Sermon Central
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Faith Healing
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 1, 2011 (message contributor)
FAITH HEALING
I’ve know people who questioned God’s love for them because God didn’t heal them. I’ve known others who questioned their own faith...they felt like if they’d just had more faith God would have healed them. In fact, I’ve known people who were TOLD by a faith-healer that the reason they were sick was because they didn’t have "enough faith."
A few weeks ago, I saw a special on TV about faith healers. In that show, Lisa Ling went to the meeting of a renowned faith healer where she interviewed a man named Steve. When he was 18, Steve was in a car crash that left him with brain injury and a speech impediment. Years after that, he fell off a roof and was paralyzed from the waist down.
Doctors said Steve would never walk again--but Steve said God had told him this was his time to be healed. He was completely convinced that he would leave that meeting walking and pushing his wheelchair. His faith was absolute; he didn’t express a single doubt that God was about to heal him.
On the last day of the meeting, Steve’s turn came. He went forward and sat in a row of people where the faith-healer touched his forehead and said "Bam!" Then a group of people prayed over him, reached under his arms, and lifted him up--but then after a couple of minutes, they set him back in his wheelchair. His condition was unchanged.
After this, Lisa Ling became very concerned for Steve. She knew he was completely convinced that he would be healed and she wondered what would happen to his faith. When she found Steve after the meeting, though, she was amazed. He was disappointed--but his faith was unshaken.
In his halting voice, Steve told her, "It wasn’t my time to be healed--but one day I will walk and run--when I get to Heaven, God will give me a new body." Then Steve laid his hand on Lisa and prayed for her.
When I saw that, I realized I was witnessing a miracle. The miracle wasn’t in the man’s legs; it was a miracle of his soul--the light of Jesus was shining out of his heart. After all, a physical healing is always temporary. But spiritual healing, a healing of the faith, lasts for eternity.
(From a sermon by K. Edward Skidmore, Bart and Zach, 3/30/2011)
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