and goals are not sharing the gospel, they have not put the shoes on.

Health is not promised in a vacuum; it is promised to those who agree to this full covenant. And we cannot expect God to give health as a general rule to those who are unwilling to take the yoke of service and live completely for Christ.

Healing is promised in conjunction and with the understanding that the person agrees to accept all of Christ's doctrines.

Not only this, but health cannot be achieved in a vacuum; it is impossible. The person who has not entered into a full covenant with God cannot be truly happy and healthy and at peace.

I believe a lot of people in our time are not receiving healing from God because they have not accepted the conditions of healing. I believe God wants to do more healings than He is able to do, but we are holding back the blessing of health.

Health and Life by Every Word

In our day, it has become commonplace for people to take the position that as long as a person embraces the basic gospel that they are right with God, and that the basic gospel is all that matters, and other points of doctrine are not essential. It is seen as ok to really believe something is true in the Bible, but to not really give it much attention, and to not have to embrace it. If you want to embrace it, ok, but it's not essential. The basic gospel is enough.

But what does the Bible say?

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

Matthew 4:4

When Jesus made this fundamental statement about how man must live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, He was not just saying this as a command, that we should and ought to live by every word of God.

He was saying it as a description of reality, of what it takes for a man to live. It takes the acceptance of every word of God for a man to live.

When Adam accepted most of the words of God, but disobeyed on the point of eating the fruit, he fell under the power of death and could no longer live.

And today it still takes an acceptance of every Word of God -- the full doctrine of Christ and the Bible -- in order to enter into a saving relationship with Christ and be forgiven of sin. While we will not keep every word perfectly as we are sinners being saved out of our sin condition, and this is a process of gradual recovery as we are sanctified, we must accept all Bible truth that we know, or we are not forgiven and received by Christ as His child.

There is no way to be a Christian accept by receiving and endeavoring to live out in Christ's strength --albeit imperfectly -- every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

This is how one enters into the covenant through Christ, by repentance and faith. And repentance requires a turning away from every category of sin. One can't for instance, turn away from stealing but hold onto a gay relationship and still expect God to see them as a Christian. They must accept the full teaching of Christ, and leave behind both the stealing and the gay relationship.

And this is true of every point of truth. All truth that is known must be followed -- once again I want to emphasize this is done imperfectly.

When a Person Comes to Christ, They Give Up Their Life

"And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."

2 Corinthians 5:15

When a person comes to Christ to be saved, they are to give up their life. Their goals, their dreams, their desires -- all these are laid at the altar, and they accept God's will and God's plan for them. Their only mission now is to live out the life God gives them and that God desires them to have.

But this servitude is not drudgery. It doesn't feel like a prison where they must force themselves to do things they hate.

A death of the "old man" occurs, and God grants them holy desires. They no longer want to live for themselves. They desire to live for the One who loved them enough to die the second death in their place. God doesn't control the person like one might control an unruly horse by putting a bridle in its mouth and steering it in directions it doesn't want to go in. People aren't animals. We have an intelligent will and deeply-rooted motives. God makes worship a delight; God makes surrender deeply meaningful to the person by changing their desires to be in alignment with truth.

He gives us a heart that can love and there is great joy in carrying out those desires.

This is where true health is found. The atheist cannot achieve full health. He might have good physical health but his psychological health will be in shambles. Neither can the Buddhist or the pagan.

It is only Christians we can achieve full health, well as full as it is possible for health to be in this world.

If a person does not live up to all the Bible truth they know, and they accept some of it, and consider other points unessential, and knowingly reject them, this leads to Christianity becoming a cultural thing, rather than a set of deeply held personal beliefs that have power to change the heart. Going to church becomes like hanging out at the park or going to a party. It's about socializing; it's not about finding truth and living it out out of reverence for Christ. People stop searching the scriptures for themselves, and accept generic answers from their pastors or leaders, and focus on their personal goals and dreams rather than on serving Christ and making sure to serve Him according to correct Bible doctrine.

But do all Christian circles even teach the correct gospel? No, and we know this for the basic fact that everyone cannot be right. When different churches teach different gospels that contain points of truth which contradict each other, it is logically impossible for both to be correct. Perhaps the most obvious discrepancy is between Catholics and Protestants. But it is also true that Calvinism and Arminianism cannot both be right, that baptism by immersion and baptism by sprinkling cannot both be right, and on and on.