We’re made such an idol of healing that we pursue it at the expense of our spiritual health.
We ignore the words of Isaiah 57, that tell us a righteous man can be taken away to spare him from evil. “They find rest as they lie in death.”
Jesus asks: What does it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?
We have made an idol of physical healing at a time of increasing sinfulness, when spiritual healing is our greatest need.
Last night I sat in a Bible seminar titled “Caring for the heart.” Hundreds of people sat in rapt attention. Every heart needed healing.
What does it profit a man if he is healed of cancer but lives to sin again?
My father died of brain cancer at age 58, but I would not have him returned healthy and full of the anger and bitterness that laid him low.
In illness, he became contrite. Humbled, he was healed spiritually and beamed from his hospital bed, praising God.
In the Bible I inherited from him, I found verses underlined. Psalm 199:67 “Before I was afflicted, I went astray but now I obey your word” was underlined all the way to verse 72: “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.”
But where are the healers for the spiritually afflicted? Off watching miracle workers lengthen legs and declare cancer-free zones?
Jesus healed the sick. He still does. Healing turns hearts toward God. Let’s be like Jesus. Let’s do all that he did and more, just as he told us we would.
But let us not be blinded by idols and ignore the sickness within.
The Agony of Victory 