Thy Kingdom Come

As I travel internationally, I get asked the same questions repeatedly about healing. People acknowledge that Christ spent a lot of time healing the sick in His ministry, but wonder does God still want to heal everyone today? People question if someone can be too old to expect God to heal them. Is God concerned with “minor” problems like a sore throat or bunions, or does He reserve healing for “serious” illnesses like cancer and heart disease? Can a person be “too big a sinner” to be healed? What about illnesses that are self-inflicted? For instance, will God heal lung cancer in a lifelong cigarette smoker?

My answer is always the same. I direct the person to the prayer that Jesus Christ taught His disciples, commonly known as the Lord's Prayer. It says, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Although widely known and repeated by many people, it's true meaning is often not clearly understood.

God's desire is that His kingdom would invade Earth with the same conditions that exist in heaven. There is no sickness or disease in heaven, whether minor or major. Father God wants to set humanity free from all the disastrous results of our fall into sin. That includes healing every type of physical problem as well as healing emotional hurts, relationship problems and mental disorders. Anything that does not belong in heaven, God wants to eradicate here on earth.

When Jesus healed all who came to Him, He was demonstrating the reality of God's kingdom coming to earth. If we want to understand how God wants to work in the world today, all we have to do is look at the ministry of Jesus. We never read that He refused to heal anyone, regardless of what type of sickness or disease they had, how old they were, how much they had sinned or how they acquired their illness. Over and over again we read, “and He healed them all.” Jesus put no qualifiers of any type on healing.

And in case His disciples thought that healing was something reserved for Jesus’ ministry alone, He commanded them to go into all the world preaching the good news of God’s kingdom to everyone, and to lay hands on the sick and they would recover.” (Mark 16:15, 18b)

In fact, while most people regard “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” as a request made in prayer to God, it actually is a command. In His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus restored to humanity the dominion on earth that we lost to Satan in the fall. He told His disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him and commanded them to go in His authority and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–19)

So actually, when followers of Christ pray the Lord's Prayer, they are commanding, “God's kingdom, come! God's will in heaven be done on earth!” Healing the sick is one sign of God's kingdom invading Earth.

Does God want to heal everyone today? The answer is a resounding YES!  Thy Kingdom come!

Please join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM as we continue our current series on “Healing the Sick.” I will be speaking this week on “The Kingdom of Heaven and Healing.” We also invite you to attend our 2:30 PM healing service every Sunday.

Pastor Che