We read in scripture that when Jesus healed someone, he often warned them not to sin again. He tied their healing to forgiving their sin, and their restored health to their repentance. In other words, the illness was the physical manifestation of sin on the person’s soul.

There’s no reason to believe that this physical/spiritual connection doesn’t still exist today. Scripture clearly demonstrates that our physical health is a reflection of our spiritual health. In the same way, the state of a nation also reflects the spiritual health of its citizens. If you have a country full of people whose souls are heavy with sin, you have an unhealthy nation that’s plagued with all manner of ills, from the political to the social to the economic. The greater the collective burden of sin, the greater the nation’s problems.

Unfortunately, this spiritual fact flies in the face of today’s victim culture. The prevailing belief in the world is that other people randomly or systematically do bad things and you suffer for it. There’s no connection made between the bad things that you do and your suffering, so there’s no conception of your need to take personal responsibility to avoid present and future suffering. At the same time, paradoxically, the world has no problems connecting the dozen alcoholic drinks consumed last night with the hang-over today, or the extra sweets consumed over the Christmas holidays with tighter clothes in January. Those connections are clearly acknowledged by the world. Why, then, is there such a blind refusal to make the connection that sin leads to suffering, and that bad choices lead to a physically and emotionally unhealthy life?

When God purges sin from a soul, every degeneration goes with it, from the spiritual to the physical. When I was born-again, even the few white hairs I had at the time turned brown again for a while. I was brown-again (lol). There was a complete rejuvenation from the cellular level all the way up to the spiritual one. Such a thorough degree of healing can only come from God, through his Holy Spirit. This was the way Jesus healed during his ministry years, and this is the way he still heals supernaturally, through God’s Spirit.

There are few things sadder in life than to see people suffering because they refuse to accept the reason for their suffering. By refusing to accept the reason for their suffering, they not only prevent themselves from being healed, they ensure that their suffering will continue. They also live in fear that bad things can happen to them out of the blue at any time. Most of the world lives like this. I myself did for years, until I was finally healed through rebirth. I understand the mindset of people who live in constant fear and blame others for their problems; I just no longer share it.

As born-agains, we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that our physical ills are separate from our spiritual state. The world operates under that delusion, but we shouldn’t. If we’re physically ill, we need to go to God for healing in the same way as we go to God for healing when we’re spiritually out of sorts, because the physical is the manifestation of the spiritual. In other words, our physical ailments, like our spiritual ones, also require our faith, our repentance, and God’s healing grace.