Psalm 20:1-4

My Shepherd met me in His green pastures and laid me down in Psalm 103. The Mind of the Spirit connected with the spirit of my mind in a thought that arose while reading the opening verses that make up the second sentence: (I’ll include the first sentence, which sets up the praise given to GOD)

Psalm 103:1 ¶ Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Psalm 103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

Psalm 103:3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

Psalm 103:4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Psalm 103:5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The phrase that inspired the thought is “who healeth all thy diseases” (3b). “All” our diseases? For many months, I’ve been asking for specific healing needs, and the healing has not come.

Along the still waters, I reflected on all of this. I don’t know any Christian who does not believe God heals our sicknesses. He does heal (James 5:14)! I’ve experienced it many times, and there are many testimonies of healings received by believers in circumstances that confirm a miraculous intervention is the only reasonable explanation. Doctors have been bewildered, and science dumbfounded. This is so generally known that I do not need to take the space here to run down specific examples or take up space iterating my own. But the verse said, “all thy diseases.” I have no personal testimony to that, nor have I ever heard of any believer who is immune to every disease.

I have been healed; nevertheless, I suffer from some maladies which God has not removed. We remember that He did not remove Paul’s affliction (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Is there a caveat that we should bring to verses like Psalm 130:3b? Should we say, “The Bible here says God heals all our diseases, except those that He doesn’t”?

We have very definitive promises of a new body that never dies, or gets sick in the “world that is to come” (Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 33:24; see Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58. For the expression, “the world to come,” see Ephesians 1:21; Matthew 12:32; Mark 10:30; Hebrews 2:5; 6:5).

So, I asked myself, is it a lack of faith to admit the truth that Psalm 130-:3b is a promise that is 100% true for all saints who have the hope of “the world to come”? Is it a cop out?

First, it is manifestly true. Jesus’ healing was a foretaste of the world to come (Mark 10:30—in this lifetime, blessing with persecutions; in the world to come, eternal life). Consider also that Paul was purposely given an affliction in service to Christ and His present kingdom (2 Corinthians 12:7-11). In the world that is to come, there will be no sickness at all. All diseases will be healed.

It is fitting that God would both heal and not heal in this world. He heals to demonstrate the truthfulness of the promise by miraculous healings and also allows us to experience sickness without healing, keeping us looking forward to the “world to come.”

In the valley, kneeling in the shadow of His Cross, I looked on Him whose stripes secured our eternal healing (1 Peter 2:24; quoting Isaiah 53:5). I thanked Him for the healing He gives us now, in the world that now is, and the sickness that keeps us looking forward to the healing promised to us in the world to come. He reminded me that our life now is not about the world that now is (John 12:25, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”) (See also Matthew 16:26). We don’t live forever in this world; the promise is to those who enter the world to come. Then Jesus spoke, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

At the table, I received His anointing of my head with His oil and placed my cup before Him to refill it with  His sufficient grace for the day (See 2 Corinthians 12:9 with Matthew 6:34).

Praying for revival! 🙏