Gold Coast Church - Reach Out International Ltd.

Sick believers don’t need to remain sick!

James 5:14: “Is anyone of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him…” James was writing to Christian believers. He asked them if any of them were sick. It is a “FACT” of life in our fallen condition that our bodies on occasion tend to sickness, and eventually they die. However, as the verse directly below points out, it is also a “FACT” for the believer that God is Jehovah-Rapha, “the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 15:26 God said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”

God identified Himself to Israel in a variety of names and ways. Here He revealed Himself to His people as “Jehovah-Rapha” “the Lord who heals you.”

Healing is not just something that God “does.” No, more than that, healing is part of God’s very nature – “I AM the Lord who heals you.” Remember always that you serve a God who has declared that His intent towards you is “not (to) bring on you any diseases …(but to be) the Lord who heals you.”

God is FOR us, not against us, in the matter of healing.

God’s heart towards His people is health and healing. See, for example, the following Scripture portions:

Exodus 23:25-26: “Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.”

Deuteronomy 7:11-12, 15: “Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep His covenant of love with you, as He swore to your forefathers …

15. The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you.”

Acts 10:38: “…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

God’s healing power extends to ALL our diseases and infirmities.

Psalms 103:2-3: “Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”

The greatest of the Lord’s “benefits” is that He forgives all our sins! But the Psalmist here charges us not to forget another of the Lord’s benefits – that is, He “heals all our diseases.

ALL our diseases! None are too hard for Him. No illnesses are excluded from this great “benefit.” Whatever disease you or a loved one may have, it falls under God’s promise to “heal all your diseases.”

Isaiah 53:5: “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by His wounds we are healed.”

1 Peter 2:24: “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 you have been healed.”

It was Jesus’ willing offering of Himself on the Cross that bore our sins. But the very same tormented body of Jesus, in His scourging and crucifixion, purchased for us the blessing of divine healing – “by His wounds you have been healed!