Healed By Faith
"Then he said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.’” - Luke 8:48
As a physician, Luke took a special interest in recording Jesus’ interactions with the sick, both in how He showed compassion and in how He healed.
Many of us are familiar with the story in which Jesus is among a crushing crowd of people, and a woman who has been living with an untreatable chronic illness for twelve years has enough faith to know that merely touching Jesus' cloak will bring her healing. She is healed by her faith.
I have often prayed for the healing of my physical body. After a near-fatal ATV accident while in High School, I was left with chronic back and neck pain. It is a constant reminder to me, that I should have died in the accident, but thanks to God, I did not! Although I pray for healing, God does not offer it.
Maybe my faith isn't strong enough. Maybe I don't fully understand Divine Healing. Or maybe, God is using my chronic pain in order to teach me something, or further my ministry.
Regardless, I take great comfort in Luke 8:48, for I know that despite the pain, there are three lessons in this verse that apply to me.
1. I am a child of God. Jesus calls the woman who touches him for healing, "daughter." Like her, I am forever in His care and forever in His heart.
2. Faith will heal me. In the case of the woman in the crowd, her faith brought physical healing. But even when God allows me to continue living with my discomfort, I know that ultimately, my faith in Jesus has spiritually healed an otherwise irreconcilable relationship between my sinful self and my Creator.
There will be no pain, no physical ailments in heaven–and the very reason that I will be able to one day embrace my Savior is because my faith has healed me and allowed me to enter into His presence.
3. Knowing these two things, I can live in peace. When I remember that I am a child of God and that the healing has already taken place, I am able to live in thankfulness.