Objection: Saying, “I Am Healed” When You Are Actually Sick Is Lying, and Therefore Sin
What comes to mind with this objection is a person hoarsely croaking to his colleagues at work between coughs and wheezes, “I am healed. Kachhh. I am not sick anymore. Achooo. I do not have a cold.” Because people are trained (at good churches anyway) to speak God’s Word, the objection is that such people are being trained to lie and look ridiculous in front of the world. The world surely does not understand the spiritual principle of speaking truth that is not yet outwardly apparent. Yes, if you are not careful, you will look silly and the world will laugh at you.
First, it is never a lie to speak God’s Word. God cannot lie, so nothing in His Word is ever a lie if you affirm it. God does declare that you were healed (past tense), so if you were healed, you are healed by Jesus’ stripes. You are simply agreeing with God. That is completely proper. Jesus gave Peter his name when he was still flaky; he was hardly a rock at the time. God called Gideon a mighty man of valor when he was still hiding in fear. God told Joshua that He HAD given him Jericho before Jericho was conquered. God called Abram “Abraham” (meaning “father of a multitude”) when he was only the father of one child (Ishmael) who was not even the child of promise. This should all be no surprise, because Romans 4:17 says that God calls those things which be not as though they were. If God can call those things which be not as though they were, so can His children, who are being changed into His image from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) and are supposed to imitate Him (Ephesians 5:1).
You can be between the point that you believed that you received your healing and the point that it has manifested itself in your body. In other words, you are in the condition the fig tree was in between the time that Jesus cursed it and it began to wither away from the roots and the time that the disciples could see outwardly that the tree was dead.
However, it actually is lying to say, “I am fine. Nothing is wrong with me. I am not coughing or acchhh-chhh-chhh stuffed up.” It is not a lie to say that you are healed by the stripes of Jesus or that you have received your healing from the Lord. It is a lie to say that you don’t have symptoms left in your body when in fact you do.
You are healed by the stripes of Jesus, but unbelievers don’t understand how faith works, so what DO you say? How can you avoid looking silly without denying with your mouth that God’s healing power is already at work in your body, which would short-circuit that power and allow the devil to put it back on you?
You are not denying the reality of the symptoms. What you are denying is their right to continue in your body. There is no point in trying to make distinctions between having an illness and having the symptoms of an illness. As far as your body is concerned, you have the illness. However, you recognize that the illness is subject to the Word of God and the name of Jesus. It must leave.
You certainly don’t want to confess that the sickness is still yours. It would be counterproductive to your health to say to your co-workers: “I have this miserable cold. Kaccch. I am really sick. At whom will I sneeze next? Achoo!” Satan would love for you to sign for his sickness package by declaring to others that you “have” it. But how can you avoid saying that you have it without looking foolish? You CAN say that you believe that you have received your healing, despite the fact that it has not manifested yet. Unbelievers may well think you’re foolish, but they’re the foolish ones when they claim that the cold is “their cold,” which gives Satan the right to continue the affliction. If you’re afraid of people’s reaction, you need to pray for more boldness, which is perfectly okay to do.
Your alternative is to “throw in the towel” and accept the sickness, in which case you can say, “I have this miserable cold” and you will indeed have it like everyone else. If you say and do what everyone else says and does, you will get the same result that everyone else gets. You may not risk ridicule if you do this – but you do end up keeping the miserable cold as the others do!
It is always true that you are legally healed by Jesus’ sacrifice. To say this is to agree with God. You can receive your healing by faith, and you would not be lying to say that you have received your healing.
I generally wouldn’t get involved in deep theological conversations with unbelievers over this. You have no obligation to tell all your co-workers that you are healed by the stripes of Jesus while you are still coughing. Wait until the healing manifests, and then you can tell them how you got it. Saying, “I am healed” is true theologically, but unless you are prepared to share your theology with others, you would indeed look like you are just denying your sickness if all you say is, “I am healed. I do not ‘have’ this cold anymore.” You could say instead, “I am standing on God’s Word in regard to this. I will not keep this thing.” As I say elsewhere in this book, if you don’t believe that you have received your healing so deeply that you’re willing to tell others about what you’ve done, you really haven’t received anything. Your mouth speaks out of the abundance of your heart (Matthew 12:34). Then again, you have no real obligation to say anything at all unless you’re asked. Even then, you could say, “I don’t want to talk about it!” without lying. But the bolder you are, the better.
One day a long time ago when I worked for a certain corporation, some kind of awful thing came on me and I went in the bathroom and threw up. I walked into my boss’ office afterward, and he said, “What’s going on? You’re white as a sheet! You look sick. You should just go home.” I felt as bad as I looked at the time, but I told him, “I am going to go home and pray and come back here healed!” He said, “You’ve never taken a sick day [which was true for all the years I worked there]; just take the rest of the day off!” I said, “No, healthy people should be working. I am going to go home and pray and get healed and come back and work as usual.” He still tried to dissuade me, but I went home and I believed that I received my healing. I went back a couple hours later and walked into my boss’s office. He asked, “What happened? You look like a completely different person!” I said, “I feel like a completely different person! I told you that I was going to go home and pray and come back healed, and here I am. I’m ready to work!” He was so impressed by this visible manifestation of healing that he insisted that I tell him more about Jesus at some length, which I was happy to do.
That took boldness. You may not feel like you can do that right now, but you can keep building your faith until you get to the point where you can. Satan will try to discourage you by saying, “What if you DON’T get healed? You will look really stupid in front of your boss!” But your Word-filled heart will think instead, “When I DO get healed, it will be a tremendous testimony and witnessing opportunity, and I will be a living, walking witness of Jesus’ resurrection and the reality of His power!”
One more thing: Don’t just say something because it is the “faith” thing to say. If you aren’t in faith and you go around telling people that you’ve received your healing by faith and then you stay sick, you will only sour the people on the idea of receiving by faith. If you’re not sure whether you’re in faith or not, read the article about that subject elsewhere in this book.
When you’re by yourself, remember that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19), so when you speak what His Word says about yourself, you are NEVER lying!
See also: