In the hard days of my life, I am very thankful there is a place I can go, the secret place of the highest. In this place, none of the diseases of this earth can touch us. We can go to God in prayer, open our Bible, and read of the great power of the protection of God, Father, Jesus Christ.
We have to remember that we live in a fallen world. God never intended that we would face the disease. When sin came into the world it brought the curse of death onto the whole world. But throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament we see God’s protection of the ones he loves. God’s word is a place we can go for comfort and rest.
When my mother was diagnosed with late-stage cancer I became her caregiver. By the time she was diagnosed, there was no reason to try any treatment. She had only a short time left here on earth. I spent that last month never out of her sight. I left on the floor next to her, bathed her, I fed her, and read the Bible to her.
I am so thankful that God wrote about sickness and comfort in the Bible. Here are some verses that I hope bring you peace.
Matthew 8:17 Jesus shows his power through His healing
“This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
When Jesus Christ was here on earth, he showed He was God by healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, and even raising the dead back to life. He did this in the company of his disciples and when he was surrounded by a great multitude of people.
Matthew writes about this. His writings were for the Jewish people. So, in this passage, we see that Matthew is eager to show the people of Israel that Jesus was the servant King. We see the compassionate nature of Jesus as he heals people. We also see that Jesus was fulfilling the prophecies found in Isaiah.
Psalm 41:3 God is able to restore our health
“The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed; In his illness, You restore him to health.”
This is a verse to remember when we are in our darkest valley. When we are on our sickbed that is when we can feel as if we have a broken spirit. In this Psalm, we hear God is able to restore us to health. He is the strong tower that we can run to.
In the shadow of his wings, we can find our hiding place. The spirit of fear will flee when we remember that the name of the Lord is our ever-present help in times of trouble.
In the verses just before this one, David shows us that God will not only heal but also protect anyone who cares for the disadvantaged. This verse shows that God also loves and protects the sick. He will be with you during your time of trouble.
2 Chronicles 16:12 We need to seek God’s help even while seeking help from physicians
“In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians.”
In our time of need, we are to turn to Christ Jesus. It is not wrong to visit a doctor when we are sick. But as we visit the doctor we must also trust in God. We can pray God will help us choose the right doctor and pray God will guide the hands of the doctor. We can pray that the doctor will have good medicine to give us.
A sick person needs a doctor. But they also need prayer. The elders of the church can come and lay hands on the sick person. The word of God can be spoken over the person. There was a time when I had only been married for five years when my husband became ill with a mysterious illness.
My children were babies, and my parents were caring for them, while I was at the hospital with my husband. Being at the hospital and depending on doctors did not mean I was not trusting in God.
But as we waited for answers I prayed at his bedside. I prayed for God’s healing, and he answered my prayers. The doctors never figured out what was making him sick. He recovered. But it was during his recovery the doctors helped by keeping him hooked up to an IV and keeping him hydrated.
Deuteronomy 7:15 God uses sickness to defeat our enemies
“The Lord will remove from you all sickness, and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you.”
When the Israelites left Egypt God promised his righteous right hand would protect them. They would be saved in the shelter of the highest. God’s protection was over all the people of Israel. But even more powerful was the promise that the sickness he protected them from, he would place on those who hated the people in Israel.
God’s promise came true. We read about the extraordinary plagues that fell on the enemies of the people of Israel. But none of the evil diseases of Egypt touched the people of Israel.
In our times of trouble, we can ask for God’s protection. We can pray “O Lord, with the power you used to keep the Israelites safe from various diseases, we call on you to give us that same promise of protection.
Job 2:7 Satan attacks us through diseases
“Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.”
In the story of Job, we see that the sickness that fell on Job was at the hands of Satan. There are times when Satan will attack us with physical sickness. Satan can use troubled times to turn our hearts away from God. We can follow the example of Job and in difficult times remain in his steadfast love.
Job is a good example for us. We can see in his life the power of prayer. The Bible calls Job a righteous man. He faced the hardest test anyone can face. But we see in his life that God used sickness to test Job, but also to show the true strength of his faith. Job is rewarded for his courage.
This means that sickness and disease could be a way for God to test us. We can be brave and trust God through the sickness and as Job did, we can refuse to stop worshipping God.
Acts 28:9 God uses us to heal people and show them his power
“After this had happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases were coming to him and getting cured.”
In this passage, the apostle Paul had been shipwrecked when a storm came on the sea coast of tire. But God showed his power by healing Paul from a snake bite. After that happened more people came to get help from Paul.
But he did not only heal their sickness, he showed them the power came through the power of Jesus Christ. Sick people came looking for physical healing but found abundant peace in the new life Jesus had to offer.
This is a great story and one of my favorite Bible stories. The chief of the island invited Paul to come to his home. Paul takes the time to stop and pray with this man. This led to the men on the island giving Paul what he needed for his boat ride home to Rome.
Luke 9:2 Jesus used his disciples to heal people and preach the gospel
“And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.”
Jesus of Nazareth sent out his disciples to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. They were preaching of the heavenly kingdom of God. But he also called them to heal the sick. When we are sharing the good news of the kingdom of God today, we must remember to also take the time to help the sick people we meet.
We can pray for them and show them that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful.
As we read more, we learn that the disciples were able to help the sick, including leprosy. They cast out demons and even raise the dead. This was a foreshadowing of what would happen in the Book of Acts.
Exodus 15:26 Obedience to God will prevent disease
“And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.”
This was a promise God gave the people of Israel. If they did what was right and listened to the voice of the Lord Thy God, then he would make sure none of these diseases they had in their old life would be part of their new life.
Today as we live the Christian life, we don’t have the promise that no sickness will come to us. But there are sicknesses and diseases that are part of our old lives. The Israelites were slaves, and there were diseases that were part of their life as slaves. But as free people God would protect them from those diseases.
Before we were Christians, we were slaves to sin. Some of those wicked ways bring diseases. But when we leave that life behind us and live in the freedom of God’s love then we also will be free from the diseases of that past life.
2 Corinthians 12:8-10 God will be with us even if we are not healed. He will never leave us
“Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
The Apostle Paul was writing to the Gentile Christians living in the town of Corinth. This was the second letter Paul had written to the people of Corinth. In this passage, we are reminded that God doesn’t promise we will never face hard times, sickness, or persecution.
But what he does say is that he will be with us through it all. God will make us strong so we can bravely walk through any trial.
The prayer of faith doesn’t mean we will have a long life. But it does mean when we are living in the shadow of the Almighty, we will live in perfect peace.
James 5:14 We are to ask others to pray for us
“Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;”
In our modern day, we have forgotten that God calls us to ask others to pray for us. Not only are we to pray for God’s protection and healing. We are to ask others to pray for us. That can be hard to do. Asking others to pray for us means admitting that we need help.
That can be hard to do. But when we ask our church elders to pray for us, we are relying on our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have to remember that prayer is a great privilege. The book of James reminds us of the power of prayer. James teaches us that it doesn’t matter what terrible thing we are going through, God wants to help up. However, God knows that part of that healing comes from our relationship with our church family.
So when we ask for prayer we will be built up by others.
Psalm 38:2-3 Disease can be God’s way of calling us back to Himself
“For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; There is no health in my bones because of my sin.”
In this psalm of David, we learn that although not all sickness comes as a result of sin, there are times when we face sickness as a result of sin. Sometimes it is because God takes his hand of protection off of us. Sometimes the sickness can be a direct result of the sin.
This can lead us back to God. When we confess our sins as David did and return our hearts back to God we will feel health come back to our bodies.
Our hearts are meant to worship God. When we read the Bible God will illuminate our hearts and show us places in our lives that we need to confess to God. He will purify our hearts.
2 Kings 20:1 Death comes to all of us, and we should prepare our hearts and our homes
“In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’”
In this passage, we read that God did not promise that he would heal King Hezekiah. But instead, he told him he was going to die so that he would have time to make sure that his family was prepared.
When we know that we are going to die we can prepare with prayer. God gives us grace as we finish the race of life. Death is part of life. We can lean on God as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. When King Hezekiah heard the news his first reaction was to grieve. But then he went to God in prayer.
When sickness comes to us, we may not find a miraculous cure, but we can still trust God. God hears our prayers, and he will walk through the valley with us. Hezekiah does not pray for God to heal him, but instead, he prays that God will not forget him and will be with him in life and death.
Acts 9:36-37 We can worship God in our sickness and our health
“Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which translated in Greek is called Dorcas); this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity which she continually did. And it happened at that time that she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room.”
The story of Tabitha is one of my all-time favorite stories in the Bible. I love the story because she was a woman who loved people. She took care of the sick and the poor. When she became sick God did not heal her. It was not until after her death that God healed her.
But God healed her at the perfect time. She could worship God and point others to him because of her healing. But that healing could not have come without first the sickness. God does not cause sickness in order to create an opportunity to point people to him.
But when sickness comes our way, he can use that sickness to help us grow, and then also to point others to him.
But Tabitha was pointing people to Christ through the love of Jesus even before she became ill. In sickness and in health she served her Lord Jesus Christ by loving others.
John 9:2 Not all sickness comes from sin
“And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”
There are many people who believe that sickness only comes from those who sin, or who do not have enough faith in God. What we can see in this passage is that the disciples of the Lord Jesus also thought the same thing. They met a blind man, and they wondered who had sinned. Had the mother sinned, the father sinned or the man himself?
But what God said is that the man was sick so that his life could bring glory to God.
After God healed the man many people to Jesus Christ not just for physical healing but more importantly for spiritual healing.
Genesis 3:16-17 How sickness and death came into the world
“To the woman, He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, in pain, you will bring forth children, Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” Then to Adam, He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil, you will eat of it All the days of your life.”
Although we must remember that every sickness, we have today is not caused by the sin of the person who is sick, we can know that sickness was never the will of God. When God created this wonderful world we live in, he did not create sickness. Sickness and death came into the world when sin came into the world.
Death came into the world through sin. Sin came into the world through Adam. But the Bible says that as by one man (Adam) Sin came into the world and death through sin, so as by one man (Jesus Christ) salvation came to the world.
We have hope in Jesus Christ and a reminder that no matter what happens God is in control. Even death can not be defeated, we can have eternal life.
Isaiah 53:4-5 Jesus bares our physical and spiritual sickness
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging, we are healed.”
This is one of my favorite verses and one of the first ones that I memorized as a child. The thing about this verse that I love is that when you first read it you think of our physical pain and sickness. And yes, Jesus did come to heal those. But what we see when we read deeper is that it is our spiritual sickness that God came to heal.
Galatians 4:13 God uses sickness to bring us in contact with others who need to hear the good news
“but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time;”
Paul the Apostle wrote the book of Galatians. And what we read here is that Paul was first brought to the people of Galatians because of an illness. It was through this trial that God showed them his plan. A church was planted, and the Galatian people had the opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps there is a trial that you are going through. Could be sickness or pain. God could be leading to someone that you are to minister to. God has extraordinary ways to show us our purpose.
When my mother was dying, she witnessed each and every nurse who came to see her. She told them she was not afraid of death. Her testimony shone through all her life. As her life came to an end, she continued what she had done throughout her life. She shared the good news of Jesus Christ.
I know that her testimony at the end of her life impacted the people who cared for her.
Revelation 22:1-3 Heaven will be a place of peace and rest free of disease
“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;”
Once we are in the Kingdom of God, we will be free forever from the curse of sin and disease. This is a verse I read when I think about my mother who passed away. I can remember that God did heal her. He healed her in a different way. He gave her a new body in a wonderful place where there was no sickness.
Heaven is a place of perfect peace. There is no sickness, no death, no pain. We will live in perfect rest in the presence of God.
Revelation 7:17 Jesus will wipe every tear from our face
“for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
This is a verse that I had printed on a poster when I was a little girl. It was one of my earliest memories. There was a picture of Jesus holding a child in his lap, and the verse was written under the picture. I have thought of this picture many times throughout my life.
As I walk through difficult times I will go to God in prayer and think of this picture. I am reminded of our perfect heavenly father who loves us unconditionally.
There will come a day when I see God. I will be face-to-face with him. And I have trust that This promise will be fulfilled, that he will wipe every tear from my face. And there will be no more sickness or crying or death.