If you will allow yourself to start bragging on Jesus and what he’s doing in the earth (and start talking and thinking way less about yourself), God will start signing his own name to what you say. If you speak by the Spirit, you will reap what only the Spirit can bring forth. If the gospel you speak is the same gospel Jesus lived, God will start to confirm that gospel in your life in a way that no man could ever take the credit.
Over the past 2 years working with the church in Nepal, God showed us something powerful in terms of kingdom dynamics. The first meetings our church did over there were in September ’06. Banners were placed all over Kathmandu with “Believing For The Impossible” written in big letters. There was also text telling people to “bring the lame, the blind, the deaf, the paralyzed, the insane – and they WILL be healed.”
There was a stir over this. Some of the Nepali pastors and planners were asking to have the signs say “and they MAY be healed.” Needless to say, the “WILL be healed” remained on the signs. And since that point we’ve seen God honor that unconditional faith in a huge way. Just two months ago we saw 30,000 hindus give their lives to Jesus specifically because they came to see the living God do the impossible – which is exactly what he did.
Jesus never asked Father for an escape clause, nor did he ever give himself one. The more impossible the thing was that Father showed him to do, the more excited and confident Jesus was to speak it. Your faith is the faith of Jesus Christ. It is effective beyond any power known in heaven or on earth. You can speak out of this faith and demons will have to go. Sickness will be stopped dead in its tracks. You can command money to come when it’s needed and go where it’s needed. Cancer vanishes. The brokenhearted are restored. Blind eyes open. The dead are even raised to life. Jesus has always been about giving those who follow him carte blanche asking power when his kingdom and his righteousness are the entire focus.
If you will give Jesus absolute authority in your own life, you will find yourself suddenly able to speak out of the absolute authority of the name of Jesus. And Jesus himself will sign his name when you speak >>
So, here’s an awesome story to attribute to the name of Jesus that isn’t on the scale, but is just as awesome.
Very recently there was a girl that was prayed for because her foot was hurting. As a result the pain instantly left. She used it the next day and it began hurting again quite badly. She went to the doctor and found out she had a malignant tumor in her foot. They went ahead and did a biopsy and did some sort of treatment that was supposed to diminish the tumor.
Now I first heard about this cancer through a friend that was having a bad day, however as soon as I had heard about I knew it was to bow to the name of Jesus. My flesh actually felt bad because my spirit was completely unsympathetic toward it. In fact I called a friend just to make sure that I wasn’t crazy for feeling that way. I then heard about this cancer again from this same friend a few days later and it was the exact same feeling that this was to bow to the name of Jesus. No doubt in my mind about it. I expressed these thoughts to my friend that had told me about it.
Later that night the girl that actually had cancer and had received prayer initially told me as well as a few other people about it. Again it was the same exact feeling that it was to bow to the name of Jesus and I really, honestly could not just let that be stewing in me any longer. It was required of me to speak out the word boldly. I declared it to her directly that she was already free and that the cancer had no place in her body.
I was finally able to sit down and pray with her the next day and tell her more of the promises of Jesus. She went in for another biopsy the next day to the result of no trace of a tumor. It disappeared.
I really think one of the coolest aspects of it was that I didn’t have to exert any energy or anything of my own. Everything that came forth was coming from the Spirit. I simply was obedient in declaring the promises that Jesus had already given.
It’s so exciting to see captives being set free from all sorts of bondage.
But I’m anxious for more. I want to speak words that require the follow through of God to become a reality. I want to live out every single step that I take by the Spirit and I’m asking for no backup plans. I don’t want to rely on anything but the Lord God Almighty.
Praise Jesus.
That’s great! I love reading what the spirit is telling you…. I love it!!!!
That is it – that is how God performs the impossible in our lives. God allowed me to speak almost the exact same thing recently to someone with brain cancer; and when the surgeon went in to remove the malignant tumor the next day, they found it totally shriveled and totally benign.
There is a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that we can learn to value above every other impulse or thought-process or motive. That’s exactly why the realm of our thoughts and inspirations is to be a sacred place. Not every thought that crosses our minds is of God. This is why we are to try every spirit, to cast down every thought that is not of God. Everything that crosses our minds must be tested with the word of God. If it does not speak according to the word, it has no light.
The Holy Ghost always speaks according to the Word, and he speaks with such boldness and authority his word becomes like a fire shut up in your bones. Like William said above, you’d really have to work to hold it in. So don’t >>
I think most of what you say is dead on. I do see most “escape clauses” as doubt. Still I think God can do anything. I do not think he always does everything the way we ask.
7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Here we have a great man of faith asking for something reasonable. God not only does not heal him but gives him the answer to the “Why.” It’s a preemptive strike against pride.
Well, Paul isn’t asking for healing. Read verse 10 again. For just a year or two he would like to not be stoned, whipped, ambushed, imprisoned, shipwrecked, beaten, chained, hunted or betrayed. The great man of faith is trying to tap out. And God won’t let him!
I see your point about vs 10. Still, he labels the thing he wants fixed as “weakness” and then says for Christ’s sake he is willing to not only deal with weakness but will “delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
It seems to be saying that he had some physical weakness.
He asked for it to be taken away.
It was not.
For Christ’s sake I am willing to glorify HIM in it just like I do when I am persecuted mentally and physically.
If it were the beatings that he wanted to end, I think he would be saying it different. He would be asking to just stay put and pastor a church. He knew the root cause of the persecution and would know that to stop it he would have to stop causing it.
So, yes, if he were asking that he would ask to stop going out, to stop the root cause.
What do you think?
Here’s how Paul resolves the weakness (Gr. “astheneia”) question one chapter later – applying it to Jesus:
2 Corinthians 13.3-4 since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.
We know how weakness was demonstrated in Jesus’ life: not in terms of being personally overcome by sickness and disease, but in terms of coming armed with a willingness to suffer in the flesh in order to serve and redeem others.
1 Peter 4.1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind.
Philippians 2.5-8 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Matthew 20.25-28 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.â€
1 Peter 2.21-24 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “ Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouthâ€; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
Whenever Jesus dealt with sickness and disease, he never owned or internalized or even sympathized with them. He constantly treated sickness and disease as a work of Satan externally and unjustly imposed on people. Jesus didn’t come to make peace with the works of the devil – he came to utterly destroy them.
On the other hand, Jesus clearly embraced the weakness of humility and servitude, and even welcomed physical persecution. He owned and internalized these as given to him directly from Father. Since Paul said on more than one occasion that the life of Jesus Christ was revealed in Paul’s mortal body, I am convinced Paul’s weakness was the same as Jesus’ weakness – both from the context of the final chapters of 2 Corinthians, and from the pattern of Jesus’ life which Paul willingly submitted to in every last respect.
I really want to address the Kingdom dynamics related to sickness (see Matthew 12.25-30), but first I’ll pause here for questions/responses.
Alright then, kingdom dynamics. Soak this up – Matthew 12.25-30.
The Kingdom of God is about conquest – not your opinion over against somebody else’s opinion, not your politics over against somebody else’s politics, not a denominational squabble, not an intellectual chess game – an all-out invasion. Light invading darkness, and the darkness being unable to resist it. Jesus said GO INTO ALL THE WORLD immediately after saying ALL HAIL!…and ALL AUTHORITY.
So today – it’s on. In other words, the strong man is NOW bound, go plunder him. Everything Satan has tried to steal and impose on you or anyone you come in contact with is up for grabs. The only thing keeping you from being completely engaged in spoiling the enemy for all he’s worth is your faith. If you can’t identify sickness as being 100% the work of the devil, you can’t strip him of it. You’ll constantly be wavering as to whether God wants the sickness there or not. If you’re willing to make a truce with sickness, it will be a thorn in your side (and definitely not a thorn God wants for you) – just read the account of the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9 and 2 Samuel 21.
In conquest, in war, in battle; you absolutely have to be able immediately distinguish friend or foe. If your enemy is at all able to blur that line, there will be casualties – totally unnecessary casualties.
You will never once find sickness spelled out as God’s will in the Bible. You will see it as a punishment, an imposition, a being-delivered-over. This is painful to our egos, because we’ve gotten so used to seeing sickness in unavoidable scientific terms, and then spiritualizing why we need to submit to it. The amazing news is that if we are willing to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and see sickness as the demonic power it is – God will lift us back up into full authority over all sickness and disease. The more impossible that sounds to you, the more you can praise God that it will be completely his power that brings it to pass in your life >>
I was just reading 1 Tim today. I still am not saying God does not heal and I’m not saying he does not heal often. Still, for what ever reason, he does not heal all the time.
1 tim 5:23Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.
Timothy is a powerful man of God in a church where people prophecy over him and give him spiritual gifts by the laying on of hands. Still when he is having Stomach problems, Paul does not say, go to the elders and get healed, he suggests a physical treatment.
By the way. I have been reading your blog for a long time and find your writing insightful and encouraging as I have found this conversation. I would not bother (especially On-Line) to dispute a point with someone I did not respect.
Oh I don’t take it as a dispute at all. None of us came up with any of this anyway, so there’s no way we can ever take credit for having any kind of personal opinion. The only thing I press in for is the mind of Christ. I want to be so humble about that. I want to be so quick to change my mind if I’m ever found outside of what God knows.
Here’s the thing with 1 Timothy 5.23 (and also with 2 Timothy 4.20 “Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick” – another verse people quote as evidence of sickness being God’s will):
These are 2 verses to compare with literally hundreds demonstrating healing as normal for new testament christianity. The weight of biblical evidence is stacked so hard in favor of total victory over sickness that you really have to MacGyver any kind of sickness doctrine out of these. And still, nothing in these 2 verses suggests Timothy or Trophimus were supposed to be sick. In both cases, we have no reason to doubt that first and foremost, Paul was praying for their complete healing. There was no need to refer Timothy to the elders of the church, because Timothy was already a teaching elder himself; and he had a proven miracle-working apostle directly over him in the Lord.
Paul had all sorts of good things to say about Timothy, but he also pointed out where Timothy was in need of growth, maturity, and strengthening. Paul exhorted Timothy to watch his doctrine, to get out of timidity and into the powerful clear thinking God had given him, and to stir up the gift that had been imparted to him rather than being complacent with it. The bottom line is that God didn’t want Timothy sick any more than he wanted Timothy timid, confused, complacent, entangled, or in error. Timothy’s cooperation with the Holy Spirit and the operation of God’s grace was the condition on all counts.
I know how to line up an experience where someone is not healed immediately with clear consistent new testament teaching on healing. Luke 18!
This is the key. If we are willing to always pray and not give up, we will see consistent victory over sickness and disease in our lives and in the lives of those around us. God doesn’t lay out a 10-step Plan B for what to do if we pray for people and they aren’t healed (or healed as quickly as we expected). What he does say continually and consistently is that we WILL lay hands on the sick, and they WILL recover – that the prayer of faith WILL make them well.
God’s word is clear, so what about our experience? What is lacking from our experience is this kind of enduring persistence: this patient continuing in doing exactly what God has told us, and not being swayed one bit by doubt or intimidation or contrary evidence. It is incredibly humbling to know this radical unlimited authority is available in God, and then pray all night for a headache that won’t budge. Honestly, this is where we’ve gotten pulled off into compromise with sickness doctrines. But if we are willing to stay with it in prayer at all costs, to press in and truly contend for the faith Jesus delivered to us – God will allow us to speak from a position of having the literal word confirmed in our lives >>