to demon possession that bound some in his congregation. When the local physician asked Blumhardt who was going to care for his patients’ souls, Blumhardt took up the challenge armed with prayer, patience, and persistence.
This spiritual battle began in earnest in 1841, for a young woman named Gottliebin Dittus who suffered recurring nervous disorders and various other strange and inexplicable “attacks.” Blumhardt embarked on a two-year-long struggle that ended in victory over demonic powers. He never could have anticipated what happened next. Almost overnight, the town of Möttlingen was swept up in an unprecedented movement of repentance and renewal. Stolen property was returned, broken marriages restored, enemies reconciled, alcoholics cured, and sick people healed. An entire village experienced what life could be like when God was free to rule. Jesus was victor!
Word spread, and soon Blumhardt’s parsonage could no longer accommodate all the people that streamed to it seeking healing. Eventually, because of restrictions placed on his work by church superiors, Blumhardt left his pastorate and moved his ministry to Bad Boll, a complex of large buildings that had been developed as a spa around a sulfur water spring. At Bad Boll, many desperate individuals burdened with mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual maladies quietly found healing and renewed faith.
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842–1919) was barely a year old when his father began his prayer battle for Gottlieben Dittus. Nevertheless, this experience would stand as a backdrop to everything he would experience in life. When his family moved to Bad Boll he was ten years old. Eventually, Christoph worked alongside his father, and after his father’s death, he carried on his father’s task.
Troubled by the publicity surrounding miraculous physical healing, Christoph retired from public preaching altogether. Although he continued to experience the healing powers of God, he came to believe that what the prophets and Jesus wanted most was a new world: the rulership of God over all things. God wanted to transform both the inner and the outer person, both individuals and entire societies.
No other writers have influenced my faith in God’s goodness and in his healing power more than the Blumhardts have. With bold confidence in the God who works miracles and a childlike acceptance of God’s will in all things, these two men point us to look beyond our physical condition to Jesus, who heals and brings life to both body and soul, and to his kingdom. For them, the redemptive reality of God’s healing love not only comforts us in our affliction but has the power to renew our spirits, providing us with the peace that passes understanding. They assure us that even the most material remedies can be improved by means of prayer, and that when we completely surrender to God’s will, much greater things will take place. This is good news indeed, especially for those who know firsthand the limitations of medical science and the impossibility of a pain-free life.
This is why I turn to the Blumhardts again and again to gain new courage and a fresh perspective. I’ve also shared their insights with friends and acquaintances who, in times of terrible suffering, felt bereft of faith and hope. Their words remind us that it is sometimes only through suffering that we come to understand and know the healing touch God wants to bestow. When we are confronted with our mortality, God wants to free us and show us that neither sickness nor death is the final power.
I trust that you, the reader, will find this book a comfort, but also a challenge to live more fully for God and more surrendered to his will. I also hope you will think of others who might benefit from reading it. Only in Jesus is there real and lasting help. He is the true healer, the one who will not only raise us up to eternal life, but who will restore all things. He alone can bring the abundance of God’s unending life here into our earthly lives.
Here Is Good News
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. –Matthew 4:23–24
There are two sides to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a message of forgiveness of sins, of everlasting life, but also a message of opposition to human misery. Not only is an end to sin proclaimed, but also an end to suffering and death. All suffering shall cease! Just as sin is overcome through the blood of Christ, so suffering will come to an end at the resurrection. When Jesus performed signs and wonders, he was proclaiming the gospel against suffering.
With this gospel we can be certain that the wretchedness of this world will cease, just as we are sure of everlasting life. We cannot separate these two sides of Christ. We must not one-sidedly emphasize the cross and forgiveness, while ignoring the resurrection and the overcoming of our misery. It is Satan’s trick to try and make us waver so that the Savior does not receive a full and complete hearing.
Faced with the world’s longing for redemption, it is obvious that we can never bring real comfort through the gospel as long as we stress only the one thing – that the Savior forgives our sins – and otherwise the world can go its own way. Similarly, we would be unable to bring real comfort through the gospel, if we represented the Savior only as a miracle-worker and proclaimed, “Be comforted, you can be healed through the Savior.” Then repentance and forgiveness would be utterly forgotten, and no fundamental change would ever take place in men.
Jesus allowed the sick to come to him, just as he did sinners. He was ready to forgive sins and ready to heal. There were times when very few sinners came, only sick people. And Jesus welcomed them all. Oh, that the nations would hear the good news! That the sick would come, and that sinners would come – all are welcome!
Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
Jesus Cares for You
Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. –Matthew 15:29–31
Great crowds came to Jesus, bringing the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb and putting them at his feet; and he healed them. The news of his presence spread in a hurry. Indeed, if any one of us had been there and had heard of a chance to be freed from our affliction – who of us would not have given everything to come to Jesus?
Yet, it was not always easy for the sick to get to Jesus. Many relied on the help of others. These people must have had a lot of compassion and made considerable effort as well. How then could the Savior not receive them? Should he have shown less compassion just because they might have come to him for the wrong reason?
Compassion sees only the need of others; it omits all criticism and judging. Jesus never gave the sick a sermon first, or first examined their inner condition; he never asked them what sins they might have committed to merit this sickness. This would not only have been harsh but would have hurt the sick even more.
Why then are we so quick to judge the sick, examining them to find out whether they are remorseful enough or worth praying for? Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me, I will not reject.” This is why it is always wrong to think that illness is “a blessing in disguise.” What is more beneficial for us – sickness or health? The Savior certainly did not think that the sick were better off than the healthy,
