The scourging of Jesus in the movie The Passion of the Christ showed the great pains that he took upon his back as He was brutally beaten. This was all for a purpose.

Isaiah 53:4,5 “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

 The stripes upon his back were given to us for our physical healing. I know that there is healing in the atonement.  When you are sick, God intended for you to come to him for healing. The word tells us,  “by his stripes we are healed.”

He revealed himself early on as a healing God. Healing is something that is received by faith, and it was meant for us today.  Please, if I am sick don’t come in and pray:  Lord remember Pastor Bob!  Come in and pray the prayer of faith.  Speak to the sickness! Command it to go and say, “Bob, by his stripes we are healed.”

God is a healer. I know this because I have personally witnessed his healing power. Those who know my family and I know the story of my middle son, Derek.  Derek was staying with dear friends in an apartment and was traumatized by some older children.  He began to stutter.  This went on for numerous months, until one night I cried out to the Lord.  God in his mercy, because of the stripes he took on his back, healed my Son Derek.  That was a Saturday night, the next morning when Derek woke up, he was completely healed and never returned again to stutter.

There are those who will tell you that the healing spoken of here in Isaiah 53 was for spiritual healing.  Anybody who tells you that needs to read Matthew 8:16,17

“When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:  “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.”

This passage finds Jesus healing sick people. It quotes from the same passage in Isaiah 53.  In other words, Matthew proved to us that the stripes upon his back were for your physical healing.

I don’t pretend to understand all there is to know about healing. I just want to simply proclaim that Jesus does indeed heal today.

If you are sick today,  claim the verse that says, “by his stripes we are healed.”

Your faith can appropriate the blood of Jesus.  The blood from his back was just one of seven streams that flowed from Calvary. Each stream has a specific benefit for those who will receive it and appropriate the shed blood of Jesus. By his stripes we are healed!