Is sickness part of the cross we must carry?  | Two Minute Daily Devotional

I want to tell you, Jesus commanded us to both preach the Gospel AND heal the sick (Luke 9&10). These two are inseparable. The healing of the sick is the demonstration of the Gospel – see Matthew 9:6 where Jesus said to the onlookers, ‘But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins.’ He said to the sick of the palsy, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk.’ Q. Isn’t sickness part of the cross we must carry?  A. The cross that Jesus carried was not sickness but rejection, torture and death! The cross He asked us to carry is not sickness, but the persecution, hardship, rejection and even death that follow being His disciples and preaching His Gospel (Matthew 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27). Will you carry that cross? Then get rid of your sickness or you will never be fit to carry it! Jesus was no sick feeble Man, but the strongest, fittest Man who has ever lived! That must be your ideal.   Matthew 8:16-17 tells us that Jesus healed all that were sick, to fulfil that which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, ‘Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’ So even at the time of the actual ministry of Jesus, the Bible says that Christ’s atonement for our sin is also His atonement for sickness and disease.