Christ is the Believers’ Physician as they Live under the Discipline of the Inner Life

When we see Paul’s experience in his later ministry, we are helped to have a proper appreciation of Christ as the Physician, for he cared for his co-workers in an intimate way but was under the discipline of the inner life rather than under the power of the outward gift; may we come to the Lord Jesus as our Physician with healing authority!

Amen, Lord, we come to You as our Physician. Thank You for being our Physician today. We open to You. We open our problems to You. We come to You with the sicknesses we have in our soul and spirit. Lord, You see how sinful we are. You see how much we are away from You in so many things, doing things apart from You. Heal us, dear Lord. Speak to us a word and exercise Your healing authority to heal us in our soul and in our spirit! Amen!

We as believers in Christ are those who, by the Lord’s mercy, have seen something of the Lord Jesus and also something of ourselves, and we have opened to Him.

We are not more special than anyone else, and we are not better than any other person; we are here, in the church life, under the Lord’s mercy and grace, enjoying and experiencing Christ as our Physician.

We realise that, under the Lord’s shining, we are so sick, and there’s nothing we can do to cure or heal ourselves. So we come to the Lord as our Physician. He is there for us. He wants us to come to Him.

Initially, through repentance, we came to the Lord and experienced Him as our Physician healing us of our spiritual sickness of sin. Oh, sin is a great spiritual sickness, for even though we want to do the good, we are slaves to sin, unless Christ comes in.

This was Paul’s experience in Romans 7, and this is our experience today.

Whenever we are not touching the Lord, when we’re not in the organic union with Him, sin in our flesh rises up to defeat us, overpower us, and cause us to sin.

This is a spiritual sickness that we need to be cured of by the Lord.

When He was on earth, the Lord Jesus healed many people of their physical sicknesses; even more, His very presence with the sinners and tax collectors healed them of the power of sin, and many turned to God through repentance. We need the Lord as our Physician.

We may contact Him in the morning, but then we go about doing the things of our daily life, and we so many things apart from the Lord, thus living in sin.

Sin is a spiritual sickness that can be cured only by the Lord Jesus as our Physician. May we come to Him and experience Him as our Physician day by day!

Christ is the Believers’ Physician as they Live under the Discipline of the Inner Life

When the apostle Paul began his ministry, when the church life was at the beginning, there were many miracles being performed, and Paul himself healed many people.

However, his experience in his later ministry was very different. If we look at Paul’s experience in his later ministry, we will be helped to have a proper appreciation of Christ as the believers’ Physician.

In 2 Timothy 4:20 Paul said that he left Trophimus sick at Miletus. He had an intimate concern for this dear one and left him there, but why didn’t he exercise healing prayer for him?

He had the healing gift (Acts 19:11-12), but why did he not exercise it?

Similarly with Timothy, who had some stomach illness; instead of Paul exercising his healing gift and healing his young co-worker, he instructed him to take the natural way for healing (1 Tim. 5:23).

What happened here with Paul: did he lose his faith or something like that? What we see here is an important principle which should encourage us in our Christian life.

Instead of exercising his gift of healing, Paul encouraged Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach illness, and he left Trophimus sick at Miletus.

He cared for them in a very human way; he was Jesusly human in his care for his co-workers.

He did not exercise the gift of healing because both Paul and his co-workers were under the discipline of the inner life rather than under the power of the outward gift.

The discipline of the inner life is of grace in life, but the gift of healing is of gift in power, even miraculous power.

We may think that, the more we grow in the Lord, the more we should have power to heal people, make miracles, etc.

But it seems that Paul, a mature brother in the Lord, enjoyed and experienced Christ as his Physician yet did not exercise the healing gift to heal his co-workers.

This shows us that today Christ is the believers’ Physician mainly for our spirit and our soul; He may heal our body, but His focus is mainly our spirit and our soul.

If we see this vision and realise that Christ is the believers’ Physician in their spirit and soul, we will trust in the Lord and we will experience Him as our Physician.

In the beginning of the church life, when the church was established, miraculous healings were necessary and many took place.

But later, in the decline of the church and in suffering for the church as we serve in the church, the gift of power is not as much needed as the grace in life.

What we need is the enjoyment of Christ as grace in life, and we need to remain under the discipline of the inner life rather than being under the power of the outward gift.

For the building up of the church, what is needed is not more miraculous healing in the body but the healing of the spirit and the soul of the believers.

We can see our spiritual sickness and how we can be healed by the Lord as the believers’ Physician in the story in Exodus 15 with the healing of the bitter waters at Marah.

The people of Israel arrived at a place with waters, but the waters were bitter; they called the name of that place Marah and murmured against Moses, asking him to give them to drink.

Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; he cast that tree in the waters, and the waters became sweet.

There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there God tested them. In our situations and in our environment, we have much bitterness.

We may be bitter with our job, our family, or even in the church life. There may be an offense among the brothers, or an offense in our serving with some particular saints.

Something may cause us to be bitter and upset, and the circumstances weigh on us in a heavy way, causing us to be bitter.

How shall we deal with this? How can we go on? We need the Lord as the believers’ Physician to come in and heal our inner being. We need healing in our mind, emotion, and will.

In Exodus 15:26 we see that in God’s eyes, the children of Israel were sick and in need of healing. He is our Healer.

We need to realise that we are sick and in need of a Physician. In certain parts of our being, we are still sick and need the Lord’s being.

When we come to the Lord with our sickness, our hurts, and our problems, He shows us a tree, which, according to 1 Peter 2:24 is the cross of Christ. It is by His cross that we are healed.

The Lord died for us on the cross, and by His cross we are healed. When we exercise our spirit and apply the cross, we are healed of our infirmities and diseases in our inner being.

We touch the cross by seeing a vision of the cross in our spirit. As we touch the Lord and allow the cross to operate in us, anything that is sick and bitter in us is healed.

Daily, even hourly, the Lord is our Healer. May we come to Him with all our bitter situations and bitter being and allow Him to apply the cross to our being so that we may be healed.

In Christianity today many are enamoured with the idea of miraculous healing, and many run to see such things; but the Lord doesn’t seem to be interested in this, even though He is able to heal people physically.

He wants to heal our mind, emotion, and will, and He wants to heal us of any spiritual sickness.

Lord Jesus, thank you for being our Healer. We come to You as the believers’ Physician to enjoy and experience Your healing in our soul and in our spirit. Oh Lord, we are so sick in so many aspects of our inner being. Our mind is sick, our emotions are sick, and our will is sick. Oh Lord, we are so bitter in the situation You put us in, and we are bitter in our very being. We come to You as our Physician and our Healer. Grant us to see a vision of the cross and apply the cross to our situation. Amen, Lord, apply the cross to our being. Heal us. Heal our mind, emotion, and will. May we remain under the discipline of the inner life and not seek any experience of the power of the outward gift. Spread in us as life. May Your life reign in us. Oh Lord Jesus, keep us coming to You as our Physician again and again! Heal us and incline our ear to hear Your word! Make us willing to obey You and walk in Your statutes. Amen, Lord, we just open to You and we trust in You as our Physician!

Christ as our Physician serves us with His Forgiving Authority and His Cleansing Power: He has Healing Authority!

In the book of Mark we see some particular cases of the Lord healing the sick people. First, in the case of Peter’s mother-in-law, He healed her from being sick with fever (Mark 1:30-31). Fever may signify an abnormal, unbridled temper.

To help such a person, first you have to be calm, and then they will eventually calm themselves down. The Lord simply touched her, and her fever left.

The second case is the case of a leper (vv. 40-45); a leper portrays a typical sinner. Leprosy in those days was very contaminating, contagious, and damaging diseases, and all lepers had to isolate themselves from other people. Oh Lord!

Our sin isolates us from God and man; because we are sinful, we are separated from God and from man.

The cleansing of the leper signifies the recovery of a sinner to fellowship with God and with man by the Lord’s healing of our spiritual sickness.

What we need as lepers, sinners, is not only healing but also cleansing; the Lord heals us and also cleanses us, and whenever we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us from our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:7, 9).

The third case of sickness is the case of the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12). A paralytic is a man disabled by sin. We are both disabled by sin and we have a fever because of sin.

We are all disabled and paralytic, and we all have a fever due to the sin in our very nature. What we need is both healing and cleansing from the Lord.

Thank the Lord that He has the healing authority. He not only can heal us; He has the healing authority, and He can heal us of our sins and cleanse us.

The Lord came to serve us with His forgiving authority and His cleansing power.

When we come to the Lord concerning our sins, He touches us in love, and we are forgiven of our sins and cleansed of our sins. In this way, we are brought back to God to fellowship with God.

May we experience Christ as the believers’ Physician today by coming to Him as we are, confessing our sins, and allowing Him to bring us back to God!

Through His death on the cross, He paid the highest price to restore our fellowship with God. Because of Christ, our sins are gone and we have God as our everything.

Now we as saved sinners, cleansed sinners, and healed sinners, can enjoy God as our life, our light, and our everything.

This is the effect of the gospel, and this is how we should also carry out our gospel service.

When we speak to others, we need to be one with the Lord and shine Him forth.

As Malachi 4:2 says, Christ is the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings. He shines on us through His speaking, and in His shining there is healing.

He wants to gather us to Himself, as a hen gathers her chicks, but many times we stay away from Him. So He shines on us. He reaches us by His tender, loving and healing shining.

When He shines on us and we are touched by Him, He heals us by His word, for His word has healing authority.

The result is that we run and skip and jump like well-fed calves. We simply dance with joy, for we are forgiven, we are restored, we are healed, and we are enjoying God in Christ as our portion!

When we touch the Lord, when we allow the Lord to touch us and heal us as our delightful Physician, He cares for all our needs, we trust in Him, and we believe that He’s able to meet every need.

Thank the Lord that He is the believers’ Physician and we can come to Him and hear His speaking!

Through His speaking in His word, He exercises His authority to heal us (Matt. 8:8). May we come to Him as our Physician daily.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to serve us with Your forgiving authority and Your cleansing power. Oh Lord, You see that we are riddled with sickness. You see that we have fever due to sin, and our temper is abnormal and unbridled. Come in, Lord, and touch us; we want to touch You as the believers’ Physician today. Oh Lord, You see that we are crippled and disabled by sin, and we cannot do Your will whenever we’re in the flesh or the natural man. We need Your healing. We need Your cleansing. We come to You, dear Lord, and we need You as our Physician. Restore our fellowship with God and man. Speak to us, for Your speaking has healing authority. Amen, Lord, when You speak a word, Your authority comes with Your word to heal us. We open to You and we come to You as we are. Keep us coming to You today. Keep us under Your speaking. May we live under the discipline of the inner life in our Christian life and may we open to You as our Physician in all things and concerning all things! Amen!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ray Mulligan on this topic, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 46 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-inclusive Christ as Revealed in Matthew (2025 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 2, Christ as the Physician and the Bridegroom – day 4.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Do you doubt God’s will to heal you? / Take His word and ask for light; / If you seek in deep contrition, / He will guide your heart aright. / Do not fear to claim His promise, / He will not your trust betray; / When on earth He gladly healed them, / And He is the same today. (Hymns #758 stanza 3)
  – He healeth me, as when of yore, / Their sins and sicknesses He bore; / Nor has He lost His power and skill— / Our blessed Christ is living still. / He healeth me! how oft I sought / This healing power, but found it not: / But now I trust with all my soul, / And now through faith He makes me whole. (Hymns #755 stanzas 4-5)
  – I am breathing out my sickness, / Thou hast borne its burden too; / I am breathing in Thy healing, / Ever promised, ever new. (Hymns #255 stanza 5)