Consider Matthew's take on Jesus, one of Jesus' closest followers...
Matthew 4:23-25, Jesus heals every sickness and disease through Galilee, including people with various diseases, in severe pain, under demonic affliction, falling to ground w/seizures, and those who were paralyzed (like Christopher Reeve was).
Matthew 8. Jesus touches/heals a man whose body is covered with leprosy. He heals a man who is not only paralyzed, but lying in bed writhing in pain. He heals Simon Peter's mother-in-law of fever. He heals everyone brought to him of sickness. He drives demons out of two men who were so violent, no one would go anywhere near.
Matthew 8:17, Matthew tells us Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's ancient prophecy because, "He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases."
Matthew 9 a man is in such a debilitating condition, his friends have to carry him around on a mat. A funeral has begun for a 12 year old girl. A woman, subject to bleeding for 12 years, stumbles toward Jesus. Two blind men, their eyesight ravaged, cry out to Jesus for mercy. A man, who can't speak, is pushed toward Jesus by a crowd... and then, because of Jesus... the man gets up off his mat and walks home, the little girl sits up out of her casket, crashing her own funeral... a woman, two blind men, and a mute are cured.
Matthew 12 Jesus spontaneously regenerates a man's shriveled up.
So all of this begs the question, "Is God willing to heal today?" Some would say "Not at all, God doesn't heal today." As I grew up, we had a church prayer list in bulletin. The same names stayed on that list for months, even years. I never got the sense anyone really expected miracles to happen--because that would be crazy right?
Many pastors/teachers hold the view that miracles have ceased, and that the only time miracles happened were at four critical stages of history: (1) God worked miracles through Moses, as He revealed the Law. (2) God worked miracles through Prophets, like Elijah/Elisha, so people who believe their message about the coming Messiah. (3) God vindicated Jesus' identity not just by the signs, wonders, miracles we've discussed, but particularly, through Jesus resurrection from grave. (4) Finally, as Jesus founded His Church (in Acts), he enabled his Apostles to do signs/wonders. This might be the majority view at least in America, regarding miracles.
Some would say, "Just the same. That because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever He heals just the same today, as back then." The key phrase is "just the same." We're skating on thin ice anytime we try to limit God. If we've learned anything, it's that God laughs and scoffs and obliterates the tiny boxes we try to stuff him into. God is God. He can do whatever he wills. We all agree. So then, if God is the same, why doesn't he "seem" to heal the same today... where is evidence of mass healings today?
In college, a guy on my floor who believed in, prayed for, and boasted about miracles he'd seen. He was known to chide those who didn't believe as he did, and once he stirred up quite a debate among the guys. Interesting enough, Joe had serious back problems, and one night he attended a faith-healing service. That night he received healing. Afterwards, he boasted how his back was completely healed. But a short time later, he was back in his room, stretching his back.
Often we slip into a mode of defending God's reputation. I call it the "someone didn't believe" defense. We say, "Yea, God heals..." but "you (or they) weren't believing hard enough... you didn't rally enough people to pray for your cause...you got the wrong kind of people to pray... someone praying must not have been believing... or you didn't use the right words... or maybe your faith must not have been sincere..." Does God really want us scrutinizing the legitimacy of each other's faith, doing theological diagnostics, every time God doesn't heal as we expect?
I don't deny that in the Bible, faith place a vital role in healing. In fact, Matthew tells us Jesus "did not do many miracles [in his hometown] because of their lack of faith." (Mt 13:58). But is the lack of faith the only explanation for a miracle not occurring?
[Symbol] I would propose that somewhere between these extremes is something's I'll call "Expectant Humility." I use the word EXPECTANT because God isn't limited in any way. Matthew's gospel wasn't written for Jesus' contemporaries; it was written for the generations coming after Jesus. Matthew clearly wants to elevate our expectations of what God might do through Jesus. Consider a few examples:
Matthew 7:9-11, "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" God's goodness isn't limited to his children. Jesus says God causes his sun to shine, and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. There is a goodness to God that ought to elevate our expectations of what we might expect.
Matthew 8:2-3, "A man with leprosy came down and knelt before Jesus and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man, "I am willing" he said, "be clean." Immediately the man was cleansed of leprosy. This story is encouraging because suppose your faith is lacking. Suppose you go to Jesus in prayer with a question mark instead of an explanation point... This story shows us that Jesus is perfectly willing to meet us where we are at. He doesn't say, "Nope, you need 5% more faith, you're 10% short of a fully answered prayer. Sorry, today is not your day..." No God meets us where we are, and expands our horizons!
Matthew 8:13, Jesus tells us the Centurion, whose servant was paralyzed, suffering terribly... "Let it be done just as you believed it would."
Matthew 9:28-29, Jesus asks the blind men, "Do you believe I am able to do this?" and then says, "According to your faith let it be done to you" (and their sight restored).
Matthew 15:28, when it does appear Jesus is denying a woman's request, she persists in faith, trusting God's willingness and goodness. She says even a master gives his dog some breadcrumbs off the table! Jesus tells her, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted!"
So many passages, EXPECTANT FAITH is the where God wants us to be on this issue.
Matthew 17:20 Jesus says, "Truly I tell, if you have faith as small as mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
EXPECTANT is refusing to get in the business of limiting God.
EXPECTANT is getting on the side of faith, not doubt.
EXPECTANT is about asking instead of assuming God "can't, won't, or doesn't"
EXPECTANT is about praying bigger, not smaller.
I see nothing in Scripture that tells me I ought to pray smaller, or doubt God's willingness. I see nothing that would cause me to doubt that if I have just the slightest mustard seed of faith, God responds. Everything tells us to trust his goodness! Jesus tells the Twelve, "with God all things are possible."
Now I use the word HUMILITY, because none of us are God. In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
This verse reminds me that I don't have to defend God's reputation as Healer, or really anything for that matter. When we pray, our confidence is that God (as Romans 8:28 says), "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Do you know the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Teachers of the Law, the crowds tried to get Jesus to heal on their terms, according to their expectations. Jesus wouldn't allow himself to be put in a box.
Did you know there were all these religious showmen in Jesus' day, just like there are in our day? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us that not everything spectacular is of God, or done by people who know God. Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus warns, "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
Earlier, Jesus warns about those who pray, fast, and give in a sensationalistic, public way. There is no much spiritual pride at play, we really ought to be discerning about all that we see. There are people announcing their works with trumpets, people flaunting their spirituality with high minded prayers. There is greed at play in the most holy places and at holy times as God's people gather for worship. There are leaders who manipulate people's perceptions, making a spectacle of themselves.
When it comes to miracles I don't overreact, I don't underreact. I wait and watch. Jesus says "you will know a tree by its fruit." When I pray, I just pray in faith. I'm not anyone special. My faith isn't superior to everyone's else's. I don't have some crystal ball by which I know exactly how God will respond in prayer. I just want to pray as EXPECTANTLY as possible, and as HUMBLY as possible, and LET GOD BE GOD. Let the wise debate where they fall on the spectrum of "NOT AT ALL" and "JUST THE SAME." I suspect God will confound the wisdom of the wise, as he always does.
Part of praying HUMBLY is also acknowledging God's greater plan for our lives. If I understand Scripture, there is an ARC to our lives, from birth to time we die on this earth. There are different seasons. In Genesis 6:3 God says, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years." We should not be surprised by death, nor think this body in this life will last forever. Psalm 90:10 says, "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." God has something better for us.
Part of praying HUMBLY is acknowledging God's wisdom, and the that his grace is sufficient. In 2 Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul is afflicted by a thorn in his flesh. Three times he pleaded with God to take it away. But what God said to Paul was a different yes than he expected, he said, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Paul acknowledges that while he was wanting bodily healing, God was using the whole ordeal to keep him from becoming conceited.
Can we acknowledge that from God's perspective inner healing, spiritual healing, moral healing, emotional healing, mental healing... can be just as significant? Are we open to all kinds of healing? Are we able to see the larger picture of what God is doing? The healing Jesus brings in the gospel of Matthew touches every dimensions of a person's life including their worries, their anxieties, their anger/hostility, the demonic strongholds, the physical incapacities, the soul.