Some say: “If you have enough faith, God will heal you.”

They point to numerous examples in the New Testament where healing took place.

“By His wounds we are healed,” they say. God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” they proclaim. Because God has healed in the past, he still does so today.

With this thought, the key to healing is our faith. If we have enough faith, we can be healed.

Good Intentions

For many, this idea comes from good intentions. The Bible often uses the picture of healing to explain salvation. The death of Christ on the Cross, healed our sin-sick souls. “By His wounds we are healed,” as Jesus makes a way for us to experience the forgiveness of our sins and spend eternity in heaven. Yet we cannot take this promise about salvation and make it universally true to every illness.

God does not heal every person who has enough faith or who prays the right prayer or who gives enough money or who makes the right touch point with a person of faith. “By His wounds” our sin-sick souls can be healed, but we may, or may not, be healed from cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

The greatest proof that God has not made healing available to all people at every time is the life of Paul. In Acts 14, Paul heals a crippled man in Lystra. In Acts 16, he heals a demon possessed woman. In Acts 19, he healed many in Ephesus. In Acts 20, he raised Eutychus from the dead.

But when Timothy had an upset stomach, Paul told him to take some wine for it. When Ephraditus was sick, Paul couldn’t heal him. And three times Paul prayed for his own condition, but to no avail.

If healing is available to everyone and we just need enough faith to experience it, why couldn’t Paul heal Timothy, Ephraditus, or himself? Why does everyone eventually die? Do they just run out of faith?

God has not made healing available to every person leaving the outcome of healing in our hands if we just have enough faith.

Bad Intentions

For some, this idea comes from bad intentions.

If your faith is the source of healing, you will do anything in your power to prove your faith. This includes giving large sums of money to people who claim they can help you.

This line of thinking makes someone very subtitle to abuse.

Bad Outcomes

Whether from good intentions or bad, the consequences of this line of thinking can border on abusive.

It can produce tremendous guilt for those who are sick. It gives the impression that their illness is their fault. It implies their faith is not meaningful.

It can give false hope to those who are healthy. If God heals all who are sick based on their faith, an absence of sickness can lead some to believe that health is a sign of holiness. For many this is a false hope.

It can create a judgmental attitude toward those who are sick. Why can’t they just believe and get well? Instead of seeing our tasks to assist those who are sick, if we aren’t careful, we begin to judge them.

Another Perspective

God can do as he wishes, however he wishes, whenever he wishes.

If he desires to heal someone, he can.

However, he is not limited by our faith.

And unfortunately, we cannot manipulate God by our faith.

Sometimes people believe and are healed. Most of the time they are not.

Either way—in life or death—a believer can trust the sovereign plan of God and the great hope of heaven.