Divine healing is a controversial subject. I dove in headfirst about seven years ago.
There were already things I wanted to be healed from, but interestingly, I became even more sick throughout my first two years of study.
So many blockages along the way. From Paul's thorn in the flesh to all the people I knew who wanted to be healed, but died sick.
Nevertheless, I kept going because I knew deep down that Jesus didn't lie to me. What He did on the earth was to reveal the will of our Father in heaven.
The more I pursued, the sicker I became until I faced an illness so severe that I thought my wife and kids would have to bury me.
Then the Lord took me to Psalm 128. It's not a scripture about healing, but about living to enjoy your grandchildren. I caught God's vision for my life and refused to let sickness stop it.
From that point, whatever was causing me to black out several times a day began to fade away.
Healing didn't come suddenly, but over several months, as I held close the vision of enjoying my grandchildren.
This was the turning point, with so much more healing to come. In the next post, I'll tell you how I went on to be delivered from a spirit of infirmity.
Our measure of success needs to change.
Wealth in God's kingdom is not measured by net worth, but by generosity.
Influence is not measured by the size of the following, but by the obedience of the one leading.
Productivity is not measured by how much you get done, but by your ability to enter God's rest.
Working out our salvation is not measured by our efforts, but by our humility in receiving what Christ has done.
If the world agrees with how we measure success, we've missed it.
We are not of this world. So, we must stop identifying with it.
We belong to the kingdom of God, and therefore, we must ask Him to help us think like He thinks.
The more we know, the better off we'll be. Right?
After all, the scriptures say that God's people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
But then in 1 Corinthians 8, the Apostle Paul explains how knowledge isn't the goal. It does not strengthen the church; love does.
He even points out that those who claim to know a lot actually know very little.
So, what was Hosea talking about when he prophesied that we are destroyed for a lack of knowledge?
Not the kind of knowledge that we elevate. It had nothing to do with research and gathering facts.
Here's what Hosea was actually saying: We are destroyed because we don't know God.
The Holy Spirit is expressed in 7 different ways. Two of those are called The Spirit of Knowledge and Fear of the Lord.
It's only through the Holy Spirit that we can know God intimately and pair it perfectly with the fear of the Lord.
If you are interested in more on this subject, read my book, 7 Spirits of God.
Apparently, we are not to evaluate each other from a human point of view.
In 2 Corinthians 5:16, the Apostle Paul explains how he stopped grading people from a fleshly perspective.
He changed his focus from the flesh to the spirit because he knew that all who belong to Christ become brand-new creations.
The old life is gone. A new life has begun. We were fully reconciled to God, as a gift, through Jesus Christ.
This reconciliation happened not because we stopped sinning, but because God stopped counting our sins against us.
And once we are reconciled through Christ, God breaks the power of sin over our lives so we can be one with Him.
This is the Good News! The work of reconciliation has already been done. You just have to receive the gift by believing in Jesus Christ.
Oh, and do yourself a favor: shift your focus from what people are doing wrong to who they are in Christ. Then, you can help draw them into who they really are.
God's love cannot be described in one word. That's why we get a descriptive list in 1 Corinthians 13.
Even so, there are things in the list that we gloss over.
For example, "Love hopes all things."
This gives us the picture of patiently waiting for someone to become who they were meant to be.
And we’re not waiting with our arms crossed, full of criticism.
We are waiting with joy, full of confidence that they will make it, and giving them the gift of trust every step of the way.
We are in the last days. And Jesus warned us that we are at risk of our love growing cold.
That's why I wrote Love Hijacked. It's a short book that digs into the 1 Cor 13 list, so you don't miss a thing.
Return to your first love, before it's too late.
This thing that is ultra-valuable to God, we treat as if it doesn't really matter.
It's all over the Bible, so it's not like it's easy to miss. We just find many ways to excuse ourselves from it.
Jesus introduced it as a new commandment, summing up all the Old Testament commandments into one.
And then, in His final prayer for us recorded in John 17, Jesus mentions it not once, but twice.
You'll find it in every New Testament book. It is described as the one thing that lets the world know we are His disciples.
And although important, it is not our love for the lost. It's our love for each other.
That is what is most valuable to God. He wants us united in a covenant partnership with each other and Him.
That's why, when challenges come, we work through them together. When disagreements arise, we approach resolve with a gentle, humble spirit.
We make every effort to stay united in the faith. Because our unity not only gives us access to the Kingdom of God, but it also gets the attention of the lost so they, too, can be saved.
