Good health is certainly a blessing, as those who struggle with chronic sickness and physical ailments can attest to. For some people, staying healthy can seem like an unattainable goal. However, healing and wholeness are God’s will for us. He wants us to experience His favor on every level; this includes enjoying strength and vigor.

Jesus went to the cross to replace the law with grace and cancel the curse of sickness. Under the law, people who couldn’t keep all the commandments were cursed. The law was impossible to keep; therefore, curses afflicted everyone in some form. “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you… The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish…The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you… then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed” (Deuteronomy 28:15, 21, 22, 28, 29, 59-61, NKJV). There were plenty of curses, and this was a bad situation for the people to be in.

Thankfully, God wants us healed; Jesus repeatedly demonstrated this during His ministry, despite doubters who wondered if it was true. When Jesus encountered the leper who was aware of God’s ability to heal but questioned His willingness, Jesus’ reply was swift. “Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ Immediately the leprosy left him” (Luke 5:13, NKJV). This is what we must believe.

Healing is accessible to us through God’s grace; our faith in this moves us into position to receive it. The woman who had suffered with the issue of blood for twelve years was healed when she touched Jesus’ garment; her absolute confidence in Him made the difference. “And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:34). This is still true today.

We can all do our part to maintain healthy lifestyles; however our part only works because Jesus did His part when He bled and died for us. “…By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24, NIV). We can’t take any of the credit for the abundant health Jesus obtained for us through His finished works. Remembering all the bad that He took from us and all the good He replaced it with to make perfect health available keeps us humble.