What a wonderful witness to the Lord's healing we heard from Jan-Marie yesterday! As Jan-Marie and I spoke on Friday we realized that the Lord had brought us both to the same place in our preparations for what we would each share during the service. I didn't know how she was going to share the story of her healing, and she didn't know the focus of my follow-up homily but as we spoke it was clear that the Lord had spoken the same word to both of us - that Kingdom of God living includes as a normative part of life the Lord's healing power.

As Christians, although we live in this world, we are already transferred into the Kingdom of God that broke into this fallen world with the Incarnation and was released in power at Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus did not separate his preaching ministry from his healing ministry they were knit together the one with the other. He empowered his disciples to continue this ministry of preaching and healing (Luke 9:1-6), and this same double ministry was normative for the early church. If someone was sick they prayed for them, laid hands on them, anointed them, and expected them to receive the Lord's healing - this was normal.

We are the inheritors of this Kingdom living. As Ecclesiasticus reminds us sometimes that healing comes through doctors whom God has gifted, through medicines that God has created, and sometimes supernaturally - but all of these are normal. Prayers for healing are the recognized normal first step for anyone who is ill - any kind of illness, from the smallest to the greatest because the Lord desires wholeness for his people. If we seek the Lord first all these things will be added unto us. Let us seek him with all our heart in all our brokenness because we live in God's Kingdom and the Lord's healing power is a normative part of life in his Kingdom.