Trinity Baptist Church

I have noticed that most prayer requests in church have to do with people who are suffering some form of sickness.  It is obvious that we are concerned with health matters, and that we believe God can and will help with these matters.  He will, but there are some  things we need to know, as we approach the throne of grace to find help in time of need.

We need to know that prayer, in order to be effected, must be a prayer of faith; yet, we cannot just pull a thought out of the air and say, “I am going to believe God for this.”  God will not violate His word in order to answer someone’s prayer, so effective praying must be based on the word of God, more especially, a promise in God’s word.

It is also true that if we are to pray a prayer of faith in the matter of our health situation, or in the matter of interceding on behalf of someone else, we must have a settled mind about whether or not we believe it is God’s will for us to be well.  If we simply say, “Lord, help in this situation if it’s Your will,” we are really not praying a prayer of faith.  Because, in the Garden of Gethsemene, Jesus said, “Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done,” or because in the model prayer, He said, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we mistakenly tend to think that we cannot boldly and definitively ask God for any particular thing.  Without any lengthy expounding on those verses, let it be understood that whatever God has said in His word, the Bible, is His will.  Has He said anything about whether or not He wants us to be sick or well?  Does Isaiah 53:5 mean that we are healed by His stripes?    1 Peter 2:24 puts it in the past tense and says, “By His stripes you were healed.”  Is that what that means.   Matthew 8:16-17 tells us that when sick people were brought to Jesus, He healed them all, that it might be fulfilled, which was written by Isaiah, then there is a quote from Isaiah 53:5.  So, yes, that is what it means.

We often talk about sowing and reaping as being a spiritual law, but there is also believing and receiving.  Many, who have no difficulty understanding that in the matter of salvation, fail to understand it in other matters.

In addition to prayer, there is the matter of obedience.  Colossians 3:16-17 speaks of our physical bodies as the temple of God, and says that if we defile that temple, God will destroy it.  I would suggest that we can do that by making bad decisions, decisions that amount to disobedience to God.  Colossians 3:17 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  We are to take care of our bodies in such a way that we bring glory to God.

I will quickly admit that there are many things that I do not understand, but I do understand that God is good, and as Ps.67:1-2 says, “May God be gracious to us and make His face shine upon us, that Your way may be made known on earth, Your saving power among all nations.”  God does not give His children a stone, when they ask for bread, or a serpent when they ask for a fish.  He desires to bless us, so that we can be a blessing.  He desires to bless us, so that others can see His blessing in us.