We touched on it briefly in our last entry, but well before
Christ left this earth He distributed His gift of healing to his followers (70
of them at one point). Those servants
went through the towns and villages healing all manner of disease. There is a subtle premise here which is often
ignored because of focus on the healing itself.
By distributing His ability to heal over His servants, Christ was to
able to reach many more people in a short period of time. In point of fact, they healed anyone; they
healed everyone. Entire towns and
villages were made well with every single citizen healthy before they left
town. Only those cities who refused them
access, who repelled their efforts, were left untouched. Ever wonder why so many people hailed Christ
as the King on His donkey ride into Jerusalem?
Many had been healed. Many had
been fed. Many had personal experience.
After His departure, the healing gift remained. Not just with His immediate disciples whose
stories begin in Acts and continue throughout the New Testament; but with those
who came to believe in Him. Those who
had never met Him one-on-one were given abilities – Gifts – of the Spirit. The ability to heal was among these Gifts
given to His church by Christ. It was
arguably the oldest gift given to the servants of Christ, by Christ himself. It predated Pentecost. Healing it seems, was to be a hallmark of the
believers of the church belonging to Christ.
The numbers of those who claim to be Christian have
certainly multiplied over the years. And
what God has done for the church has certainly been well preserved. Insuring we have a Bible, a written testament
to rely upon, was in itself an act of God.
The Catholic church would have gladly suppressed the publication of this
book during the dark ages were it left up them.
But this is typical behavior of all those in power, they wish not to
lose it. The Catholic church was right
about one premise that accompanied the release of the scriptures in the common
languages, we now have as many denominations of Christians as we have groups of
people anywhere. Ignoring our doctrinal
distinctions for just a moment however, we all claim to be Christian. We all claim to follow the teachings of
Christ. And therefore in some ways we
all represent His name, and His character to others in this world.
Healing was a big part of the ministry of Christ here on
earth, so what are modern Christians doing to propagate this ministry? We open hospitals of course. We train our young to become medical
professionals. We open missions to feed
the poor, and educate those in need.
Modern Christians have done MUCH to improve their communities and world
around them through these outreach programs.
But they all share one other common thread; they are based on the best
science, and business models of the day in which we live. Don’t get me wrong I am not advocating we
give up the advances we have made in medical science, or abdicate modern
medicine in any way shape or form. I am
simply pointing out, we do not base our efforts to heal on miracles. We base them on models of predictability.
The idea that miracles related to healing even exist anymore
is now HIGHLY suspect. Why? What is it about healing in the Bible that
has become so foreign to our way of thinking?
Have we become so ‘educated’ now that these stories must simply have
been in error? I mean, let’s be real for
a minute, they did not have MRI machines back in Christ’s days. Maybe as diagnostics goes, things were not as
bad as they seemed in some of those stories right? Wrong.
But this entire line of thinking has diluted the faith of Christians,
and placed believing in Miracles as now akin to fundamentalist thinking, i.e.
extreme.
But whether Christians have completely abandoned the idea of
miraculous healing altogether, or just put it in the back burner of their minds
near the remainder of their skepticism; they do not practice this gift any
longer on any sort of wide scale. To be
blunt, we Christians have given up wide scale thinking entirely. No one even imagines healing every single
person in a town or city anymore (like they did in the Bible). No one even imagines healing every single
person in just one hospital anymore (nor would Hospital administration allow it
to go on). It has gotten so bad among
Christians, we doubt even the healing of a member of our own families. We may pray for it. But we doubt it.
This is the condition of the church today. Not just of my church, but of all churches;
not just of my faith, but of all Christian faiths. Our pragmatism has replaced our idealism. Losing faith in the literacy of scripture has
lead to many reportedly Christian believers thinking we have only to lean on
‘good concepts’ of the Bible, not literal stories. We treat the Bible as a Chinese menu, to pick
and choose what we will be willing to believe in. Healing and the miracle related healing
stories inspire our idealism, offer us hope perhaps, but have decidedly NOT
infected us with a change in how we approach this topic. Our missions continue, our miracles do not.
In this degraded state we have had to alter our prayers as
well, to reflect our lack of faith, and new found pragmatism. When we do actually offer a prayer for the
sick, we couch it in language of “if it is God’s will”. As if, our default posture is one where God
sits up there thinking, I wonder who I should make suffer today. Or at the least, whose prayers I should
ignore or answer no, in order that the suffering may continue. Truth is, our language is merely a testament
to our own lack of faith. We have seen
too little miraculous healing in our own experiences so we have come to believe
it is a rare thing, almost unheard of.
We must then pray in a way that might preserve the faith of others when
the healing does not come (as we expect it will not in our heart of hearts).
Wake up Christians.
It has never been God who desires and wills that we suffer. It has ALWAYS been His will to relieve and
end our suffering. It is our God who is
desperately trying to SAVE us. Does this
sound like the kind of God who ‘wishes’ for people to hurt? It is inconsistent with His entire
character.
It is perfectly in sync however with the nature of
evil. It is EVIL that wishes us to
suffer, both from our choices, and those of others. It is EVIL who wishes us to lose all hope in
our prayers, and avoid believing in the truth of the power to heal. It is EVIL who tries to distract us from what
we might become, from what power we might connect to if we were to change how
we think. This is the action plan of
EVIL, not of God.
Healing is real.
Healing is possible. Healing can
be permanent. Just like Salvation it is
a gift of our God. I cannot save or heal
you; but the God I serve can and more importantly WANTS to. I cannot cure cancer, but the God I serve
knows how to permanently remove it from your entire body, from every cell, no
recurrence, no end to remission. This is
the kind of cure my God WANTS to offer you; not some namby-pamby, half-baked,
piddley little treatment, that only reduces your pain for a while, until you
pray again. Total cure. Total healing. Extended life. Those are the hallmarks of the cures my God
WANTS and IS offering you. It is we, His
servants, that have botched His healing.
It is we, who have walked away from the gift He still WANTS to offer. It is we, who no longer believe. It is we.
But healing remains as God remains. If you know someone who is sick; if it is
you, if it is a loved one – take hope young Christian. Do not abandon yourself, or those you love,
to suffer at the hands of evil. Do not
allow the condition of suffering to go unchallenged. Open your Bible and read what Christ
did. Look back to the author of
Salvation and Healing, and ask for what He already WANTS to give you. Don’t worry about the state of your faith. Pray with boldness, knowing He already WANTS
to offer you this healing. If you can’t
bring yourself to believing there could be healing from God through you for
entire cities, or entire hospitals, then at least allow it to pass through your
prayers for the one you care about. Stop
restraining God with your pragmatism, and throw open the door to miracles the
likes of which you have never seen. It
is You He has been waiting for. It is
You who might change this entire world.
It is Your thinking He wants to change, and Your faith He wants to
affirm. Don’t just close the blog, open
the heart, and watch the results; experience His healing …
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