Willing and Able

 Here's the song that has been insistently floating around in my head today:

Dare to Believe (written by Ray Boltz and Steve Milliken; my recording is by Charlie and Jill LeBlanc)

You’re standing at a mountain that you know you cannot climb.

Your enemy’s approaching; you hear him coming from behind.

There is trouble all around you.  There’s no place to run away

But there’s a voice that’s deep inside you saying, “It’s time to stand in faith.”

Chorus:  I dare to believe that miracles happen, 

              That mountains still move and demons must flee

              For the God that we serve, He is much more than able

              So don’t be afraid, stand up and say, “I dare to believe.”

There’s a miracle inside you; it’s just a mustard seed of faith,

But by the mighty hand of God now, you know that tiny seed was placed.

And though this world may try to crush you, it can never keep you down.

Soon the life of God inside you will come breaking through the ground.

Bridge:  No matter what the doubters tell you, no matter what the devil says,

             No matter what anybody, anybody else does,

             You just keep trusting Jesus - you’ll see it won’t be long

             God is right and the doubters are wrong.

There a story in the gospel of Mark, chapter 9, about a man who brought his son who was subject to severe seizures to Jesus' disciples to be healed.  My Modern English Version said the boy had "a mute spirit.  Wherever it takes hold of him, it dashes him to the ground.  And he foams at the mouth and gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid."  But the father reported to Jesus, "I told Your disciples so that they would cast it out, but they could not...Often it has thrown him into the fire and into the water to kill him.  But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us."  This man was not sure that Jesus could do anything for them.

In contrast, we have another story in Mark 1: 40-42 about a leper who came to Jesus.  He said, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."  His doubts were not related to Jesus' ability, but about His willingness.  

How did Jesus answer each of these?

In our first story, Jesus' response is, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."  He needed the man to have faith in Him.  The man's limited faith ("Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!") was enough.

The response Jesus gave the leper was, "I will (or "I am willing", or "It is My will").  Be clean."  Apparently, knowing that Jesus was willing gave the leper enough faith to receive also.  "As soon as (Jesus) had spoken, the leprosy immediately departed from him, and he was cleansed."

The father of the boy had that "mustard seed of faith" that the song mentions.  The leper is in the song too; he knew that "God is much more than able", but just needed to be assured it was His will.

It seems to me that this second scenario represents the way much of the church now prays for healing:  "If it be Thy will."  But if you think about it, you can see that Jesus never questioned God's will when it came to healing.  He clearly said that He was here to carry out the Father's will (John 4:34), and we are told that He was the "exact representation" or the "express image" of God (Hebrews 1:3).  So in healing everyone who came to Him, all the multitudes and all the individuals, He was doing the will of the Father.  He "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him" (Acts 10: 38).  The only time He prayed, "If it be Thy will" was for Himself when He was struggling with the prospect of crucifixion, death, and separation from His Father.

When someone gets saved, we don't wait around to see how they feel or look before we assure them that they are truly saved.  We give them a promise from the Word, like Romans 10: 9:  "...if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."  

But when we pray for healing, we wait to see how the doctor's report goes, or how the symptoms respond before we call ourselves healed.  We walk by sight, instead of by faith.

Isaiah 53: 4 says, "Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows."  The word translated here as "griefs" is "choli" in the Hebrew, which was translated as "disease" 7 times, "grief" 4 times, ( 3 of them right here in Isaiah 53), "sickness" 12 times and "be sick" once (in the King James Version).  That it should have been translated as "sickness" is confirmed in the gospel of Matthew 8:16-17:  "When the evening had come...He healed all who were sick, to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, 'He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.'"

I would just like to encourage you to pray for healing, daring to believe not only that God is able, but also that He is willing.  Not just generally willing, but willing to heal you.  Find healing promises and hang onto them in spite of symptoms and negative reports, and start giving thanks in advance of the evidence.  Jesus is reaching out and putting His hand on you just like He did the leper, saying, "I am willing.  Be cleansed of your condition."