Sanctification and Healing 

By Jim Lynn, Copyrighted 2006

Do you pray for healing but get disconnected? In other words, does your prayer go unanswered. If so, what does it mean? Has God hung up the line on you, or is there something you’re suppose to be doing you’ve overlooked?

If this is where you are as a Christian, you pray and nothing happens, it can only mean one thing. You are overlooking something that God requires of you before healing is released. That something is sanctification.

Someone says, “Hey, I know someone outside of a covenant relationship with God who prayed for healing and received it. They were not sanctified. They were sinners.” Yes, God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion (Romans 9:15).

I am not speaking here of people lost in sin, outside the body of Christ. I am speaking here of born again Christians, people who are in a covenant relationship with Christ whose prayer for healing has gone unanswered.

As a people of God we are taught much about God’s promise of healing, but very little about His Spirit of discernment and the consequence of sin in our lives.

Take King David of the Old Testament for example. The Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. God loved David greatly. But David had unresolved sin in his life, which left him sick and miserable. God did not heal David until David faced his sin and repented. David wrote:

“O Lord…Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin” (Psalm 38:3).

David recognized the relationship between sin and sickness and had to sanctify his life (to repent of his sin and strive to live a holy life that imitates the nature of God) before God healed him.

Many Christians today believe because they are born again that they cannot sin, but The Bible tells it differently. If you suffer in body, rest assured that sin is close at hand. The Apostle Paul struggled with sin in his life after his conversion to Christianity. He wrote:

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 7:14-8:2)

Do Paul’s words ring a bell with you? They sure do with me! Truth is, all Christians must constantly deal with sin. In fact, Christians especially come under Satan’s attack. He wants to destroy us so the impact of the Gospel of Christ is limited.

It’s not shame that Christians should have sin in their lives. Sin is part of our humanity, our heritage as sons of Adam. It only becomes shame when that sin is left to fester and destroy what God has redeemed.

Fortunately God provides us with relief. The Apostle John tells us how:

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (I John 1:8-10)

Mind you John is addressing Christians here. But reading what John wrote and actually doing something about it is where many Christians fall short. Many Christians live in fear. They harbor jealousy, worry, selfish ambition, unforgiveness, hatred and the like in their heart. All these things are of Satan, not of God. In harboring these unclean spirits, we separate ourselves from God, others, and even self.

For example: If you as a Christian harbor feelings of unforgiveness toward another person, how can you expect God to heal you of sickness? You cannot.  You cannot because you cannot love God and harbor hatred toward another person at the same time. If you do so you are separated from God’s blessing.

It’s not that God is unwilling or unable to heal. He is after all our healer (Psalm 103:3). It’s that we must become sanctified before He will grant healing. Otherwise, God would be double minded. God would have to become evil in condoning evil in order to bless us in our sins.

The root cause of chronic illness is most often the result of lack of sanctification. Healing begins when we make peace with God, ourselves and others and allow God into our hearts to work us over, what the Apostle John calls walking in the light (I John 1:7).

Once we put Christ on in baptism (Romans 6:1-7), we take on a responsibility to grow in Christ (To live holy lives). God does not require our perfection to live free of sin, but he does require us to recognize fear, jealousy, worry, selfish ambition, unforgiveness, hatred and the like as sin and to repent from these things. It’s that unrepented sin that keeps God from healing us.

Think of salvation and sanctification in this manner: The act of salvation is a legal act, something performed on you. Sanctification is an act of volition, something you voluntarily do yourself with the help of God’s Spirit. Again, when you were saved, you were “justified.” (Romans 3:23-26). When you live a sanctified life, you are walking in the light (I John 1:7): A choice we make.

Justification simply means Jesus paid the penalty for your sins, past present and future. You did nothing yourself to be justified, other than to believe and have faith. But nothing happened in being saved to change you morally. You are still the same person with all the faults you had before you were saved. That didn’t change. But after justification (salvation) it became your responsibility to confess and repent of sin as it comes in your life. This is the process of sanctification which leads to healing (James 5:16; Ephesians 4:1-3)

I've made a chart that shows and explains the difference between justification and sanctification. To download a pdf copy of this chart click on sanctification and healing.

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