Let Him That Is Healed Glorify God – Andrew Murray

He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God (Acts 3:8).

It is a prevalent idea that holiness is easier in sickness than in health; that silence and suffering incline the soul to seek the Lord and enter into communion with Him better than in the distractions of active life. For these reasons, sick people hesitate to ask for healing from the Lord; for they say to themselves, How can we know whether sickness may not be better for us than health? To think this way is to ignore that healing and its fruits are divine. Sickness can glorify God only in the measure in which it gives occasion to manifest His power (John 9:3; 11:4).

Why should those who have been healed in answer to the prayer of faith glorify the Lord more than those who have been healed through earthly remedies? Here is the reason: Healing by means of medicine shows us the power of God in nature, but it does not bring us into living and direct contact with Him, while divine healing is an act proceeding from God, without anything but the Holy Spirit.

In the latter case, contact with God is the thing that is essential, and it is for this reason that examination of the conscience and the confession of sin should be the preparation for it. When the Lord heals the body it is that He may take possession of it and make it a temple that He may dwell in. The joy that then fills the soul is indescribable; it is not only the joy of being healed, but it is also joy mingled with humility and a holy enthusiasm that realizes the touch of the Lord and that receives new life from Him. In the exuberance of his joy, the healed one exalts the Lord, glorifies Him by word and deed, and his life is consecrated to God.

(Excerpted from The Andrew Murray Daily Reader in Today’s Language, pg. 247

Andrew Murray