Someone Touched Me

When I was six years old I was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever. I was bedridden with a 104+ degree temperature for over a week. I couldn’t move, eat, or even talk. My parents were trusting God for my healing, but also battling fear as my condition grew steadily worse.

One night my dad was sitting by my bed praying. My fever had spiked to over 106 and I was slipping into a comatose state. Then something happened I would never forget.

I felt a cool hand on my forehead. I was awakened. “Dad did you touch me,” I asked. “No honey,” he answered, thinking I was delirious. “Go back to sleep.” I raised my voice and said, “No dad, somebody touched me!” At the same time I said that, I noticed I was feeling better. I sat up in bed and said with a loud voice, “DAD! Somebody touched me! And I feel BETTER!!!” Then across my bedroom I saw something moving.

Jesus Was There

Focusing my eyes, I could make out someone standing behind my dad. I couldn’t see his face, but he was wearing a white robe and some kind of purple sash.

I knew who it was.

I stood up on my bed pointing my finger and began yelling at the top of my lungs, “Dad! Dad! It’s Jesus! It’s Jesus!” My little emaciated skin and bone body was now jumping up and down. My dad turned to look but saw nothing. But I saw Jesus begin to ascend through the ceiling of my bedroom, and then was gone.

I was completely healed. I was also very hungry (my mom would always laugh later when telling the story of how much food I ate that night). The next day I ran and played (and ate more food) like a kid who had been raised from the dead.

Is it God’s Will to Heal?

Since that night, I’ve never doubted whether or not God can heal. Even as I got older and drifted in my spiritual walk, there’s nothing nor anyone that can take away what happened to me.

But there are many people who aren’t as certain.

The uncertainty isn’t about God’s ability to heal, but whether He is willing to heal. God’s sovereignty, His ways being higher than ours, thrown in with references to Job’s afflictions and/or Paul’s thorn in the flesh, are mixed with religious sounding jargon that saps people’s confidence when it comes to God’s willingness to heal.

There’s even adulation of people who claim that God has given them afflictions to teach them how to depend on Him and grow in spiritual maturity. They won’t say that God caused the affliction, but that He’s allowed it.

God’s Covenant to Heal

Jesus came to show us who God is. What Jesus said and did reveals God’s will and heart. Peter summarizes Jesus’ ministry this way…

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38, NKJV)

Notice that sickness and the devil are put in the same breath. It does not say that Jesus healed those who “were allowed to be oppressed” by the devil. In other words, any oppressive thing (sickness, disease, infirmity) that Jesus healed was caused by the devil.

This is powerfully illustrated in the way Jesus responds to the ruler of a synagogue. The ruler was upset that Jesus had healed a woman on the Sabbath. Jesus asks the man a question…

“Shouldn’t this woman, a descendant of Abraham whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16, ISV)

By stating that this woman was a “daughter of Abraham,” Jesus is laying hold of one of the most important and powerful ingredients to knowing God’s willingness to heal: THE COVENANT. God has sworn in blood His promises to His people. And these covenantal promises, which will never change, include healing.

Why Aren’t All People Healed?

I would answer this question with a question, “Why aren’t all people saved? Isn’t it God it’s will that none should perish?”

Peter said that Jesus healed ALL who were oppressed. That was true everywhere except one place, His hometown of Nazareth. Those people couldn’t believe beyond Jesus being Joseph’s son. However, for those who DO believe, all things are possible, including healing.