It is not always real to us, that is, our spiritual needs. But when we are tormented from sickness and suffering or feeling bothered by the darkness, our need is real and felt. We need help.

Healing and deliverance was what attracted people throughout Israel. Who wouldn’t cross land and sea to be healed or for their loved one to be healed. If I knew with out of a shadow of a doubt that I could be healed from this auto-immune disease I have, there’s nowhere I wouldn’t go. I keep receive prayer and believing for that.

I think there’s a truth here. I think we need to walk more in the area of healing and deliverance. Now I know some balk at this. But at the same time, how long are the lists for prayers for the sick on the back of church bulletins. But do we truly believe God heals?

I think one of our challenges is what happens when God does not heal. I get this. Personally.

I think the thing is we do not give up. Jesus healed. And he commanded the disciples to do the same. So we keep pressing forward. Growing in our understanding and growing in our faith.

There is something about healing and deliverance that attracted the people and opened their spirits to the message of Jesus. He preached as one with power and not as the teachers of the Law and their dry rhetoric.

Like Paul, let’s pursue preaching a gospel of power. One that helps people in the physical, and opens their spirits for even more.

“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Cor 2:4).