That is a decision that an individual Christian must make on his/her own
Most Christians in America will opt to go to a doctor, or take medication when they believe they are getting sick. That is the society in which we live, take medication, use your insurance, and then if the doctor’s can’t fix it, then go to God. Surely you can recognize the futility in that. Very few Christians will forego the doctor and press through the sickness or disease believing that God will intervene on their behalf. That is what faith is sickness—believing that God will intervene.
When that person, who chooses to believe in God as opposed to a doctor, is restored to health, there is no doubt that God is responsible and answered their prayers. But the person who chose to go to a doctor cannot make the same claim—that God intervened on their behalf. While God might have intervened, they don’t know for sure as they chose to seek medical treatment instead of believing God.
It isn’t hard to understand why believers choose medicine, or a doctor’s treatment over utilizing faith in God. That is the Christian culture we live in. But what I find disconcerting is that Christians who get sick will say the believe the medicine the doctor prescribes will make them better, or they pray for the surgeon to fix their medical problem. I don’t believe there is much faith in believing that medicine or the doctor will cure you, that’s what medicine and doctor’s do—even to non-Christians.
If you think your faith in medicine or the surgeon is sufficient to recover, why not just use your faith to believe God will facilitate the recovery, without medicine or doctors? Because that is not the Christian way. If you truly had the faith to be healed, you wouldn’t need a doctor. But to give God credit for a healing that was accomplished by medicine or a doctor is disingenuous at best. If you didn’t have enough faith in the first place, to believe God, how are you suddenly going to develop enough faith to understand the inner workings of God, to give Him credit for what a doctor did.
What about the Christian who is sick and says they are believing God will use the medicine or the doctor to heal or cure them and the doctor and the medicine fail. Then they go to God and attempt to use faith for a healing then. How does that work? Fortunately, God does not hold our unbelief against us, but if you didn’t have faith enough for the medicine or doctor to restore you, is it possible to suddenly develop enough faith to believe God will now intervene? After you neglected His direct intervention in the first place? Well, yes it is. But at this point you are significantly behind the curve for understanding how faith and belief work in the first place. That is one of the reasons that Christians who unsuccessfully used medicine or doctors get worse and many die.
So giving credit to God because the flu shot kept you well, or the aspirin worked seems almost insulting to God. That’s what medicine does, it makes people better. Is there anything wrong with using medicine. No, of course not. Obviously there is a better way, but that involves a lifestyle of faith, which is not a Christian thing, certainly not in westernized countries. But taking medication is fine. It’s worldly, it’s not faith, but most of the time it works. But there is a problem with taking the worldy way.
Do doctors and medicine deal with the underlying spiritual cause of sickness and disease that allowed the Devil to bring it to you in the first place?
If sickness and disease come from the Devil, as the Bible tells us, and a medicine or a doctor restores us to health; what about the underlying cause of a person’s spiritual condition that caused, or allowed, the Devil to bring sickness and disease to your door in the first place? Has that been dealt with by the medicine or the doctor? No! That is perhaps the biggest reason that Christians who use their “faith” to believe the medicine or doctors will heal them, end up getting sick again, and many die. Medicine is no respecter of persons. Medicine doesn’t care whether you are a Christian or not. I would imagine, to that end, that when Satan stands before the throne of God accusing believers, he doesn’t hesitate to bring to God’s attention that the believer he is accusing chose the world system (the world’s system is Satan’s system) for healing as opposed to God’s direct intervention.
more coming soon…..