Podcasts + Posts

I've looked throughout the Bible to try and find a "formula" for faith and healing. I've discovered that, well... you can't find one.

(Listen to the podcast talk at https://www.overflowfaith.com/blog/07 for more)

A lot of people think that you've got to have complete faith in order for God to bless you- and that if you don't then somehow He's restrained until you "get your faith up." Now, sure, belief makes things better. It gives you more stability... a foundation.

But there's no "one-sized" fits all formula for faith in the Bible. I've looked. Over and over. It's just not there...

Get this: Jesus healed people who had no faith- people who didn't even know who He was! (For instance, the man He healed at the Pool of Bethesda, in John 5.)

Jesus also healed people with "partial" faith, like the guy who exclaimed, "I believe- help my unbelief!" when his son was being tormented by a demon (Mark 9:24). And like the lepers who said, "If you're willing..." (Matthew 8:2).

...

I thought the Holy Spirit was temperamental. Tidy. Reserved. And that we had to act a certain way in order to see the Spirit move. I thought we might "move" in the wrong way and cause the Spirit to exit the building. Turns out, I was wrong. Here's something I learned from the healing evangelist.

The strangest thing happened on a “Christian TV station”  one night (I know- I thought only people could be “Christian,” not music, books, stores, clothing lines, and even station stations… but… alas… a “Christian station” is a cable television network chock-full of televangelists, prayer cloths, and commercials with starving kids that you can save right now for less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day). OK, I exaggerated a bit on that, but you get the idea... yes, there is a station full of this stuff!

Here's what happened: a well-known evangelist (you'd know him if I mentioned his name, described his hair, or detailed the...

One of the first miracles Mark records is Jesus healing a leper (see Mark 1:40f.). There’s an interesting nuance about the entire story that I’ve read over and over and always missed…

Jesus touched the leper rather than simply healing Him with a word. Even though He heals many others with His words only. Even though He actually performs “long distance” miracles, healing events in which someone visits Him one village and asks for healing for a person in another village.

Why touch the leper?

It seems odd, particularly when you realize that the leper was healed as soon as Jesus spoke: “As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed” (1:42).

Furthermore, lepers weren’t supposed to be touched. People believed that if you touched a leper that you, too, became unclean. 

Perhaps that IS the issue here. Jesus touched him because the leper needed to be touched more than he needed anything else, including...

The message of Jesus is bigger than the forgiveness of sins. The Gospel affects all of life. Jesus desires for the Kingdom to come present, now. The goal isn’t simply to get people to Heaven; the goal is also to get Heaven to people.

Some background on that...

At the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, we read that Mary was told to name her child Jesus. His name actually means “salvation, deliverance.” The angel told her, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). 

The name Jesus, Yeshua, actually means “salvation.” That is, “Name the baby Salvation because He will save…” Salvation is Jesus’ very identity. 

Jesus came to save people in a far greater way than we may have thought, however. It’s important to note that Jesus came to offer a complete salvation, a salvation that affects the entire person.  

Throughout the story of His life on earth, we...

You can feel better right here, right now. Yes, you've got far more control over how things go than you might suspect. 

Many of us have- at some point or another- fallen victim to the "victim mentality." We say things like- 

* "I got the bad side of the gene pool."

* "My genetics are wrong."

* "I have a predisposition for ______________________."

I get it. Sometimes, those things are true. Sometimes. 

And, yes, they're true just enough times that we believe them to be true all of the time. However, doctors are now telling us that most illness and disease is merely 5% genetic and a whopping 95% environmental. 

By "genetic" they mean exactly what we attribute most everything to- our DNA. Our heredity. What we got from our parents. 

By environmental, they mean... well... things like...

* What we eat

* What we do when we're active (lifestyle choices)

* How often we choose not to be active- i.e., we don't need to be sedentary but we do need rest (a major...

I'm not much on over-promising. Just the opposite. I like it when others under-promise and then over-deliver, so I try to do the same thing.

That said, there's one "tool" I've learned (I didn't make it up, in other words- someone taught it to me) that works for healing 99.99999999% of the time. 

Dare I say it works 100% of the time? Yes, it's that good...

First, why- and then what

Let me tell you why it works, first...

Basically (and this is the way simplified version of it, OK?), your limbic brain manages your memories and handles your emotions. The two are often connected.

Sometimes, there's a positive aspect to it. You remember something exciting- and there's emotion attached to it. Feeling. Heart.

Many times, though, there's a negative association. You remember a painful person, place, or thing... and there are emotions attached to it, too. Your heart might start beating faster, your speech may become more intense and...

Quick question- How many of Jesus' miracles weren't miracles?

Yeah. Sounds kind of heretical to even ask it doesn't it?

Turns out, there are a few different words in the Bible used for "healing." Let's break them down...

One word, iaomai, means "instant healing." It's abrupt. It's cataclysmic. It changes things immediately.

I've seen iaomai firsthand.

* I watched it when my brother's eye was healed (he scratched it rushing through trees in the backyard when we were kids and wasn't supposed to be able to see out of it, again, when we were kids).

* I saw it when my little sister's heart murmur was healed... Now, the doctor uses the chart of her first heart rhythm to teach was a bad heart is like- and he uses the second to show what a perfect heart is like...

The tension for me is this...

Jesus said that we would lay hands on sick people and they would recover (Mark 16:15f.). He said we would do greater works than He did because He was going to the Father...

Some people are hoping for a miracle. That's their health plan. And, let's be honest, sometimes that's exactly what's needed- a miracle. 

However, even if a miracle comes, you'll need to manage it, to steward it... in the same way lottery winners have to manage their money.

Ask the tough questions with me...

• Why do most of the people get a financial windfall- be it through the lottery, through a large inheritance, or through a huge sports contract- go broke within just a few years?
• And why do some people "lose" their healing?

I don't know about you, but I've seen people healed of something- radically, miraculously- and then watched it all go away. It's almost as if the healing never happened. Honestly, I struggled with this concept for a few years.

Why does the healing disappear?

One day it dawned on me...

I was watching an ESPN documentary about professional athletes- how many of them earn incredible sums of money (in the millions, overnight!),...