It is true that God can heal us, but how do we know that He will heal us? We do not know His will. Suppose the Lord is not willing to heal us. What should we do? This is the second consideration. Mark 1:41 says, “Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I will; be clean’” (RSV). Here is the second question. It is not enough for a sick person merely to know the power of God. He needs to know that God is willing. No matter how great His power is, it is useless to us if He is not willing to heal us. Here the question is not whether God is able, but whether He is willing. No matter how great His power is, it has nothing to do with us if He has no intention of healing us. The first thing to be settled is whether or not God can. The second thing to be settled is whether or not God will. Here we see the Lord Jesus telling the leper, “I will.” There is no sickness more unclean than leprosy. All of the sicknesses in the Old Testament are merely illnesses, but leprosy is a kind of defilement. Whoever touches a leper will be infected with leprosy (at least this was what men thought). However, the Lord was full of love. He said, “I will.” He stretched out His hand and touched the leper. The leper was cleansed! The Lord Jesus was willing to cleanse the leper. Can it be possible that He is not willing to heal us? We can say that God can and God will. It is not enough to know that God can. We must also know that God will.
God is willing to heal, but this is not enough. He still needs to do one thing. We need to look at Mark 11:23-24: “Truly I say to you that whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says happens, he will have it. For this reason I say to you, All things [including sickness] that you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and you will have them.” This passage speaks of what God has accomplished. Here we see three things: God can, God will, and God has done.
What is faith? Faith is not just believing that God can and will but believing that God has done something. It is believing that He has accomplished something. Believe that you have received them, and you will have them. If you have faith, you will have the assurance that God can and God will. If He gives you a word, you will thank Him, saying, “God has healed me. He has done it!” Many people are confused about this. As a result, their sickness is not healed. They are always hoping to be healed. Hope involves the expectation that something will happen in the future, whereas faith knows that something has happened already. I can believe that God will heal me, but this healing may take place twenty years later, or a hundred years later. But those with a genuine faith will rise up and say, “Thank God, He has healed me! Thank God, I have received! Thank God, I am cleansed! Thank God, I am well!” When faith is perfected, it does not say merely that God can or will, but that He has done.
God has accomplished it! He has heard your prayer. His word has healed you. He has already accomplished it! Believe that you have received it, and you will have it. The faith of many people is a faith that believes in what they will receive. As a result, they never receive anything. You should have the faith that you have already received. Faith proclaims, “It is done,” not, “It will be done.”
Consider one simple illustration. Suppose we preach the gospel today, and a person hears the gospel, believes, and repents. He says that he has believed. If you ask him, “Have you believed in the Lord Jesus?”, he may say, “I have believed.” If you also ask him, “Are you saved?”, he may say, “I will be saved.” You know from this answer that something is wrong. Suppose you ask him again whether or not he is saved. He may say, “I will surely be saved.” You know that something is still wrong with this, and you ask him again, “Are you sure that you will be saved?” He may say, “I will surely be saved.” Something is not right. He may say that he will be saved, definitely will be saved, or surely will be saved, but something does not sound right. If you ask him, “Do you believe in the Lord Jesus and are you saved?”, and he answers, “I am saved!”, then he has struck the right chord. A person is saved as soon as he has believed. Faith always relates to the past tense. Faith in being healed is like one’s faith in his salvation. He does not believe that he will be healed, shall be healed, or must be healed. These are not faith. When a man has faith, he will say, “Thank God I am healed.”
We must lay hold of these three things: God can, God will, and God has done. Our sickness will leave once our faith reaches the stage of “God has done.”