The Bible tells us that Jesus not only preached the Good News but also healed people with various kinds of diseases and sicknesses. (Matthew 9:35). In other words, He dealt with the well-being of both, the soul and the body. And if you examine the healings mentioned in the Bible, you will find that all of them were impossible cases. But the people were healed because of their faith in Jesus.
We know that a person suffering from a life-threatening illness arrives at a point where he knows that humanly speaking, there is no way out. Perhaps you are presently going through such a situation in your life. Or it may be that someone close to you is in a health crisis. You want to reach out to that person but after all is said and done, you know there is no way out. It is in such moments that God expects us to exercise our faith. He wants us to realize that He is the God of the impossible.
Faith is nothing but changing the way we think about God. Jesus made an important statement while speaking to His disciples. He said, "This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible." (Matthew 19:26). The first part of the sentence points out the wrong way of thinking we have whenever we are faced with a crisis. ‘This is impossible’ in the sentence indicates that our natural tendency is to always conclude that the situation in which we are in is impossible. For example, a person with a sizeable and visible tumor may tend to think, “God may have healed others but my case is different. How can a huge tumor like this simply disappear? It is impossible.” Even a loved one praying for this person may tend to think the same, "A tumor of that size just cannot disappear.” Well, such thinking blocks the healing from coming to us.
The second part of Matthew 19:26, ‘For God, everything is possible’, is the right thinking a Christian must have while exercising his faith. In other words, our thinking must change from ‘this is impossible’ to ‘For God, everything is possible’. In Mark 9, we read about a man who brought his son to the disciples for healing. The healing did not come because his way of thinking was not right. How do we know this? Have a look at what he said when he met Jesus, “Whenever the spirit attacks him, it throws him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth, grits his teeth, and becomes stiff all over. I asked your disciples to drive the spirit out, but they could not. (Mark 9:18). Note how he goes into detail while explaining to Jesus his son's condition. And that is the mistake many make. The more they think about the illness, the more they feel it is an impossible situation. Some people who have been diagnosed to be in the early stages of a particular sickness, already start imagining themselves getting worse and close to the point of death. Such thoughts prevent one from believing that Jesus can heal. This was exactly the condition of this man. He said to Jesus, "Have pity on us and help us, if you possibly can!" (Mark 9:18, 22). On the one hand, he is asking Jesus for help. But at the back of his mind, he still thinks it is impossible. That explains his concluding statement, 'If you possibly can'.
Note the reply of Jesus, "Yes, if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith." (Mark 9:23). Our good Lord knows how feeble a man's mind is and how it becomes a big blockade to experience healing. The reply He gave to this man was, in a way, a gentle rebuke to change his way of thinking from ‘if you possibly can’ to ‘everything is possible’. The man got the hint and said, "I do have faith, but not enough. Help me have more!" (Mark 9:24).
Therefore, our faith is very much connected to our thought process. If you examine the healings where Jesus commended the people for their faith, you will notice that they had the right thinking. Take the example of the woman, who had suffered terribly from severe bleeding for twelve years. The NIV version of the Bible clearly says… She thought, “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.” (Mark 5:28). This woman had trained her mind to think the right way. The line ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed’ implies the same thing, ‘For God, everything is possible’. Similarly, it was the right thinking that enabled people like Bartimaeus, the Canaanite woman, the Centurion, etc. to receive the healing from Jesus.
We need to train our minds to believe in these words of Jesus, "This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible." This line is a pre-condition not only to receive a particular physical healing but more importantly, to be saved and thus enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, the context in which Jesus made the statement is mentioned in the previous verses... Jesus said, “It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." When the disciples heard this, they were completely amazed. "Who, then, can be saved?" they asked. (Matthew 19:24-25). That is when Jesus said to them… "This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible." (Matthew 19:26). You may not be suffering from a physical illness. But as you examine yourself in the light of God's Word, you will realise how diseased your soul is. Perhaps the same question may come to your mind, "Who, then, can be saved?" But every time it comes, think about what Jesus said, "This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible."