Will God heal me if I have enough faith?

by Dave Deane

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The Bible is clear: We live in a world that is groaning. Romans 8 tells us that all of creation groans under the weight of sin, longing for redemption.

Sin is not some floating, dark mist that pervades the universe, like the Force in Star Wars. It’s not an invisible toxin that randomly infects people. At its core, sin is separation from God—the Creator of the world. It is choosing to live apart from Him and outside of His design for how we were meant to live.

If God is life, then living apart from Him leads to death. It explains why we experience sickness, disease, and suffering; even just the anxiety that comes with worrying about it all—the deep uneasiness about the fragility of life that Hebrews 2 describes. Deep down, we all sense that something is not as it should be. Hence this first point, that Sickness is a symptom of a broken world, not necessarily a lack of faith. 

Often, sickness comes without explanation. And when that happens, we need to heed the words of Jesus in passages like Luke 13. Suffering does not necessarily discriminate in a world like ours. It is just a part of the world in which we live.

Second, God is more interested in your eternal healing than your temporary comfort

This is a hard truth, but it’s an important one. Nowhere in Scripture does God promise that believers will be free from sickness and suffering in this life. In fact, the opposite is true - Jesus tells us that in this world, we will have trouble (John 6:33).

And yet, God does heal. We see it all throughout Scripture. Miracles happen. But what we also see—perhaps more surprisingly—is that even when healing could happen, Jesus prioritizes something deeper.

Consider Mark 1. Jesus is healing the masses from dawn to dusk, and he’s exhausted by the end of the day. The next day comes, he gets up early in the dark to pray. His disciples find him and say ‘hey, Jesus, everyone is looking for you’—like, all these sick people are just flowing in from all over the place to get healed… But what Jesus says next is stunning… He says ‘let’s go to the next town that I may preach there also for that is why I have come…’

Now, think about that. If physical healing was the ultimate goal, why didn’t Jesus stay? The simple answer from Mark 1 is that Jesus came for something greater than just physical healing. Clearly He was interested in physical health, but not just for the sake of it. There is something DEEPER here tied to the message Jesus came to preach.

The deeper message Jesus came to preach, is how people can arise from that grave unto life everlasting.

In the end, the greatest healing is not freedom from sickness, but freedom from sin—and that is the miracle Christ guarantees.

Third, suffering is not a sign of God’s absence—often, it is the very thing that draws us closer to Him

Christian faithfulness is no shield against suffering—if anything, it is the banner we carry through it. To follow Christ is not to walk an untrodden path of ease, but to tread the well-worn road of saints and martyrs, trusting God not in the absence of suffering, but precisely through it—knowing that He refines, sustains, and leads us closer to Him in the very midst of our trials. These things happen in life so that the redemptive work of God might be displayed in the life of a believer—transforming suffering into a testimony of His sustaining grace.

Article excerpts taken from Questioning Christianity.

Read the full resource here: https://www.questioningchristianity.com/watch-and-read/will-god-heal-me-if-i-have-enough-faith