“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” — Mark 9:23
Are you making plans for the holidays or a vacation? Perhaps you’ll be traveling somewhere—to your hometown to visit a friend or to the mountains or the beach. Maybe you will spend quiet time at home, or friends or family will be coming to your house.
Whatever your plans are, start to see that event before you now. Are you getting excited about it? Do you have the vision of it happening? Can you picture it in your heart?
When my family and I make plans for vacations or holidays, there are numerous arrangements to make, such as ordering airline tickets or making hotel reservations. Sometimes the preparations seem endless.
But as the fulfillment of that vision draws closer, a new excitement builds within me. I can see the winter snow coming down back home on Cape Cod at Christmas. I look forward to being with my parents or seeing mysister again. I have a vision for spending time with my children or sharing special time with my wife, Terri.
As I’ve thought about this, it has occurred to me that if we can catch a vision for the events in our lives, how much more should we have a vision for heaven and the things of God?
How much more should we long to see our churches filled so that we are continually building larger auditoriums with bigger altars and more seating.
We should be a people of vision.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
Isaiah 53:11, The Amplified Bible says: “He [God] shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His [Jesus] soul and be satisfied.” God would see the fruit of Jesus’ travail and be satisfied! It does not satisfy God to see sickness and disease on believers today. He was satisfied when that sickness and disease was laid on Jesus. Many people think God wants them to stay sick, so He can get glory out of their travail, but that kind of thinking is a lie straight from the pit of hell! To put sickness on you after it was put on Jesus would be a miscarriage of justice! You are not the sacrificial Lamb of Calvary. That sacrifice has already been made—it does not need to be made again. You need to receive His sacrifice made for you and appropriate its benefits into your life.
What was the fruit of Jesus’ travail? Salvation, healing, love, joy, peace— the kingdom of God being born in the hearts of men. Praise God!
From these scriptures alone, you can know beyond doubt that God’s will is for every person in Christ Jesus to be healed and made well. He paid the price, so we could receive it.
Any time a believer has a problem receiving healing, he usually suffers from ignorance of God’s Word, ignorance of his rights and privileges in Jesus Christ. To fully understand your position, you need to realize what took place many centuries ago between God and a man named Abram. God approached Abram with a proposition. The agreement, or covenant, they made together is the basis of the entire New Testament. It was in behalf of this covenant that Jesus came to earth.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
To realize the truth of God’s will for healing, you need to understand the full extent of your redemption. Healing is just as much a part of the plan of redemption as salvation, the Holy Spirit and heaven as your eternal home. To stay sick when Jesus has provided healing would be living far below your privileges as a child of God.
Let’s view the plan of redemption through the eyes of Isaiah the prophet. He describes what was to happen at Calvary—the sacrifice, the pain, the suffering, the death. He gave a very accurate picture of Calvary, by the Holy Spirit, showing exactly what would happen in both the physical and the spiritual world: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4).
Note the first word of this verse: Surely—not maybe, not perhaps.It’s a fact. Surely Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows! The King James Version gives an inaccurate translation of the original Hebrew words. The literal Hebrew translation of the words for griefs and sorrows should read, “Surely he hath borne our sickness, and carried our disease.”
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich is his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief… (Isaiah 53:5-10).
Most modern translations read, “It was God’s will that He be bruised.” It was the definite will and design of God that Jesus take all sickness and disease on Himself for us. His purpose was to free mankind from it.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
Jesus did what He said He would do: He preached the gospel, healed the sick, brought sight to the blind and delivered the captives. He taught in the synagogues of Galilee and the people were amazed. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power” (Luke 4:32). Every word going forth from His mouth brought deliverance and healing.
Jesus never turned away from healing anyone who came to Him in faith. He never said, “I can’t heal you. God wants you to stay sick a little longer.” He always responded to the faith of the people.
Acts 10:38 says: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
God wants His people healed and whole. He demonstrated this through Jesus. You can see His will toward healing expressed very simply in Luke 5:12-13: “And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”
When the leper asked, “Will you make me clean?” Jesus answered immediately, “I will: be thou clean.”
The leper knew Jesus could heal him. The only question in his mind was whether or not Jesus would. This is the key point in receiving healing—the determining factor in acting by faith or unbelief. You know God can heal. The problem comes in knowing for certain that God will heal and that He will heal you! Until you realize in your own heart that God wants to heal you, you will never receive from Him. You can watch other people receive healing and still never receive it yourself.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
To know God’s will about healing, you must first know what His Word says because His Word is His will. John 1:1, 14 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
Jesus of Nazareth was the Word of God made flesh—the total expression of God’s will manifest in human form. This is what He said about Himself:
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work (John 4:34).
He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me (John 12:44-45).
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father (see John 14:6-9).
If you want to see God, look at Jesus.
If you want to hear God, listen to Jesus.
If you want to know God’s will, study the ministry of Jesus.
According to Hebrews 1:1-3, Jesus is God’s Son—the heir of all things, the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of God’s person. Jesus is the very image of Almighty God! Everything He did, every move He made, every word He spoke was an extension of His Father in heaven.
There is no question Jesus came to do the will of the Father. In John 10:10 He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Abundant life is God’s will for the believer. Jesus explained very clearly how He would bring that abundant life into manifestation:
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:16-19).
When He had finished reading, Jesus closed the book, sat down and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (verse 21).
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland