Why Hasn't God Healed Me? | Theocast

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If you've been a Christian for any amount of time, or even if you're not, and you believe in the existence of God, the question about suffering, why hasn't

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God healed me or healed this world, is one that everyone wrestles with. It's hard.

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We don't like pain, we don't like suffering, and we don't want to see other people suffer. And yet it's all around us.

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And if we're willing to admit it, it's been around us forever. We've seen people suffer and die, and 100 % out of 100 people die.

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There's no one who has been able to outlive death, it tracks us all down. It's a guarantee of life.

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Not only is death a guarantee of life, but suffering, agony, sorrow, is all part of the existence of living here.

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And we all wonder, if God is sovereign, knows everything, and can do anything and everything, then why does this exist, and why does this happen?

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It's a deep struggle within all of us, if some of us are willing to admit this, that we've been angry at God.

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I know I suffered from anger and anguish over the fact that I have seen so many people die that are close to me, like my father and other family members, like my grandparents, all of this.

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We all wrestle with the reality of, why do people die even early in infancy, or early on in life?

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Why couldn't God preserve their life and give them a long life that they might live until their old age?

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Why is it that they had to die young? We all wonder these things. And often,

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I think we only pay attention to certain parts of Scripture, and we ignore others, and it doesn't give us a clear picture, or I would say a complete picture, of what really is going on in our world.

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Somehow, we have come to the conclusion that God's promise, that God's mission, is the restoration of this world now, that He is in the process of cleanup right now.

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And over time, this world will become utopia, where everyone loves each other, and everything is great, and all the promises have come true.

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And so we're just kind of waiting for our turn, and yet when our turn doesn't happen and devastation hits, man, it's a blow to our faith, and we're crushed by it.

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Well, I wanted to walk through just the theology of the fallen earth, the depravity of man and what has happened, and how we tend to ignore

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God's clear promises, and what God has stated He will do, and how we tend to shift that and maybe ignore what the promises that we should be looking for.

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One of the things that is hard for our human nature to understand is the power of sin.

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Just how devastating it is to the nature of God. See, when God created the world,

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He did create it perfect. We see this in Genesis, that there was nothing wrong. There was not a flake out of place, and yet all of a sudden, we have

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Adam and Eve who introduce into the world sin, and what do we have? Complete chaos, pain, and suffering.

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And once sin enters into the world, you no longer have perfection. And it's not only sin that affected humans, but we understand from Scripture that sin also affected creation.

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Just to read to you, the Apostle Paul gives us kind of the interpretation of the

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Old Testament as he reads it, and as he understands it, one who is inspired by the Holy Spirit. He says this in Romans 8, 22,

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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, not only the creation, but we ourselves, who are the firstfruits of the

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Spirit, groaning inwardly as we await eagerly for the adoption of the Son, the redemption of our bodies.

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So he is saying the part of the experience of life for every human being is this groaning, which that means is that it's that when we are in pain and there's suffering, there's that sense of response rightfully where it's anguish.

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We are anguishing over our reality, and our reality is suffering and death.

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That's what awaits us. We are all awaiting suffering and death. It's like, wow, man, this is so much doom and gloom.

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John, what else do you have for me? This feels overwhelming. Well, that's because I think we're not paying attention to what

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Scripture is offering us and what the state we find ourselves in. We think we just kind of need to be set up well.

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Have a good home, have a good job, have a good family, and life will be good. But it's not true. Life here is full of pain and suffering.

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This is why he says we await what? What are we awaiting? For God to give us a reward based upon our actions?

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Are we waiting for God to just simply see us do enough good works and have a good enough spirit and heart, have enough faith, and then

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God's going to give us the blessings that he has in store for us? Nowhere in Scripture do we see that as it relates to our experience here.

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This is why he says we are awaiting what? The redemption of our bodies. But redemption means to be set back to perfection.

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And we can't be set back to perfection here in this world because this world has been destroyed and is being destroyed by sin, our bodies and this world.

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So there is no promise of healing now. There is no promise of restoration now.

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We actually, he says, we walk by faith awaiting the resurrection of our new bodies and the resurrection of the new earth.

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But yet we're somehow confused and thinking God has promised that now. Later on,

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Paul writes this about his own suffering. He too struggled and was groaning and even asked

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God for relief from the suffering of this world. And it's interesting how

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Paul responds in 2 Corinthians 12, 19. He says, but God says this to me,

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Jesus says this to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness, end quote.

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Paul says, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

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For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardship, persecution and calamities.

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For when I am weak, then I am strong. He isn't giving up on his hope of final restoration.

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He isn't giving up on the resurrection of the body where we'll live in a new heavens and a new earth. But he is coming to the grips that this world is one that we endure while we await for God to finish rescuing and redeeming sinners.

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And while we await, he says, God will give us grace to get through them.

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Think about this when he says this, he says, in my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

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What is he saying? He's saying part of the Christian life is not overcoming this. It's enduring it.

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Whether weakness, insults, hardships. You know, James says it this way. James chapter 1 verse 2 says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

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He's saying all kinds of trials, whether it be physical, mental, financial, political.

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He says, when you reach, when you are going through this, he says, for you know that the testing of your faith, what faith?

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In a trial, you are being reminded that this world is not your home.

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Where are you putting your faith? Not in that God's going to remove the trial. That's not where the faith is.

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That God will get you through the trial. As Paul says, my grace is sufficient to get you through because where's your final hope in the restoration of all things?

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For the sake of Christ. I'm sorry. Verse 4 of James 1, he says, and let step fast and have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete and lacking in nothing.

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Its full effect is this. When you finally see what your hope is in, which is

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Christ, and you have the new body and you're in the new world, he says, you will be lacking nothing.

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Everything you lack now, that's a trial to their health, money, relationship, finance, protection, whatever it is.

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Trials are the lack of something. And he's saying your faith will be protected and you will see the evidence that one day you will be perfect and lacking in nothing.

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So I think it's encouraging for us to realize that there's nothing wrong with us. We live in a broken world that is crippled by sin.

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Sin is ravishing it. It is the evidence of what the opposite of God is.

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You want to know what the opposite of God is? This world. This world is what happens when sin takes hold of it.

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And so as it's ravishing this world, God is rescuing us from it and is going to put an end to it.

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He's going to put a stop to it. We have this hope. When we read the book of Revelation chapter 21, he wipes away every tear.

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Why? Because what we are suffering now will not be what we suffer. There will be no suffering.

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There will be no death. As he says, there will be no pain. Peter also speaks of this.

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This isn't just one apostle who writes on this. Peter says this in 1 Peter 1 6. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in a praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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What's interesting, he's not telling you how to get out of trials. He's not even saying this is how you avoid them.

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It's part of the life that we live. The apostles expected to live a life of suffering.

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Paul says in Philippians that it's not only been granted to you to be saved, but also to suffer for his sake.

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But we are not left without hope. We are told by Peter and by Paul that we can cast our anxieties upon him.

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Why? Because he cares for you. Hebrews tells us we have a great high priest who knows how we suffer, and in other ways understands how we've been tempted, and that with boldness we can run into the throne room of grace and ask for mercy and grace in time of need.

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Why do we need mercy and grace? Because often we sin underneath trial, and we need grace for our faith that we might stay strong.

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And then James says, if you lack wisdom, ask and I will give it to you generously to know how to navigate this life full of pain and full of suffering.

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And then lastly, God has designed the church to be here so that we do not suffer alone.

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Listen to this from Paul. He says, Galatians 6, to bear ye one another's burdens or bear one another burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

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You know what the law of Christ is? To love one another as I have loved you. He says the complete fulfillment of the law happens when you actually get up underneath someone and you help carry them along as they suffer in this burden.

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So our prayer life and the focus of our life becomes very different.

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Instead of trying to get out of a trial and try to heal ourselves and wonder what's wrong with God or what's wrong with me that I can't seem to get out from underneath this trial, we look at it, both

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James and Peter say that we rejoice because those trials will not crush us.

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They will not snuff out our faith. We will not become hopeless because the power of the spirit within us will cause us by God's grace being sufficient in our lives will get us through the trial to the final hope.

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I mean, think about it this way. If you get healed of cancer now, you're going to die of something else. Healing now is not the ultimate goal.

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Faith in Christ is the ultimate goal. And knowing that our hope is far beyond this life. So what can we do with our lives now?

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We can give people hope that they don't have to suffer alone. Bear the burden. We don't have to cry alone, weep with those who are weeping.

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And when we see the joy of Christ in our life, we can rejoice with those who are rejoicing. We have little hopes and little blessings and what

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I call glimpses. When we see the blessings of life and we can taste and see that the Lord is good and we can have the joy that is in a broken world.

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That is but a mere advertisement of what is to come. It is but a menu. We don't get excited about a menu when we go to a restaurant.

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We get excited about what the menu represents, which is the meal. And that meal when we sit down at the table of our

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Father is to come. While we're waiting the resurrection of our bodies, we gather together and we consider how to build one another up, encourage one another where you're not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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So if you're suffering and you feel as if you're not seeing healing, you are. It's a guaranteed.

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It will come to you. It will be yours. The Father will wipe away your tears. You will have no more sorrow and no more fear and no more death.

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And while we await for that, we understand that God's grace is sufficient to get us through one more day.

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We may stumble, we may fall, but we can confess that. And his grace and mercy is sufficient to help us and encourage us.

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I'd encourage you to read these passages. I'll put them in the links below. I would encourage you to be reminded that this world is broken and he will restore it.

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And the gospel promises that all things will be made new when he returns. But while we wait for his return, we look to his return and we point to others and ask, how can

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I encourage them and love them as my brother and sister in Christ? How can they love me? While we look to Christ waiting for the glorious return and restoration of all things.