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Gift of Healing Today
Does this gift still exist? Some will argue that because of advances in medicine and the knowledge given to physicians to heal that this gift no longer exists. Others state that this gift was used by the early church to help reveal the power and knowledge of God to help the church grow. And yet others will say that this gift has been replaced by the power of prayer. Still there are those who insist that this gift still exists today and have personal testimonies of faith healing. I have spoken to several people who will swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that either they or someone they know personally was healed by a faith healer. I have also heard numerous testimonies of healing through prayer.
All I know is that God is still in the healing business and if He decides to give someone this gift today then He is more than able to do it. I will caution however that you need to be careful when dealing with some of these so called faith healers. There are plenty of frauds out there trying to take advantage of desperate people only to gain monetarily from their efforts. These people are nothing more than con artists and will have to answer to God sooner or later.
Most of the “faith healers” you see on T.V. are frauds. T.V. is driven by ratings, the more you have the more you can charge for advertising. What drives ratings? Giving the people what they want to see or hear. People want to believe in God so they seek for themselves signs and wonders to prove his existence. God warns about this:
“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. – Mat 24:23-24
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths – 2 Ti 4:3-4
Steve Martin made a moving in 1992 called ‘Leap of Faith’ that portrays a lot of the tricks that used to be used by these so called faith healers. The movie is loosely based on the exploits of televangelist Peter Popoff who was exposed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Some of these antics are still used today. People line up hours before the show starts and several screeners talk to those in line, searching for the right candidates to be selected for a “healing”. None of these “healers” can show any physical evidence that an actual healing had occurred. No doctor reports, no x-rays, nothing. As a matter of fact one lady who had been declared healed of lung cancer by Benny Hinn died two and a half months after the event (http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publish/article_2340.shtml).
If these people really have the gift of healing then why don’t they go to the hospitals and hospices where the really sick people are? Why don’t they go to third world countries where healing and God are really needed? Why, because they know they are frauds, out to make a buck off the desperate. So if you find yourself sick and in need of healing do 3 things:
- Cry out to God in prayer
- Ask others to pray for you
- Seek out a qualified, competent physician. (No it’s not a sin nor is it showing a lack of faith to go to a doctor)
