Covenant of Healing (Pastor Tim Burt)

Our Covenant of Healing

1 John 5:4-5 “… This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

When it comes to healing, the Word of God is firmly established that it’s God’s will to heal and His will for us to be healed. Until that is a completely settled issue in your heart – faith on this matter cannot exist and it is only be faith that we please God! We have the witness of scripture from Isaiah, Matthew, and First Peter that Jesus died not only to save and deliver us from Hell instead giving us eternal life, but also so that we could experience the blessing of God including healing in this life – now!

Isaiah 54 paints a picture of the coming Messiah. He would come and be punished in our place taking our sins upon Himself. He would pay the price for our sins and our sicknesses and diseases. These verses also indicated that though the Messiah would do this, many would not recognize that what He was doing was His assignment of mercy and grace from God. Many would think that what Jesus went through was punishment from God brought on by His own lunacy. Isaiah 53:4-5 says of Him, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”

The Hebrew words for griefs means sickness and disease. Jesus was beaten and punished for our sins to deliver us from the curse of sin including sickness and disease. This is why “with His stripes we were healed.” Can that really mean physically healing for today? Let’s look at the second witness from Matthew concerning these verses and see.

In Matthew chapter 8 we read about Jesus healing a man with leprosy and the centurion’s servant. We then see Jesus coming to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house. She was physically sick. What did Jesus do for her? Was this about physical healing? We read: Matthew 8:14-17 “And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And He touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. When the evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” This is where we will see the witness of Matthew agree with the witness of Isaiah 53:4-5. Isaiah was prophesying of the Messiah to come and what He would do. Now we see Jesus actually doing it as the Messiah just as Isaiah foretold. What Jesus was doing, it says, was fulfilling the words of the prophet Isaiah saying, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” This is physical healing. This is what Jesus did. This is what the prophet Isaiah said hundreds of years before that He would do. He did it because it was the will of God.

We then see this verse from Isaiah quoted one more time in 1 Peter 2:24. Speaking of Jesus, Peter wrote: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds (beatings or stripes) you have been healed.”

Jesus has provided us with a covenant of healing. Jesus bore not only our sins but our sicknesses and diseases. He never intended this to end or to be a secret. It was part of the great commission to all His disciples and to any who would believe. Mark 16:15-18 “And Jesus said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

In America, we may not deal with poison water or even snakes invading our space that we need to be delivered from, but in many parts of the world where I have Fresh Manna Readers, they do need those promises. Regardless, we are all surrounded by those that need healing. You will not lay hands on the sick if you do not believe it is God’s will to heal them. You will not believe for healing if you aren’t absolutely convinced that it’s God’s will. As long as there is a doubt, there is not faith. Healing has got to become a settled issue for you. You cannot impose healing on someone else. Everyone has to believe themselves and trust me – you do not know what is in the mind or heart of someone else. Quit measuring the reality of healing by others and let the Word of God alone set the standard for what you believe and your faith.

Go through the gospels and highlight every single instance of Jesus healing and look for God’s will in the matter. Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” He also said that ”a house divided against itself cannot stand.” If God was making people sick and Jesus was healing them, then they would be divided. They were not. Sin through Adams’s fall has infected all of humanity. The effects of sin – sickness and disease, poverty and lack, and calamity and destruction along with Satan’s attack has touched all our lives – all of humanity whether we did anything to bring it on or not.

Jesus knew our human frailty and out of compassion gave us “gifts of His Holy Spirit” including healing to help us until He completely destroys every last work of Satan. This is how “…everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt
http://readfreshmanna.blogspot.com/