Healing is Mainstream Christianity

The subject of healing is often at the peripheral edge of the Christian faith in pop culture. Fringe people talk about healing, but mainstream Christianity rarely touches it. "Miracles," after all, in the popular view, are rare. Why should we talk about sensational events that happen to the few when the majority cannot relate? Besides, if we get the hopes up of the many and they don't get healed, how will that look for Christianity?—These thoughts, I believe, accurately reflect the ideas of many of us.

This thinking results in a very boring, powerless, and almost meaningless faith. The mainstream Christianity we have known is only a religion of the mind, giving intellectual answers to perceived philosophical problems but rarely touching the soul. If Christianity is to survive (and it will), we need an all-encompassing faith that touches the body, spirit, and soul. It's time for a new mainstream Christianity, which is, in actuality, the only Christianity there has ever been.

Healing and miracles are for everyone and they sit at the center of the Gospel, just as they have always been at the center of Jesus' ministry. From the beginning to the end, each Gospel author proclaims that Jesus has come to heal and save anyone and everyone willing to receive.

The Gospel of John says,

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

Some people will argue that Jesus came to save everyone willing, but that healing is only for a special few for whom "it is God's will." But

to receive life when you were destined for death is nothing short of healing. And John's Gospel clearly states that this gift of life flows from God's love for everyone in the entire world who would believe. The only Biblical conclusion possible is that healing is for everyone. The subject of healing belongs in mainstream Christianity because healing is at the center of the Gospel.

It has been said that "people are so inoculated with small doses of Christianity that they seldom catch the real thing." What we call "mainstream Christianity" might actually act as a vaccine against the true Christian faith.

At the center of true mainstream Christianity is the transforming, renewing, healing power of the Holy Spirit. If our faith is nothing more than a philosophical exercise, it is something much less than the Gospel of Jesus. Jesus healed everyone; body, mind, and soul, and He does not change. When we recognize that healing (not just of our bodies but our souls and emotions) is the heart and soul of Christianity and that it is for everyone, we will be in the middle of a true Christian revival.

If you have sought healing and have yet to attain it, do not give up, but also do not keep doing the same thing you have always done. You don't earn healing through piling up prayers or any other means. Healing is one hundred percent a gift, but it is a gift that activates through faith and the truth. Instead of asking God if He will heal you, try asking God how He wants to heal you. Then listen closely to His response. God may move your attention away from your perceived illness to the actual source of your pain. That is what Jesus does. He is the solution bearer, the surgeon, and the healer. He does not change; He is the heart, soul, the mainstream of the Gospel.