Jehovah Rapha NoG5

What is the next attribute for God and name that we're going to look at this week? The next name we are going to look at is Jehovah Rapha which is the Lord our Healer. 

Does God still heal us today? Yes. How does he heal us? There three types of healing that we will look at.  Healing that is done for something physical, healing that is done in the heart and spirit, then we will look at what God has done to heal us for an eternity. 

How many times have we heard of someone having something physically wrong? Probably a lot. They go to the doctor but there is nothing they can do. Now of those same people have you ever heard of them making a miraculous recovery? I’m sure if you are like me you have. So God still heals his people from physical problems. 

How about the spiritual, I’m talking about the people who were broken, who were at the end of their rope, stuck in addiction and other problems with no way out, according to the world. God works in our lives the same way to heal us from heartache and to heal us from problems of the heart and mind. 

Then God has healed us from an eternity separated from him. Turning in our bibles to where this name occurs in Exodus chapter 15 starting in verse 22. 

Exodus 15:22-26  So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

Looking at the background for this story, the Israelites have left Egypt and are wondering in the

desert and they began to grumble because they have no water. So they cried to God and God provided a way for the water to be drinkable. So thinking about the setting for a moment, there is a large group of people wondering around in the dessert, where it's hot and they have to keep track of all their stuff ad animals. Water is needed for them to live. So by providing water, God was healing the people proactively. Meaning he wasn’t waiting for the people to get sick and need help. 

Also looking at verse 26 where it is talking about not bringing the diseases to the people that were brought upon Egypt. Thinking about those plagues, what was Gods purpose for those plagues? It wasn't to simply kill or injury the Egyptians but to cause the Egyptians to have emotional hurt. Looking at the death of the first born, that was not only a physical problem that the Egyptians had, but also an emotional and mental calamity. God in this passage is promising to keep us from and heal us from emotional and mental problems that we suffer from as well as physical issues.

Let us take a look into the New Testament, and see what Jesus has to say in Luke 14:18 Jesus says.

Luke 4:18  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,

We all know that during his ministry on earth Jesus spent a good bit of time tending to the physical needs of the people through healing and food miracles. But looking into this Jesus did not come only to heal people physically but he came to heal our hearts. He used the physical healing as way to show people who he was. 

Now what does this mean? How does God function as our Jehovah Rapha today? He functions to heal us in two areas physically and the emotional areas. 

I’m sure that we have all had situations or times in life when we were heartbroken. Meaning we had something that happened that made us upset but more then just being upset for a time this is a sadness that changes how you function, how you interact with everyone. Jesus is saying in Luke 4:18 that he can heal us from that, he is saying that he can provide a way for us to have peace in our hearts, he is saying that he is our Jehovah Rapha. 

That means that God is functioning to heal us form the mental and emotional problems in our lives. Now I know people can undergo miraculous physical healing that cannot be explained by science and I’m sure that God has caused that. But I also know that God has blessed some people to be healers, people become doctors and nurses so that can heal people. Thus a good bit of the time, God seems to work more behind the scenes and allow the doctors to have a hand in the healing as opposed to doing miracles all of the time. This does not mean that God is incapable of healing any illness or that our technology is better than God. But God is focused on healing us from the inside out he is focused on healing our hearts and minds. 

How does God provide the healing for us, and how do we tap into that power from God? Well first we need to believe that God is capable of healing us, no matter the problem. It is not a matter of simply saying we believe but we have to have so much faith that Gods word is true that we would be willing to die for it. 

Then we must take it our Jehovah Rapha in prayer. We do have to realize that like anything else God can do, he can simply choose not to in a certain situation. Now having the faith to receive healing is sort of like when Peter took the step of faith out of the boat, meaning there was no normal explanation for how Peter could walk on the water but he had faith that Jesus would keep him safe. 

When we are asking God for healing, we need to have the faith to step over the edge and ask for it, but know that God will provide for the needs we have. It might turn out that in praying for healing God will reveal a doctor or a procedure that will heal you. Does this mean that God did not heal you? Of course he did, God just choose to act through a person. Does this mean that we should have less faith in God, no because God provided for the healing. 

I feel as time has progressed and we as people have developed better technology we are able to do things such as cure diseases, God has stepped back and allowed us to work, as a test of our faith. 

Look at from this point of view: How much easier would it be to believe in God and what he could do if he was standing here doing it? How much faith would it take to believe that a miracle can happen if you saw miracles every day? Not a whole lot because you have all of the evidence in front of you. So it takes a whole lot more faith to believe and know that God can and will do something if there is no explanation that we can understand. 

Let us see what scripture has to say about believing without seeing.

 John 20:29  Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 

See Jesus calls us as his children blessed because we believe in him and what he can do even though we have not seen him. It is the same when we are talking about healing, God has the ability to heal every illness or emotional problem that we face, but he calls us blessed because we believe in him and have faith that he can accomplish that even though we have not seen it. So God is choosing to bless through not reveling everything about himself. 
 

I have heard and read so many stories of people going through terrible things in their life. Be it abuse, addiction or other things but somewhere along the lines that were introduced to God through someone else. God was then able to turn their life around by healing their heart from whatever the problem was.  This is God focusing on healing the emotional and mental problems of people as opposed to physical. 

Now just because we are healed from something doesn’t mean there aren’t scars, just think about having surgery to fix a physical problem, the problem is fixed after the surgery but the body still has scars form what happened. In the same way when God heals us from emotional problems we still have scars. Let us think about someone who has overcome addiction to alcohol, it doesn’t matter if God has healed them from that addiction it would still be stupid of that person to go and drink again. 

Just because we have scars from where we are healed by God it doesn’t mean that what God has done is an incomplete healing or that God can’t do what he says because if that’s the case then the Bible is untrue and we might as well give up. All of the problems that we have been focusing on, the mental and emotional issues are a result of sin. Our Bible tells us before sin entered into the world everything was perfect, thus if we had not sinned then people wouldn’t have emotional problems. 

What it means is that sin in our life has consequences; our Bible tells us that the wage of sin is death and we all suffer from the consequences of sin just because of the nature of this world. This is not something that has stopped being true even though in this day and age it can seem that way because people who sin seem to be esteemed, but God is saying that when we have done things or been through things that are against what he commands us to do then we will have consequences. 

After we have accepted Jesus and he has functioned as our Jehovah Rapha and we are healed from our issues and brought into the fold of God then we can use that in our witness to people.  Even though Jesus removes the issue from us, we can use what we went through as a bridge to connect with people who have not heard about Jesus. 

The best example that I have seen is back home our church does a drug addiction recovery program called Freeway. We partnered with another church and they run the service at our building. I know the story of gentleman that does the preaching and he was in prison for pretty bad stuff; he was into drugs but in prison someone introduced him to Jesus. He got saved and know he works to help pull other people out of that life style. He talks about how he has been healed from those addictions but he says he can’t be around it, because the temptation is still there. His life has been affected by those choices, he still has consequences years later even though he is no longer in that place. 

My point in that story is that this man has used his past as a drug addict and his present as a child of God healed from that past life to reach out to other people in a similar situation to what he was in. It could be that God leaves us with scars, leaves us with traces of the things he heals us from so that we can use that as a testimony to his power. Maybe he is trying to make us more relate-able to the people we are supposed to be reaching. 

Jesus also healed us from the worst thing that could befall us, he healed us from an eternity separated from God in hell. Now I have heard some people even pastors in some churches say that hell is not real, that it was simply something used to scare people into following God. The preachers will go onto say that hell can’t be real because God is merciful. Now that is true, God is merciful but he is also righteous and perfect, and that means he can’t be around sin. Thus if we have sin in our lives we must be separated from God. 

Looking back into the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had sinned one time and God threw them out and quit spending the evenings with them. That is a single sin, how many times have we sinned in our life? I know for me it is more than a single time. In God’s perfect plan he provided a way for us to come back into a relationship with him. 

Christ has healed us from all of our sins, he has made it so we can approach the throne of God. We can have fellowship with God, now what does it mean to have fellowship with God? It means we spend time with him but more then that the time we spend with him is so that we can have a better relationship and grow closer to him. God also calls us into fellowship with one another as believers; also it means that we are spending time together so that we can encourage one another in our faith, for iron sharpens iron, as well as provide a helping hand if need be. 

So looking back at what was studied today, God functions as our Jehovah Rapha in a couple different ways. The first is that in the bible and today he heals people physically from illness and other things that there is no earthly explanation for their survival. The second part is that God is focused on healing us from the mental and emotional problems that we have had in our life. God is there for us when we go through things that try and test us from an emotional stand point. He has the power to  heal us if we have the faith and ask, though sometimes he chooses not to. Then finally with Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection he healed us from an eternity separated from him. Once we have accepted Christ as savior then God functioning as our Jehovah Rapha, and as our healer he is most concerned with making sure that our hearts and minds are fully healthy and prepared to serve him because even if we have physical limitations God can still use us. 

Let us look at a great example form scripture 2 Corinthians 12:7  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

So maybe our Jehovah Rapha has plans for our weakness beyond what we can understand, maybe his ways our better then ours. Let us remember that if we ask for healing and God has chosen to withhold it, maybe he has a plan for our weakness, maybe he is using our weakness to show others his strength.