Healing All

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

HEALING ALL

Matt 8:16-17

16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases."  

NIV

It would seem that Jesus is still at Peter’s house, and dinner is over that was served by Peter’s mother-in-law after Jesus healed her from a fever. Again, where can Jesus go that He does not draw a crowd? Certainly, they did not enter the house, but stood outside and hearing them, Jesus went outside and began healing everyone who was sick and He drove out every demon just by a word. If there was no one else there who knew the absolute divine authority of Jesus, it was the evil spirits, here called demons. These demons were those angels that were cast out of heaven because they followed Lucifer in the revolt against God. They were and still are engaging in an all-out assault on God’s creation, specifically mankind. Because man’s soul has lost contact with God, or we could say, man’s spirit is dead, or empty, the evil spirits have full reign to possess that inner man and thus can influence the outer man to cause harm to himself. When we accept Jesus into our heart and are baptized with the Spirit, He enters our inner man, and there is no place for any demon to get to, for the Spirit protects us. However, these people had not yet met Jesus and upon being in His presence, upon His word, the evil spirits had to leave, departing forever. Jesus also healed all, not just a few, not just those worthy of healing, not those that had done enough good deeds, or were without sin, but he healed them all, every last one who was sick. Although we do not have anything to worry about regarding being influenced by demons, as in being possessed, we do have the situation of getting sick from time to time or having some infirmity. What do we do about that? We know there are times, at least we have one instance in the bible, where God told Paul that His grace was sufficient and that God wanted Paul to serve him amid whatever was that thorn in the flesh. But that was only once, and Jesus gives us literarily hundreds upon hundreds of people he healed, in fact, he healed all who came to him. It seems we want to quote one instance and forget about hundreds of others. Maybe it is the doubt that causes us to not come to Jesus. Maybe we enjoy our infirmities as it seems we have sort of fun, sharing the list of our ailments we each other, and sometimes we have encountered those who it seems what to outdo ours with either a greater ailment or a larger number of them. It seems like ailments are a badge of honor among Christians. We know that sounds cynical, almost judgment, but it is not, it is simply how it seems. Why would we not want to list all the times Jesus has healed us? That would be far better, than listing our ailments, unless we include that Jesus healed each one. Jesus still heals and we need healing.