<<<  It sounds as if you are saying our continual experience of healing or health (or in this context, the experience of those who were healed by Jesus) would be the proof of whether or not health is part of life in Christ. >>>

Hahaha!  Communication is certainly something that must be related back and forth to catch, huh?  :)  I have learned much through MY experiences and please know that I would never suggest that they are not important to me in how God has learned me.  :)  Of course, my experiences have taught me that my experiences cannot be what I lean upon or trust in.

My main point about the healings performed by Jesus is that we need to consider them all the way through.  Were the healings an end in themselves or were they meant to picture the REAL healing to come that goes way beneath the skin into the invisible realities of who we really are?  The raising of Lazarus did not establish much of a pattern in seeing others physically raised from the dead, but instead, it was a foreshadowing of the very real resurrection in Christ whereby God has now made us alive in Him.  He was the seed that died and went into the ground alone, but as His life shot up out of the ground it produced a harvest.  Our real life comes from His life, and is not affected whether the body is well, or sick, beat up, tortured, maimed, or killed.  Our continual experience is not the "proof" that health is not part of His life, but that no matter what we are complete in Him.

Personally, I prefer the good health I have experienced, but my personal preferences neither prove nor disprove my completeness in Christ.  I have also been very aware that my confidence in Christ has dynamically affected my attitude so that I rarely find myself in poor health, and rarely depressed.  Where I work there is a common acrostic PMA - Positive Mental Attiutude.  There was one particular old man, a fellow employee, who "preached" PMA throughout the store with every chance he could.  He has latched onto the idea that by changing our attitude we can change everything else.  Now, of course there are positive things that can happen by adopting a "positive" attitude, but this is totally backward, and is the forcing of an attitude that will eventually leave one high and dry in the realization that the foundation is an illusion.  I am usually pointed to as one who had PMA because I am one of the most outgoing and positive people in the whole store.  It has given me the opportunity to share what it is that causes me to act the way I do, because as I'm sure you can guess that I don't simply tell people to change their attitudes.  :)  Ah!!  The LIFE far surpasses the plastic attitudes of those who hope to get things done by artificial means. By the way, the PMA preacher's self-righteousness jumped right out at me when we discussed his philosophy!!

No, I don't say that our continual experience proves anything.  I simply say that before we claim that Jesus' own personal health and His healing of others "proves" that we now have been given perfect physical health we need to think it through before we set ourselves up to continually question our "faith" when we notice that our health is not optimum.  I see a set-up for a devastating reaction one day as this question is repeated: "If Christ is my life and I am as He is then how can I possible be sick?"  Do you think it is healthy for her to look at her self in this connection?  What will she do if her sicknesses got worse and worse instead of better?  Might she not eventually trash the suggestion that Christ is her life if her poor health constantly demands that the one throws out the other?

I hurt for her in this, because I understand the pain of which she wrote, for my wife went through YEARS of being bedridden and incapable of getting through her day in the midst of raising and homeschooling our three girls. By the way, my wife no longer has to stay in bed, even though she still deals with health problems.  Her immune system is pretty much shot, but through lots of vitamins and changing OUR diets over the years she has improved dramatically in this area.  At the same time, and she is very aware of this as she has often said so, the understanding of her identity in Christ has done WONDERS regarding her health.  Sherri's most recent bout has to do with her feet.  She apparently damaged them so that she goes through periods where she cannot stand when she gets out of bed, but has to crawl to get to the bathroom (a "must" when she first wakes up every day).  And if she doesn't wear her inserts in her shoes she will keep damaging them.  I am still amazed though when I remember WEEKS of her barely able to get out of bed.  Now that experience is only a memory.  Sherri and I talk about our life in Christ continually!!  She also wants nothing else but HIS reality. What an amazing transformation there has been in our experience together.

Jim