Mensa Otabil - The Lord Is Our Healer
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We’re still looking at the names of God, and we’re examining how God reveals Himself to us at various times and how we discover Him in different situations. We look at Exodus chapter 15, verse 26: «If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you.» I am the Lord who heals you. The Lord is our healer, Jehovah Rapha, and that was revealed to Israel by God. God called Himself the Healer when He was speaking to Israel.
Now, the background of this is that God delivered Israel from Egypt with a mighty hand, and in the process of deliverance, God turned the elements against Egypt. Things went wrong all around them. The first thing that went wrong for Egypt was that their water, beginning from the Nile and right through the rivers, became bad; it turned to blood. They couldn’t drink the water, so you could say that the water became sick. All the water was destroyed by God. Eventually, He restored the water, but that was the first sign God performed for Israel as He was delivering them.
After Israel had left Egypt, they came through the Red Sea and traveled through the wilderness. They came upon a body of water, but that water was bad; it was bitter. They called the place Mara, meaning bitter, because it had bitter waters. They started complaining to God through Moses, which was something they did most of the time. They were complaining about the water. Why did it bother them that the water was bad? Because they remembered that the waters in Egypt had also become bad; that had been the first sign.
Now that they had come out from Egypt, the first thing they saw was bad waters, so they wondered if they were coming to the wilderness to suffer the same plagues they experienced in Egypt or the same plagues that came upon the Egyptians. That was the reason why they were complaining. They spoke to Moses, and Moses spoke to God. God showed Moses how to solve the problem, and the problem was solved; the waters became sweet, transformed from bitterness to sweetness. When God had done that, He said, «If you obey Me, I will not put on you what I put on Egypt, because I am your healer. I am the Lord your healer.»
God had shown that not only in the bitter waters, but He had also demonstrated it earlier to Moses when his hand became leprous, and God healed it. So God told Israel, «I am your healer.» That is a very significant promise that God speaks to each one of us today: " I am your healer.» There are two things I want you to take note of.
First, He heals our bodies. He heals us when our bodies get sick. God heals us when we pray to Him. But remember that God owns everything; He owns all the plants in the world, all the herbs, all the chemicals, and all the elements. When we use the things He has created to make our bodies well through scientific knowledge, it is still God who has healed us because He created those elements in the first place. So He is our healer. He heals us when we pray; He heals us when we use His creation to make our bodies better. Whenever God makes us well, we remember that He is the Healer.
But He also heals our situations. When He healed the waters of Mara, the water was not a human being; it was a sick situation that God changed and made well. That means that God is able to take situations in our lives that are messed up and make them well. He is the Lord our healer; He will heal our bodies and our circumstances. He will heal our situations, our marriages, our finances, our relationships with our children, and everything that has gone bad. He is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals us.
Let’s pray. Say with me: «Heavenly Father, You are my healer. Remove every plague from my life. Touch my body and make it whole. In Jesus' name, Amen and amen.»