The Bible is for healing

LOOKING to the Bible for physical healing may seem unusual and perhaps even foolish to some. Yet many people, in their worship of the one God, do go to the Bible when they need to be healed of physical ills. Simply reading the words isn't sufficient. But healing does come to the reader who is spiritually receptive and, through accepting the truth found in the Bible's pages, comes to understand something of God. Knowing God, we are confident in trusting ourselves to His care. Looking to God for healing becomes a natural thing to do.

An inspired reading of the Bible reveals God's nature as Spirit, as the perfect and good Father of a perfect and good spiritual creation. God protects and nurtures His creation.

To know God's nature is also to know the true character of His creation. The Bible records that God created everything good and that He created man as His likeness, having dominion.1 So our real selfhood is never victimized, never trapped, but free, having dominion. And a perception of this truth can forward healing.

There are many assurances from God throughout the Bible that He is with us. Confident of our unity with Him, we are sure of our security. Certainly in God's infinite, omnipotent presence there could be no evil power! A reader, receptive to this truth, despite evil's apparent influence and power, can find release from fear and a correction of anything in his experience that may need adjusting.

At one point in my life I suffered from chronic weakness and was unable to fulfill a normal day's obligations. One particular day I found that too much had been planned. I became extremely fearful of the consequences to me physically and considered canceling a portion of my day's activities. But I recalled a Bible story about Moses.2 It was a time when he was coming to know God and conquering his fears about being alone and unable to do what was required of him. At God's command Moses threw down his rod and saw it become a serpent. He fled in fear. But God told him to pick up the serpent. Obediently Moses did so and the serpent became a rod. Moses dealt with his fear by trusting God's direction.

I thought, ``I too can pick up the serpent and defy fear.'' I was growing in my understanding of God. I knew that He loved me and that He would keep me forever safe in His allness. I trusted Him. And I began to see that like Moses' serpent, my weakness could be proved illusory, powerless. Reasoning from what I knew of God's goodness and allness, I could see there was truly no place in God's kingdom for an evil called chronic weakness. God isn't weak; therefore His likeness isn't weak. The daily evidence to the contrary had to be false and could be corrected.

That day I did everything that had been planned, keeping clearly in thought what I knew about God and His perfect creation. I suffered no aftereffects. This particular healing was an important step in my total release from the weakness.

St. Paul wrote about the Scriptures, ``Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.''3 Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, found this to be true in her life. She had been seriously injured from a fall. She asked for her Bible. ``AsI read,'' she says, ``the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed.''4

Wanting to learn how she had been healed, she searched the Bible. She saw that Bible healings were both natural and understandable, and later she shared her discovery in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Christian Science textbook.

Both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible include healings of disease, even of maladies considered incurable. The record is here for our comfort and hope and healing.

1See Genesis 1:26, 31. 2See Exodus 4:1-5. 3Romans 15:4. 4Miscellaneous Writings,p. 24.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. II Timothy 3:16,17