Is healing ALWAYS God's will?

BTW - this is a topic that was a huge question in my mind when I began this blog back in 2006 and so, in some ways, we are getting back to our initial roots. If you began reading this blog because you are especially interested in healing, then today's post will not disappoint!

To start, I'm going to take this discussion in a different direction initially before getting back to the theological "hot potato" that Christians have been fighting about for much of Church History.

Let us imagine that we get together with a friend who is clinically depressed. I am thinking here of the brain chemistry being out of whack and true depression being the result. What would you say to them with regard to God's will in relation to their condition? Could you honestly tell them that it may or may not be God's will to heal them? Knowing what I know about clinical depression, and I mean the darkness, the hopelessness, and the loss of the will to live, it is hard to imagine that anyone would tell a depressed person that the condition is God's will for them to suffer in. Note: I have had close family members (my late father and my twin brother) who have battled with it for years, and so, I know what I am talking about. It is a type of hell on earth.

When almost any Christian thinks about the above scenario they would almost certainly tell a depressed person and believe that it would be God's will to heal them from the prison in which they are trapped. Except for the cruelest of 'Christian determinists' (and I know some Calvinists who would fit that description), I don't know any Christians who would say this to the clinically depressed individual. How God would heal them is another question, but that He would desire to heal them is without a doubt.

And just to be clear, I don't believe that determinism in any form is Christian at all, but rather a pagan and Gnostic import (via St. Augustine) into the Christian faith in the early 5th century. 

Let's get back on track - let us now consider another condition, a condition with no medical solution/treatment. Take, for example, ALS which is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Again, a condition that is close to home as one of my best friends in college died from this horrendous condition. I spent time with him and prayed with him a couple of times, the last time when it was at a very advanced stage. And I prayed what I knew was God's will. In short, ALS was not God's will, is not God's will, and will never be God's will. It didn't exist before the fall of man, it doesn't currently exist in the Kingdom of God in heaven and it won't exist in eternity. Sickness and disease were never the will of God. They, like death, came into the world as the result of sin and rebellion.

Let us take a look now at the ONLY TIME someone asked Jesus if it was His will (which means God's will) to heal them. 

The ONE Time when Jesus was asked, "Are you willing to heal me?" is found in Luke 5. 

Let us remember that Jesus said, "If you've seen me, you have seen the Father". The Apostle Paul writes that Jesus is the EXACT REPRESENTATION of God the Father (Colossians 1:15). 

So, the age-old question - "Is God willing....?" has been answered. Healing IS GOD'S WILL regardless of the millions of Christians who wrongly think that sometimes it isn't God's will. But their theology is based on their lack of experience, rather than the answer of Jesus - "I AM WILLING". 

As I mentioned before about Christian 'determinists' who are disciples of Augustine/Calvin, there is also a theological reason why people believe it might not be God's will to heal conditions. It was the great St. Augustine who was the 1st in Church History to begin teaching that God's will must always, by definition, be done because of who God is and how He controls the world. 

This theology (Augustinian/Calvinism) has distorted the Christian doctrine of God into a place of cruelty. John Wesley argued that it was evil and actually made God out to be worse than the devil because at least with the devil you know he intends to "steal, kill and destroy" whereas we confess that God is loving and good. We fully expect that He would want things such as ALS eradicated from humanity. The fact that some Christians believe that ALS was/is God's will for people is such a despicable thought, I have to cringe when I consider it is, in fact, believed by some Christians!

The fact is, and fasten your seatbelts if you have been 'programmed' by the theology of Augustine or Calvin, that God's will is often not being done on earth! God's will is not done all the time. It has been violated thousands of times while I've been writing this blog post - How many were raped in the past 30 minutes? How much physical abuse has taken place? How many have clicked on porn? How many people have shot up Heroin or Fentanyl? Murders? Stabbings? Robberies? NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE GOD'S WILL! Augustine was horribly wrong. As was John Calvin. And today, as is a man like John Piper who teaches that everything that occurs, including all the evils I've just listed, "God has rendered certain"!

So, the argument goes: If we pray for someone who is sick or who has a condition, and we don't see the healing occur, then it simply must not be God's will to heal them. Again, we won't go there with the clinically depressed, but with countless other conditions Christians can and do proclaim that, "I guess it simply wasn't God's will to heal them".

We don't see many conditions healed. I've prayed for many who have gone on to die from the condition that we had contended in prayer to be healed. But I NEVER PRAY, "Lord, if it be your will". 

This, of course, some would say is presumption. How can I be so sure? How? The Lord's Prayer - "Let your will be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN". The Lord's will is ALWAYS BEING DONE in heaven. And Jesus instructed us to pray that heaven's will, the perfect will of God, to be done on earth the same way it is being done in heaven.

And the ONLY TIME Jesus was ever asked the question about His willingness to heal (aka, God's willingness), the answer was, "I AM WILLING".

And once I settled in my mind (so many years ago now) that it was/is ALWAYS GOD'S WILL TO HEAL WHATEVER CONDITION I MIGHT BE PRAYING FOR, what happened?

This blog alone documents hundreds, if not thousands, of healing miracles that occurred AFTER I got rid of the bad theology of Augustine, which I too had been infected by for many years of my Christian life.

Do I know WHY somebody doesn't get healed when we pray and nothing happens? I do not! There are many reasons given in God's Word why healing doesn't happen. But the one reason, I know is NOT the reason, is that healing the person is somehow not God's will. 

This blog post will offend many who read it. I get it. It's offensive because it challenges the way many believe God governs the earth and the affairs of humankind. It is also offensive because we have all suffered incredible loss and pain when people we have prayed for were not healed and even died prematurely, even torturous deaths (i.e. ALS). The pastors of many churches will consider what I have written to constitute a false teaching.

And here's the thing - I DO NOT CARE. If one day, I stand before the Lord and He wants to rebuke me for actually believing it was always His will to heal the sick person in front of me, then I welcome that rebuke. That somehow I wanted to see more people healed than He did? I will take that reprimand. But, and I know some are smiling right now, because they realize how ridiculous that is. That somehow in my imperfection, in my unbelief, and my flawed life as a disciple, could ever want to see more people healed (or saved) than our perfect, loving Heavenly Father! 

God is NOT ever going to rebuke one of His children for wanting to see Him heal too many people (more than He wanted to heal!). 

My final thought/challenge is this: Live your life for 1 year believing that God's will is to heal anyone and everyone you would get the chance to pray for. You will see more healing than you've ever seen in your life before!