God does not and is not punishing you or me.
But He allowed sickness and disease due to sin in the world. It’s a natural consequence of sin. We are all decaying and dying from different things. Jesus came to show he has the ability to heal the sick, forgive sins, raise the dead, that He is I AM. He is God. He proved that. Now we live in him. Now we trust Him no matter what our circumstances are. We pray for healing and imprisonment etc and wait for Him.
In the meantime, we continue to bring him glory in our bodies right where we are physically and circumstantially.
We don’t yet know all the details of why. But we know our WHO. Part of suffering, as in Job, is to reveal to us a personal Savior who is sovereign, loving and kind. One who is always for us—-not against us.
When suffering causes us to question the goodness or reality of God, this exposes a lie in us that needs to be replaced with Truth. We find the truth in His Word.
If our suffering is because of personal sin, God is not an accuser nor is he holding out on us. He will convict us by His Holy Spirit immediately as we sin. When he does that, we can choose to repent and turn and do the right thing and we are blessed. Sometimes when we sin personally, and have a consequence not from God, but from the result of the sin (if one is an unrepentant alcoholic, maybe alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver develops. For this, God is not the cause or the blame). If I have hereditary neuropathy in my legs, which I do, not due to my own sin, but nevertheless due to someone’s sin in past DNA (or if one is born blind, deaf, maimed in some way, not due to their own sin etc) then we are suffering in this life due to a sin sick world that we were born into. This suffering is not God’s fault but due to original sin.
As God warned Adam “you SHALL SURELY DIE” so it is. I deserve death, in this body, because I also like Adam personally sinned against God in my lifetime. Thankfully, my spirit is sealed for eternal life. We suffer in our bodies here, but this is temporary (even if it feels eternal).
The real issue is not if we are healed here or not. The real dilemma is what will we do with God, in this test? Let the questions come and bring them out in the open. I do—with respect to God—ask Him questions, but never do I question if He is the cause of my condition but rather, I might ask if I have I personally sinned or do I personally walk in unforgiveness? Is there any sin or behavior in me that is resulting in these consequences?
If my conscience is clear that I am clean before God, then, will I ask if He give me healing in my body, or grace to endure and bear up under it, or wisdom to seek direction for answers, in this moment. God will surely be faithful to hear and answer these prayers. In His timing and in His providence, he surely will reveal Himself, to me, in a significant way.
I also realize I have an enemy called The Accuser of the Brethren. His MO is to bring condemnation without representation. He will come and accuse and condemn but never with anything tangible It goes like this: “You are sick because of your sin!” When I ask what have I done, he will reply with, “You are just a rotten sinner—I’m not going to tell you, just go figure it out!” That is condemnation and it is not from God!
God, the Holy Spirit, doesn’t condemn. Rather, He comes to convict. This is a totally different approach. When I sin, the Holy Spirit IMMEDIATELY lets me know. It’s like a referee in a game who blows the whistle the moment I make a foul play. In that moment, that I am sinning or fouling up, I KNOW full well why he’s blowing the whistle. I don’t have to guess why, because he will call the foul out then and there! The next immediate step for a Believer is repentance and receiving the punishment Jesus took on my behalf and going forward to sin no more in that way. Draw near to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. When conviction comes, draw near to God. When condemnation comes, resist that devil.