Why Does Jesus Heal? Part 1

Have you ever wondered why Jesus doesn’t heal everyone?

As we walk with Jesus through the narrative of Luke, we have to acknowledge that He doesn’t heal everyone. He could have; we all know that. He is the God of creation, maker of heaven and earth. He is the One who created everything out of nothing.

Not only can He heal everyone, He can pretty much do anything. Remember when the angel Gabriel stood before the young teenage Mary, the mother of our Savior? The angel said, for nothing will be impossible with God, Luke 1:37.

In our study of Luke, we read of Jesus doing some impossible things:

Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever and the family asked Jesus to help. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and she immediately got up and waited on them. 4:39
There was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus him, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, you can make me clean.’ And He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ And immediately the leprosy left him. 5:12-13
One day, He was teaching…and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing…and some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him…seeing their faith, He said, ‘friend, your sins are forgiven you…He said to the paralytic – ‘I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’ Immediately he got up before them…and went home glorifying God.

He can heal. He is able to heal. But He doesn’t always heal.

Intellectually, we can understand and accept this reality. If you are a student of the Bible, you can read these passages in Luke 4 & 5 and logically and reasonably conclude; Jesus heals sometimes but He doesn’t heal everyone.

Consider the following:

If He healed everyone, it would only be temporary. Eventually, everyone he healed would be sick again and eventually die. If He healed everyone the first time, then He would need to keep coming back to heal in the future.
If Jesus had healed everyone all the time and every time a person got sick, then the primary essence of being would’ve been to be a physical healer. His primary purpose was never to be a physical healer. He came to seek and save the lost. His primarily purpose was and is to be a spiritual healer.

You might say, ‘why doesn’t Jesus just heal everyone, once and for all’? That way, He wouldn’t have to keep coming back and healing all the time. Just do it once and for all. Well, He will do exactly that for His children once they arrive in heaven. Complete physically healing and a new and glorified body is part of our salvation…but it comes in heaven, not on earth.

The Bible teaches that we are saved spiritually; redeemed, justified and completely forgiven. But we still have a body of flesh with a propensity to sin, to get sick and in all cases, eventually die. Once again, I accept that logically and biblically.

This is all good and logical. But sometimes reality rises up and kicks you right in the face.

What if you have a dearly loved one who is sick right now? I mean seriously sick.

To stand by helpless, when a loved one is sick and suffering is one of the emptiest feelings in the world. But if I have a child or grandchild sick and at the point of death, my logic goes right out the window and I plead with God; I weep uncontrollably and I beg God to heal my child. This is what we should do.

It’s difficult for us to know why Jesus heals some and not others. It’s a mystery, for sure. God doesn’t reveal the full scope of His reasoning but Luke gives us guidance that we should follow.

In the three recorded healings in Luke 4 and 5 described above, the healings were always preceded with faith-filled words and faith-filled actions. In these three cases, people acted in faith: faith that Jesus could heal. In these three cases,

Someone took action by faith
Someone asked by faith

The result was immediate healing!

Why Does Jesus Heal? Part 1