Luke 5:17 – “Now it happened on a
certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the
law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and
Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
In the last part of this verse it reads, “And the power of the Lord was
present to heal them.” Throughout the
four Gospels Jesus healed those who were sick.
He healed those afflicted with leprosy.
He opened blinded eyes, made the lame to walk, and set the captives
free.
In Luke
4:18-19 He stands in the synagogue of Nazareth and announces His mission. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon
Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of
the Lord.”
Jesus
brought healing and deliverance everywhere He went. He stopped a funeral procession and raised a
widow’s son from the dead. We learn in
John’s Gospel, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if
they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written. Amen” (John 21:25).
Jesus
commissioned us to “lay hands of the sick and they would recover.” In the Epistle of James we learn that those
who are sick are to call for the elders of the church to pray and anoint them
with oil for their healing (James 5:15).
In Luke 5:17
the power of God was present to heal.
There was a paralyzed man who was carried on a bed. The men could not get into the house where
Jesus was teaching. They removed the
tiles from the roof and let him down through the roof. What was the result of their perseverance? Jesus told him, “Arise, take up your bed, and
go to your house.”
The power of
God was present to heal. His power is
available today to heal those who come to Him in faith. Hebrews 11:6 reads, “But without faith it
is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those
who diligently seek Him.”
How do we
experience this healing power in our lives?
There are four things we must do.
- We ask in faith – Matthew 21:22 – “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
- We receive by faith – Mark 11:23-24 – “For assuredly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
- . Confess any known sin – James 5:16 – “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” The presence of sickness is not necessarily evidence of unconfessed sin.
- Believe that it is God’s will to heal you – Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Comments