THOUGHTS ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF FAITH AND HEALING

Of the 23 separate specific healing miracles in the gospels eight of the 23 mention the faith of the individual, five of those attribute the healing directly to the presence of faith in the individual. I want to look briefly at the healings where faith is mentioned and see what we might learn.

DOES THIS EVER HAPPEN TO YOU?

There are passages in the Scriptures that every time I meditate in them the Holy Spirit comes with power showering me with a sense of God’s majesty, mystery and love but never an understanding of what the passage means or anything that I might teach others from it. I have always been perplexed by that and wondered what is He getting at, why the movement of the Spirit brooding upon that passage yet no deeper understanding?

Today I was reading in The Cloud of Unknowing and saw these words,

“He whom neither men nor angels can grasp by knowledge can be embraced by love. For the intellect of both men and angels is too small to comprehend God as he is in himself.”

Hopefully I will now be free to enjoy those beautiful stories and embrace God by love not concerning myself with knowledge of him who on purpose maintains himself shrouded in darkness and now and then allows a deeper peek at his person.

THE FIVE HUNDRED YEAR QUESTION

The following I didn't write. It is written by Makoto Fujimura an artist who is a committed believer and I find his writings compelling from several directions. He doesn’t approach things like the writers I am accustomed to. He makes me think in ways I am not accustomed to thinking. A lot of people don't like that but I find it refreshing. As I reread this piece today I began to think of the same concept (the Five Hundred Year Question) in regards to worship. Is there any worship out there today that will still be sung in 500 years? Or have we succumbed to the Worholian concept of getting our “15 seconds of fame”?

Enjoy.

 

DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR CONFIDENCE

HEB 3:12  Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13  But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14  For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;

Since the word of God gives us permission to “exhort one another daily” I will take the opportunity to exhort you with the things that the Lord has been exhorting us about lately.

I have begun to notice with increasing insistence of the Holy Spirit that that I need to recover the confidence in God’s written word that is our possession. It seems so easy to slip down into a spiritual lethargy when it comes to walking in real biblical faith and confidence in the covenant we have with God sealed in the blood of his son. 

Ephesians 3:20

Ephesians 3:20  “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,

21  to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Through the [dunamis] that works [energoumenia] within you

He can do [ huperekperissou] "superabundantly, extraordinarily, more than usual, strange, more than sufficient, overflowing, surplus both in number and power, to excess," (Kittle's dictionary)

[ huper- above and beyond

ek- outside the sphere of

peri- around]

all that we ask, think or imagine

so that [God] might be glorified in the Church and in Christ Jesus

in all the generations of the ages [aeons] of the ages,  Amen

He not only can do but he wants to do it so that his Son will be glorified.

He wants to raise up a people whom he can empower to do anything they want to do. 

The power necessary is not “out there somewhere” but it is resident within you!

STERILITY AND THE DECLARATION OF GOD

During a recent trip to what is called “La Mosquitia” (the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua) I tried to stay in a place of meditation and learning mode. It seems that wherever I end up The Lord is calling my attention to visible signs that speak of the condition of today’s church, not just in the country I was visiting but concerning my own country as well.
I have found the church particularly in Latin America, because of its traditions in danger of losing an entire generation of youth. At the same time I spent a good deal of time studying and meditating on the life of Abraham and Sarah and the covenant that God made with them.