Jehovah Rapha – The God Who Heals

Isaiah 53:3-6

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

GOOD NEWS for today: Jesus Christ has come that you may have life and life abundant. Jesus Christ, God made flesh, God with us, is Jehovah Rapha – The God Who Heals.

POINT #1:  God Is “Jehovah Rapha”

Exodus 15:22-27

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?” Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you. Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

Throughout the entire Bible we see examples of God’s healing power at work.

The first time we read the term “Jehovah Rapha” in Scripture is when the Israelites were leaving Egypt.

God reveals Himself as the ‘One Who Heals’: God is able to turn our bitter situations into life-giving situations. God is able to meet our need, to provide life, to keep us from illness. He IS the God who heals!

POINT #2:  Jesus Is God

Matthew 8:16-17 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

Matthew 9:35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Jesus revealed His divinity through His ability to heal physically and restore spiritually: He heals bodies and forgives sins.

POINT #3:  God’s Healing Power Is For Us Today

Mark 5: 24-34 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

The same healing power that was available to the Israelites in the desert, that Sarah received to mother Isaac, that restored the mental health of David, that healed lepers, cast out demons and raised the dead… IS AVAILABLE TO US TODAY!

God desires us to turn to Him with our needs. Sometimes in pressing into God, we, like the woman with the issue of blood, have to press through obstacles – physical barriers, doubt, fear. And there are times that healing won’t come how or when we expect, but be reminded that GOD IS ABLE – let’s not be afraid to ask Him! And whether healing comes how we hope it to or not, because of what Christ accomplished on the cross we can rest in the assurance that eternal healing is assured!