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One of the strongest desires we humans have is the desire to be free of illness and to get better when we do get sick. People will spend tremendous amounts of emotional, physical and financial resources to recover from disease and sickness. Understandably so.

God feels very deeply about the desire we have for wholeness and for healing. And more than that, God can do something about it. In fact, God did the most important thing to deal with the issue of the pain and sickness and disease that wrack this earth when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to walk and live among us and ultimately, to die on the cross for us.

If you have read the New Testament, you know that healing diseases and other problems was a major part of Jesus’ ministry on earth. In the Gospels we are told 17 times Jesus healed all the sick people who were present with Him. Another 47 times the Bible says that Jesus healed one or two different people at a time.

Why did Jesus do this? Well, the first and most obvious answer is because of His great love for people and His great compassion on those who were suffering. But Jesus’ healing ministry was also a demonstration of two crucial realities.

First, the healings Jesus performed proved that His claim to be the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world was true. Seven hundred years before Jesus came, the prophet Isaiah said of the coming Messiah, “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). This is an amazing prophecy looking ahead to the wounds – the fatal wounds – that Jesus would suffer on the cross as He died to bring salvation to the human race.

The second reality we discover from Jesus’ healing ministry is that the healings He performed were an announcement that He has come to bring us into an entirely different kind of relationship with God.

This relationship is based on faith. But not just a ho-hum, “Oh sure, I believe” faith. When the Bible talks about putting our faith in Jesus Christ, it is talking about the kind of faith that can overcome anything – including the sin that does so much damage to our spirits and so often to our bodies, and the sickness that drags us down.

I am not saying that every person who gives their life to Christ is instantaneously and perfectly healed. But I am saying that when you and I start exercising faith the way the Bible says to exercise faith, putting our complete confidence and trust in Christ, we are going to experience God’s goodness in ways beyond anything we could imagine.

So what difference can this make for you today? First, try getting your mind around the awesome thought that the sin and sickness and pain which may be in your life are not beyond the reach of God’s healing power.

Second, ask God to make this truth real to you in some way.

Third, ask yourself if you’re ready to take the steps necessary to tap into God’s unbelievable power.

Pastor Jim Graff is the Senior Pastor of Faith Family Church in Victoria, Texas. www.faithfamilyvictoria.com