Who Gets The Credit?

Who Gets The Credit?

When the Pharisees heard about the miracle, they said, “No wonder he can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons.” Matthew 12:24

When we look at today’s verse, we might think, Those Pharisees! They don’t understand that Jesus’ healing power comes from God the Father, not from Satan. We’re quick to judge them because we know the end of the story.

But are we really all that different from the Pharisees?

In modern medicine, we often give credit to doctors or researchers for their breakthroughs in healing. We award the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, but we don’t give awards for healing to the Great Physician. Shouldn’t the credit for all those award-winning insights or discoveries really go to God?

In some cases, in their acceptance speeches, the winners of the Nobel Prize thank God for his guidance in their research and discoveries. However, by the time the ceremony is over, the only name the public remembers is the name of the person who received the award, not the name of God.

Even in experimental scientific studies, we don’t account for God’s hand in healing. When we study new drugs or treatments, we compare them to a placebo, which should have no scientific effect on the illness or disease. For a drug to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration, it must be statistically better than a placebo. That makes sense. An effective treatment should be better than something that is supposed to do nothing.

But what if a placebo isn’t actually doing nothing? What if, in some cases, the placebo is actually the means by which God does his healing? Every year, there are thousands of drugs and treatments studied by scientists or doctors that don’t do any better than the placebo. And study after study reveals that placebos can have measurable cure rates. In other words, doing something that should have no scientific reason to affect a cure often does.

I believe this is evidence that we are like the Pharisees. We don’t give credit to God for the cure when he is ultimately the source of all healing.

TODAY’S RX

Give credit where credit is due. Don’t overlook the hand of God in your healing.

Lord, please forgive me for when I’ve doubted you or turned a blind eye to you. You are the healer of all. Even when I am struggling or in pain, help me to always acknowledge your faithfulness.