I came across a website and I found it discouraging as the question came about … Why doesn’t a loving God answer the prayers and heal an amputees (either legs or arms, etc.) when they are prayed for specifically?
Unfortunately this site claimed that God is discriminative towards the prayers of amputees and asks why a loving God would do so? As I said, I found this very discouraging, yet I still cling to Jesus and know, by faith, that God is good and that he is all-powerful and all-knowing… and I don’t question what He does, because He knows exactly what He is doing, and so freely gives His Love even though we are undeserving… Our God is an awesome God! Thank you for you time and God Bless you!
People skate around this issue and make all kinds of excuses for God’s failure to perform, even going so far as saying that God allows or even brings catastrophic circumstances into our lives to teach us a lesson or assist in our personal growth.
Saying that God discriminates against amputees is just one of the ways in which men try to justify themselves by condemning God. It’s as old as the Book of Job.
What does the Bible say? It says that because of what happened at the cross we can be forgiven of our sins, and because of the beating Jesus endured before going to the cross we can have our sickness and our infirmities taken away (Isaiah 53:5). It says that if we believe and do not doubt we can make a mountain move. It says that if we believe we can have whatever we ask for in prayer. (Matt. 21:21-22)
On no less than seven occasions after healing a person Jesus said that it was their faith that healed them, and in Matt. 13:58 we read that the Lord could not do many miracles in Nazareth because the people there lacked the necessary faith.
I don’t think we have any idea of what having that kind of faith means. In the First Century Church it was an accepted fact that prayer caused healing (James 5:14-16). But most of us have never seen a person even being healed of a headache so it’s hard to generate the kind of faith necessary to believe it can happen with the loss of a limb.
Let me give you an example. I have personally witnessed supernatural healing as a result of prayer, and have even been spared expensive knee replacement surgery through prayer. I’ve also experienced miracles of almost every other sort that are too numerous to mention.
But when I ask the Lord to replace the front teeth that my three year old knocked out, as I do repeatedly, I have trouble believing that it’s possible. I ask myself, “I’ve never seen any body’s teeth replaced. How does one go about developing the kind of faith it would take to believe in that?” I can’t imagine how one generates the faith to believe in the restoration of a lost limb, but I know that God can do it.
Jesus bore the punishment that was due to us so we could be healed. Claiming that He now refuses to heal us is the ultimate in cognitive dissonance. The Bible is neither inconclusive nor evasive on the question of healing. The problem has to be with us.