Approaches development template

INTERCESSION

Ideas to Try:

Listening to God for each other

Thy Kingdom come...

Interceding in God's presence

Prayer for individuals

Specific agenda

Healing… is that what you really want?

Local intercession

Intercession and the daily routine

When prayer is difficult

On a
bad day

Global
issues

Back to Introduction

PRINT
THIS

Healing... is That What You Really Want?

Take time to be comfortable and relax. Then use John 5: 1-18 for a meditation. Note that Jesus asks the question ('Do you want to get well?') and the person has the responsibility of verbalising desire and checking motivations. How many conflicting emotions and evasions are evident in the account as it is given in John? (Try the Good News Bible for this.)

Note other instances where Jesus makes an individual look at what is being requested to clarify want, need, and desire, e.g. Matthew 20: 20-21.

The wife of Zebedee came - 'what do you want?' Jesus asked her.

Matthew 20: 32 (Blind men) Jesus stopped and called them. 'What do you want me to do for you?' he asked.

Note also in Mark 5: 6, 7 (The demoniac to Jesus) 'What do you want with me?' and in Matthew 15: 28, Jesus to the woman - 'You are a woman of great faith. What you want will be done for you.'

Reflect on this before going on.

HEALING... the promise

John 10:10 I have come in order that you might have life - life in all its fullness.

John 8:31 If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Isaiah 61:1
He has chosen me and sent me
To bring good news to the poor,
To heal the broken-hearted,
To announce release to captives
And freedom to those in prison.

Meditate on the relationship between healing and freedom in God's promise.

HEALING... blocks to facing truth/freedom/wholeness.

Self-conscious striving:
A brilliant young man desired the knowledge of all life. He went to the Grand Master and he pleaded to be taught. He asked, 'How long will it take me to learn it?'

Now the Master had never been faced with such a question before and, in his momentary confusion, he said the first thing that came to his lips, 'Ten years!'
The man was dismayed. With all his energy, enthusiasm and tremendous zeal, he asked again:
'Master, but what if I work twice as hard?"
The Master looked at him and replied:
"Then it will take you twenty years!'

Focus on relief of pain:
The experience of illness can serve as a growing sense of personal responsibility for one's own health. To focus on relief of pain alone may in the long run impair a patient's ability to acquire the skill needed to be a more responsible person. Plato saw this integrative relationship 25 centuries ago when he wrote: 'The cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas because they are ignorant of the whole which ought to be studied also: for the part can never be whole unless the whole is well.'

Playing evasive games with God:
Look again at John 5: 1-18 and compare it with John 4: 5-26. In the first the man sidesteps the question 'Do you want to get well?' by playing for time. The implications of being well may indeed outweigh the advantages of being sick. In the second the woman sidesteps the issue of her life-style which Jesus was questioning by changing the subject to prayer and religion. Even prayer can be used to evade facing the truth!

HEALING... conclusion

Acts 4: 11,12. (Peter and John before the Council)
'Jesus is the one of whom the scripture says, 'The stone that the builders despised turned out to be the most important of all.' Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us.'

Salvation = wholeness = freedom = truth.

John 14: 6 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'

Finish with Christ-centred prayer of thanksgiving.

CONTENTS

Healing... is That What You Really Want?

HEALING... the promise

HEALING... blocks to facing truth/freedom/wholeness.

HEALING... conclusion