I want to introduce you to my friend Stan who has gotten acquainted with God as Healer very intimately.
Jehovah Rapha means The God Who Heals. We have to look back into the Old Testament in Exodus to see the first time God used this name for himself. (Exodus 15:26)
When a doctor looks in your eyes and tells you that you only have 3-6 months to live, what do you do? How do you process that? Stan learned first-hand when they found an inoperable brain tumor. This was it. Even a second opinion confirmed the diagnosis.
The only thing left was for God to work a miracle.
That is the part of the story that I love the most. The moment when there was nothing left to be done. The moment when Stan and his wife prayed with the doctor and put it all before God. The moment when he rallied their friends and church community to pray. The moment when faith was all they had and they decided to trust God with everything.
Stan and his wife Aleta were watching the 700 club when they heard, “Someone watching has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and you are wondering whether God can heal such a thing. Today, God will set you free. I’m here to tell you God just healed you. It has disappeared.”
The MRI confirmed it. Completely gone. Replaced with a hole in the brain where the tumor was. Scar tissue was all that remained. A reminder of what God had just done.
I love when Stan tells this story (you can watch the video here) because it reminds me that God can and does still work miracles today. We live in a skeptical world trying to look around God and explain miracles away, but they are alive and well. If God can accomplish miracles like this, what else do you think he is capable of doing?
Read Mark 2. Consider for a moment that when Jesus healed the man in this story, he healed his sins first. The traditional healing of his body came after as a show of what he could truly do for us – cleanse us, set us free, reunite us with God. Ultimate healing.
We all need healing in one way or another. God is Jehovah Rapha – The God Who Heals. What do you need to place before him today?
