That’s the strategy Jesus used during His earthly ministry. It’s the one He taught His first disciples to use, and He never changed it. When He went back to heaven and delegated His ministry to the Church, He told us to follow the same plan.
Why?
Because it works!
The book of Acts confirms this time and again. As long as the early Christians kept doing what Jesus did to build the kingdom of God, they saw marvelous results. The Body of Christ kept growing, and as we see in scripture after scripture:
• “The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:47)
• “Many of them which heard the word believed.” (Acts 4:4)
• “And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.” (Acts 5:14)
• “And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.” (Acts 11:21)
“Yes,” someone might say, “but a lot has changed since those verses were written. Things are different these days.”
That’s true. Things are different. But Jesus isn’t. He never changes. He’s “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). So, if He drew people to Himself by healing the sick 2,000 years ago, He’s still doing it today. Only now, He’s doing it through us.
As I’ve already said, though, sometimes we complicate it. Jesus never did. He always made it easy for people to receive healing. He never told them they had to stay sick so God could teach them something. He never said to anyone, as religious tradition does today, “Sometimes God heals and sometimes He doesn’t. You just never know what He’s going to do.”
On the contrary! Jesus healed everyone who came to Him.
Think about the people whose healings were recorded just in Mark 5, for instance. The first one was a demon-possessed man who came to meet Jesus in the country of the Gadarenes. He was so sick in his mind that he lived in the cemetery and refused to wear clothes. He was so violent, people in the community chained him up, but he kept breaking the chains.
He didn’t even have the wherewithal to ask Jesus to heal him. All he could do is run to Him and fall at His feet. But that’s all it took. Jesus cast out the demons that had possessed that man and delivered him completely. He left him “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (verse 15).
BVOV : 29
