Is the Gift of Healing for Today?

The Gift of Healing: Is It Still for Today?

　　God still heals and God still heals in extraordinary ways. I think one thing that Christians sometimes get confused about is they assume that you have regular healing (ordinary healing) and extraordinary healing. That's not the case biblically, any healing is extraordinary, and the Scripture never tells us that God is going to stop working in extraordinary ways. And so, I think one thing that Christians, churches particularly, need to recover is what James teaches us in James 5, is what to do if someone is sick; call the elders of the Church to anoint that person with oil and to pray for God's healing. I think if more churches were doing that, we would have fewer people turning to the kind of faith healing charlatans that we see out there right now on Christian television and in revival tents all over the country.

　　What the faith healers want to suggest is that healing is contained in a person rather than seeing healing as coming from the hand of God. Now, I do think that there are some people, just as God has given evangelism to all Christians, but there's some people uniquely gifted for evangelism. I think anyone can pray on behalf of others for healing, some people have a particular gift in which their prayers are heard more, more readily, and more apparently powerfully when it comes to healing. I think there are there are many people who have that, that particular calling and gift, but anyone can pray for healing and anyone can be healed. And ultimately, I would say everyone will be healed, everyone who is in Christ. 

　　So, that Christian who has terminal cancer for instance, no cancer for a Christian is ultimately terminal, because when the Christian praise, "Lord, heal me," God may immediately heal and take the cancer away, that's best case scenario perhaps for the person in the prayer, but worst case scenario is the person dies and is resurrected from the dead. In either case, the cancer is gone, and the time between death and resurrection in the big scheme of things is really, really small. So, it's not as though God ignores some people and heals some people, God heals some people immediately and other people he says what's best for you to conform you to the image of Christ is to take you through this valley of shadow of death and then to heal you at resurrection.