Sometimes God does not heal people because they are not following His teaching or heeding His command to repent and believe. Are there any other reasons why healing does not come? Once again, the Bible gives some clues. - Jesus went about all Galilee: Notice that He did not go to Judea on this trip, though there must have been multitudes there suffering from illnesses of all sorts. Nor did He visit Samaria (at this time), or Rome, or Greece, or Africa, or China. Here we see God’s sovereignty. It was not, apparently, the will of God that Jesus should bring healing to everyone living in His day. Only a select group (though they were many) benefited from His mighty power. The same holds true today. God decides who will be healed, and who will not. We do not know the basis for His choice, but we believe He is always just and fair. We trust in His love precisely because He sent Jesus to save His people from their sins. - Jesus only healed those who came to Him, or were brought to Him. Our passage tells us that “great multitudes followed Him – from Galilee and from Decapolis (Ten Cities), Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.” These crowds traveled long distances and underwent a great deal of trouble in order to get within the range of Jesus’ truth and love. Perhaps we do not receive healing because we have not exerted sufficient effort. - From other places in the Scripture, we learn that God allows trouble into our lives for a variety of purposes. Perhaps He means to discipline us for disobedience; or refine us; or test our faith; or strengthen our faith through the endurance of trials; or remind us to set our hope fully on future grace when Christ returns; or keep us from pride and complacency; or demonstrate His power in our weakness by giving us sufficient ability to serve Him under great pressure (See Hebrews 12:3-11; James 1:2-4. 12; 1 Peter 1:6-8,13; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). At all times, however, believers in Christ can be assured that nothing – not even acute pain or chronic, debilitating disease – can ”separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39). Indeed, we can be assured that “all thing work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). For those reasons, we can “in everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).