RESTING YOUR WAY TO HEALTH
Isaiah 53:4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…
Imagine being crippled over in your back for 18 years and never being able to see the sky? All you could see was the dirt and dust of the earth. (Luke 13:11) Imagine the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years! (Luke 8:43) Imagine the man being eaten alive by the dreadful disease leprosy, as was the case in Matthew 8:2.
What can we learn from all these people? They were all healed by Jesus!
The poor leper in Matthew 8:2 could stand his suffering no longer, so he came out into the open to look for Jesus. He needed to know if Jesus was willing to heal him. When he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” (Matthew 8:2) The Son of God looked at the outcast with love in His eyes, reached out His hand, touched him, and said, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (Matthew 8:3)
Jesus willingly healed all these three people who were suffering from incurable diseases!
Perhaps you are suffering from some disease and wondering if God is willing to heal you? You are not sure if He is willing because just as you have seen people get healed, you have also seen people not get healed. Don’t look to people’s experiences for what you will believe - just look to the cross! Rest in the knowledge as surely as Jesus bore away your sins, He also bore away your diseases!
Isaiah 53 seals this. This chapter, on Jesus’ crucifixion, says in verse four: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”. Now the words “griefs” and “sorrows” here mean “sicknesses” and “pains” in the original Hebrew text. So Isaiah was referring to physical healing.
If that is not enough, look at Matthew 8:16–17: “… they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’”
Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4, saying that Jesus took our “infirmities” and bore our “sicknesses”. The context is referring to physical healing, not spiritual healing.
If you will just rest in this truth, your days of sickness will be over. You will walk in greater health because the One who has surely borne your sicknesses and carried your pains says to you, “I am willing, be cleansed!”