You must make up your mind what you believe

I had been a Christian for a few months and found myself sitting on a platform in London on this particular day, waiting for the next train.

A man came by and sat down on my left and I thought nothing of it.A minute later, I saw a man on the opposite platform walking to and fro, mumbling to himself and occasionally calling out to no-one in particular.

Viewing this as a ministry opportunity, I leaned over to the man on my left and asked, “Do you know what his problem is?” He answered right back, “What’s his problem?” I smiled and responded, “He’s probably demonically oppressed,” and then continued, “do you know there’s a world beyond this physical one?”

This is when things got interesting.He gave me a wan smile and said to me, “I guess you’re a Christian.Listen to this…”He then launched into a short burst of speaking in tongues.I was surprised but managed to recover.“I guess you’ve probably heard the gospel before”, I said with a grin.

“You listen to me,” he demanded.“I was in the ministry for years and was in ministry school.”“But,” he continued, “we prayed and prayed and God didn’t heal the seven sick people we prayed for.They all died.That’s when I left the ministry.”

I didn’t know too much about the Word but I replied that our faith in God did not depend on who got healed or not.I told him I didn’t understand why those people didn’t get healed as I wasn’t there.But I said, God was still faithful and He was and is still our Healer.

He wasn’t moved, as our train pulled in.“All I want”, he said, “is one minute when I die, to say my piece and tell God how I feel about it.So much power over there when we need it here!”I patiently responded that it wouldn’t play out that way, that no one gets to vent in heaven.

The funny thing was that as he kept telling me how he didn’t want anything to do with Christianity, he kept talking about God and what he wanted to say to him.I tried to talk with him before my stop, about 15 minutes later and he kept asking me to refute what he was saying, but he was way too angry.I just told Him over and over that God loved him and was faithful.My stop came along first and I got off the train.

This man was in a place that I’ve seen others get to over the years since that day in 1987.I refer to people who have seen failures over and over, particularly ministers- folks who have had to comfort the bereaved again and again.It can be heartbreaking and I can even understand mentally, how he arrived at that place.I have been tempted too.Tempted to just walk away and not even bother to pray any more – just send people to the doctors and leave it to others who are willing to test their faith and face the risk of failure.

I’ll be honest though and share the determination I made years ago that no matter how many tragedies I see, God is still a Healer and His Word is still true.What’s the worst that could happen?We go to be with the Lord, which is better by far.Why would I want to arrive in heaven, with the thought in my heart: “you didn’t believe in God’s healing promises!”No, I won’t be condemned for it, but why not fight, why not believe, why not engage?

Paul said, “Fight the good fight of faith..” (1 Timothy 6:12).He said “We wrestle not against flesh and blood…”(Ephesians 6:12) .He continues, “Run in such a way as to win the prize…” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

Do we have this thought that it will always be easy, especially in the West?Do we think that healings are not a prize to be fought bitterly for, in prayer?

Jesus said, “This kind can come out only by prayer.….” (Mark 9:29).Do we still pray and fast, or are we caught up with activities that just engage the flesh?Is there too much “seeker-friendliness”, with mime and dance and too little all-night prayer and intercession?God help us!Philip didn’t need street mime and dance to cause Holy Spirit-led havoc in Samaria, did he?

As we struggle with church programs and ‘church growth’ activities, we’re wearing ourselves out with “stuff”.If one blind person received sight in your church each week, even with 4 services on Sunday, you would have lines that stretched for blocks.You would need the police to keep order.

Our leaders are so afraid to preach, teach and demonstrate healing though, that for many, this is beyond their reach. It’s at a point where so many just don’t believe anymore.Like my friend on the train, they may have started with zeal, but disappointments got the better of them.They not only refuse to believe now, but are deeply bitter at unrealized hope.

Like my friend the real cause of the bitterness is that they know healing is there and is real, but somehow or the other, they could never attain it. That’s where the broken heart and deep bitterness comes from, “..so much power over there when we need it here!”

There is a path to healing in our churches.It is not easy, but it is not obscure either.Preach it, teach it, pray for it, minister it, and repeat over and over until breakthrough comes.What if it tarries?Read John Wimber’s story if you find the time (Power Healing).You simply continue as a church until breakthrough comes.

Well, what if it still doesn’t come, you ask?Better to enter heaven declaring the truths of God’s Word and kingdom than to give up.I will never give in or give up.For me though, healing has already come, over and over again.  May such steadfastness undergird your own soul, may the Holy Spirit encourage you and reward as you persist in seeing the manifest promises of God fulfilled in your life and the lives of those around you. Amen.

John Lake

John Lake was a mightily-used man of God whose biography I love to read often.  I also greatly admire Smith Wigglesworth, another man whose life is an inspiration to modern-day Charismatics and Pentecostals.  I’m often deeply reflective as to where the anointing and tenacity of these men and others have gone in our day.

I recognize that some ministries today are moving in power, but there is much from that era that I believe we lack. I recall an account from John Lake , who while ministering in South Africa, went through an extended period where every person he prayed for and laid hands on was healed – every single person!

It is easy to think that as your local or national church goes, so goes the whole church globally. Many of us see little and thus become discouraged.  However, remember that we only ever see a small part of the fabric.  Even here in the USA, there are pockets of miracles, faith, healings and deliverances.  All over, from Kansas to California (go IHOP and Bethel!), Pennsylvania to Florida.

This is not even to speak of Chinese teens raising the dead in rural China and blind eyes being opened in Mozambique.  We must keep in mind that as in Isaiah 9:7,

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

I encourage everyone involved in the ministry of healing to read about the likes of Lake, Wigglesworth, Kathryn Kuhlman, Jack Coe, Aimee Semple-Macpherson, John Wimber, and others used mightily in faith and healing.  Their life stories will encourage you, motivate you and mobilize you in moving more effectively and determinedly in the ministry of healing.

Can you give some info on Why we don’t see many healing miracles in the Western culture. Is it a lack faith by those praying for others to be healed? I don’t like pulling single scriptures out to back up my point but there are a few that talk about faith the size of a mustard seed or Jesus said we would great things than this etc. I feel frustrated when I see and pray for people who are in for example a wheelchair and their own desire is to be healed by God?

Sorry for the delayed response. Great questions. We do have miracles associated with many ministries in the West, but not only are they fewer than in the early 20th century (in my opinion), but there is a definite resistance to any kind of reporting of Christian ministries in our day, other than scandals.  I certainly detect an anti-Christian spirit developing in the US, but it is even more advanced in Europe.  If for example, a blind person was healed in your ministry, no news outlet would carry it, and even so, it would probably be an obscure “documentary” about “religious craziness” showing at 1.00am and featuring you with Indian mystics and David Blaine.

So, just as God spoke to Elijah about him not being alone and 7,000 being reserved who had not bowed their knee to Baal, the same is true today.  There are many miracles occurring in the US and in Europe.  In churches across the land, by itinerant evangelists, in countless healing rooms, healings are occurring – real, verifiable healings.  In my 5 years in healing rooms, we had bad blood tests becoming good, bad X-Rays and MRIs coming back good, and people released form chronic pain and set free.   I have seen deafness healed, diabetes healed, double vision restored instantly and my own horrible prognosis for my shoulder (“your only option is surgery!”) discarded by God – now I’m back lifting weights – no surgery.

It is all there, but you’ll never see it in a paper or on TV.  Rather, in unheralded meetings and in healing rooms all over the US, people ARE getting healed.  Is it as much as I would like?  Clearly not!  Any why not?  I continue to maintain that our current crop of pastors and teachers are largely unbelievers in the area of healing and the miraculous.  You shouldn’t take a fly swatter to a gun fight, which is what these dear ones do.  They proclaim loudly that they believe but their actions belie their words.  They don’t preach healing, don’t demonstrate it, and in the rare instances that they mention healing, they twist it to their experience and strip it of any power…

• “He heals sometimes…”
• “If it is His will, you’ll be healed…”
• “God’s will is for you to be sick…”
• “Sickness will build your character…”
  
• “How else would we die…?”
• “Sometimes He answers Yes, sometimes No, sometimes Wait…”
• “This sickness is to make you humble/teach you patience/(add any excuse you like) …”
• “What about Job?”
• “What about Paul’s Thorn?…”
• “What about Trophimus, who Paul left sick…”
  

I could go on and on.  Essentially they are out there preaching myths and fables and not healing.  That’s what all the above junk is.  So we don’t get healing.  God does not work through laymen (bottom-up) – He works through pastors (top-down).  So no matter how on fire you are, if your pastor is a big ball of faithlessness in the area of miracles and healing, that’s the atmosphere you’ll have. You will be pulling uphill and you will have less success than if you had a believing pastor.   God respects His order in the church, regardless of whether you are right and the pastor is wrong.  That just the way it works.

So I could go on – we don’t have serious prayer or intercession in most churches, we seldom hear sermons on healing, there’s no way we can have sustained explosions of widespread healing as long as the present situation continues.  God confirms His Word with signs following…  No word of healing, no confirmation.  The good thing is that you can find places where the pastor is leading the healing revival, places where they pray, teach, preach, and demonstrate healing.  They exist, absolutely and God is doing amazing stuff in those places.

I may continue in this vein later…  Blessings.

Without evidence, I’m guessing that statistics for Christians are similar. Especially since they are similar in divorce statistics and reportedly, greater in support of torture of prisoners of war (62% vs. 49% – Pew Group Report). However, those discussions are for another day and perhaps even another blog. The focus here is on healing, so back to television.

While there can be good television programming, I think there are few things that are more destructive to faith and a life of communion with the Lord than television. And no, I’m not just referring to sex, violence and profanity. I’m referring instead to the act of TV-watching itself and what happens as you watch TV. It is possibly the most passive and mind-surrendering act you can perform in your home.

Many say they watch TV to relax, but it is merely giving your mind over to the folks in Hollywood. We hand it over to them to fill with images, to engage, but later wonder aloud why we seldom hear the voice of God. It may be that the “still, quiet voice” is drowned out by the multiple explosions and gunshots of those thrillers we have surrendered our minds to.

My personal thesis is that the more we watch TV, the less we’ll hear God. I’ll add even “Christian channels” to the mix here. Some of these are good to watch, others are simply fund-raising operations that don’t edify. If we watch the average of almost 5 hours a day, I personally doubt that we can ever be effective in healing ministry. We simply will not have enough time to pray, to study the word and build faith, and to consecrate ourselves before the Lord.

These days, I now catch myself almost automatically while watching TV. Five to ten minutes seems to be my limit before an internal timer warns me it’s time to move on. I just can’t seem to do it anymore. I realized a long time ago that even with an unremarkable cable package, it is easy to watch TV for hours on end – there is so much ‘interesting’ stuff. History, the geographical channel, news and sports, all of which I’m a fan (sadly!) In Hebrews 12:14, it says:

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

What is holiness? It is separation unto God. The word “see” means perceive. In other words, without separation from the world system (including thoughts, desires, and its affairs), we will not, and cannot perceive the Lord’s purposes. That includes personal leading for our own lives as well as ministry unto others.  If we look at Jesus’ life as a model, we see in Mark 1:35, that:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Watching TV late at night just makes this impossible for us to do, especially if you have a job you must go to. However, without this type of communion with God, forget signs, wonders, healings and miracles.  They just won’t happen for us if we don’t spend the time – it’s that spiritual law of sowing and reaping again.

So, in summary, I’m not saying all TV is evil, but the less time we spend watching TV and the more time we spend praying, the more effective we’ll be in ministry, including healing ministry. There is a price to be paid for more effectiveness in healing. I’ll say it again, there’s a PRICE to be paid to be effective in healing.  May we be ready and willing to pay that price. Amen.

I’ve been struck over the years by how so many diseases are beyond the reach of medical science to cure.  Medical science is quite good at disease management and keeping people alive while sick, but hundreds of millions live with chronic conditions that cause daily pain and distress.  Naaman was one such individual.

It is surprising how adaptable people are.  People can adapt to pain, discomfort, and even a limb that may not work as it should.  Often, they rarely think about it any more. Not Naaman though.  He appeared to have had his condition on his mind, so much so that his servants had his situation on their minds also.

2 Kings 5:2  Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

Naaman was immediately interested.  He acted on the information and traveled to see Elisha.  Interestingly, he  took along gold and other valuables with the mindset that his healing was going to cost him something.

Healing costs nothing, of course.  It is provided free of charge to all who come to eat the children’s bread. I’ll be a little controversial though and say that while the gospel is free, it is simultaneously not free- it costs money to send missionaries out, to print Bibles,  and to send those with healing gifts out to the people.  But the power, the anointing, the Word itself is free. Anyway, I digress.  Back to Naaman.  After making the trip to Israel he met Elisha,

2 Kings 5:9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”  11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

Naaman was indignant about the method used by the prophet and almost went back to Damascus in a huff.  Fortunately, his servant prevailed on him to dip in the Jordan river and this is where humility played a major role.  He changed his mind.  He turned instead and went to dip in the river, and got healed.

Is that relevant to us?  Yes, it is.  In my work in the healing rooms, I have seen many get offended for one no-reason or another and leave before they could be ministered to. In truth, people can have legitimate reasons to leave a ministry venue, and I tell friends that if they are genuinely not comfortable in their spirits, go ahead and leave.  And just as you would do your research on doctors and specialists, by all means do your research about specific healing rooms and ministries.  Attend a few meetings to test their spirit.  Talk to others.  All too often, we walk into churches and lose all common sense.  I don’t let just anyone lay hands on me – neither should you.

However, some are so easily offended at nothing that they miss what God has for them.  God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and His ways are not our ways.  But some come with a firm opinion of how God has to minister to them.  Remember what Naaman said:

2 Kings 5:11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

I often wonder: if they knew this, why didn’t they just get their healing on their own?  God does more than all we can think or imagine,  so why try to put Him in a box?

What do we take away from Naaman’s example?  Humility is an avenue to healing.  As an example of humility, Bartimaeus is a great example. “Son of David, have mercy on me,” was his cry. Likewise, Jairus humbled himself before Jesus (Luke 8:41). So did the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43) and the ten lepers who were healed (Luke 17:12).

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Few have problems humbling themselves before God, many have problems humbling themselves before men. However, God doesn’t lay hands on you. Men do. You’ve got to deal with anointed men and women and that’s where it gets sticky. Yes, you might know more scripture than the minister, you may been a Christian longer and you may be more mature spiritually.  You might even be better looking.  However, you can still receive your healing through them.

Some men won’t allow themselves to be prayed for by women, to their own loss. If God sent a donkey or a three year-old to lay hands on me for healing, I’ll take it. Kathryn Kuhlman was one of the most anointed healing ministers that ever lived, if any man needed proof that God uses women in healing. However, I’ll blog on men’s attitudes to women in healing ministry in a later post.

Not a single chronic disease impresses God.  He is able and willing to heal your sicknesses and diseases.  Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand and He will lift you up, heal you and restore you through Jesus. Amen.

What about mercy? Let’s talk about mercy for a while. If you sin, you seek forgiveness, which is available through grace. Grace is unmerited favor. If you are sick, you desire healing – you are not looking for forgiveness unless sin was involved.

Actually, what you desire is mercy. Mercy is different from forgiveness. I’ll give an example. You hit a person’s car and you’re in the wrong. He tells you, “I forgive you”, but holds you liable and takes you to court to recover the damages to his car. He forgave you, but did not have mercy on you. It was the same with David, after his sin with Bathsheba. God forgave him, but the child died anyway.

To put it another way, forgiveness washes your sins away – a spiritual action with spiritual outcomes; mercy is a tangible action with physical outcomes. Not convinced? Let’s take a look at what Bartimaeus cried out in Mark 10,

46…a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This is similar to the man with the epileptic son in Matthew 17:15:

“Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.

Do a word search of “mercy” in the gospels and you’ll see it used many times in the context of healing. The healings of the Canaanite’s daughter (Matthew 15:22), Elizabeth’s barrenness (Luke 1:58) and of the madman of Gadara (Mark 5:19) were all described as acts of mercy. The Good Samaritan was also described as the one who had mercy, when Jesus asked in Luke 10;

36″Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

What’s my point? When we ask God for healing, it is important to know what we are really asking for. We are really asking for mercy, regardless of whether we have sinned or not.

If your illness has resulted from sin (e.g., poor lifestyle choices), you need forgiveness of sins, but more than that, you need mercy. This not limited to healing, even though that is our focus here. Many enter financial or relationship ruin because of bad decisions. They often ask for forgiveness, but not mercy. They receive forgiveness, but not mercy. Is that possible? Yes, it is, just look again at King David. He actually had it happen not only with Bathsheba, but when he performed an unauthorized census of Israel.

Moses had the same thing happen when he struck the rock twice. He received forgiveness, but mercy was unavailable in regard to his entering the Promised Land. God was merciful enough to let him go up on the mountain and see it, but he never entered it. The deeper your experiences and maturity with God, and the more you partake of the Holy Spirit and of the powers of the coming age, it seems to me that mercy is less available if you play the fool. This writ is not for everyone; those at that stage in their walk know who they are. A scripture that underlines this is James 3:1:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

To conclude, ask for mercy in addition to forgiveness when you seek healing for sickness that may be partially or wholly due to sin. Ask for mercy even if there is no sin involved. Realize, as many did in Jesus’ day, that healing is a mercy of God. Grace gets us into right standing or favor with God, but mercy obtains for us healing and other interventions in our lives. This is really what you are asking for when you ask for healing—you are asking for mercy.

God is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4). May you be recipients of God’s mercy today and for the rest of your life, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

The first question is whether there is a connection between sin and sickness. The answer is “yes” to the general question. By the general question, I mean that there was no sickness before Adam’s fall. The entrance of sin brought sickness in tow. Notice also that in the Atonement, God introduced the solution to sin and sickness, i.e.,

Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Psalm 103:2-3 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases

So that shows the link between sin and sickness in the general causative sense. The fallen state of humanity is the background to all sickness. However, we see that healing and the forgiveness of sins became available through the second Adam—Jesus Christ. I say “became available”, because they are not automatic. The new currency of exchange with God has become faith, and forgiveness and healing are available through faith.

Now, let’s look at the individual level. Can sin bring about sickness? Yes it can. The sin of worry can bring about many stress-related diseases. Fornication can lead to sexual diseases. Anger and violence can lead to physical harm. Illegal drugs destroy the whole person. Thus, many types of sin can lead to sickness and harm to the mind and body. The best authority here is Jesus, who, after healing the disabled man at the Pool of Bethesda, found him and said;

John 5:14  Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Jesus warns the man that further sin can lead to sickness.  Some may then conclude that all sin leads to sickness or that all sickness is the result of the sick person’s sin. However, these would be erroneous assumptions. I’ll explain why in the next post…stay tuned…

To 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.

From my earlier post about righteousness, it is not surprising that much of the church’s interpretation of this passage is negative i.e., “Paul had a thorn (sickness) so I’m in good company if I have one too.” It is interesting that Christians seek the most negative interpretations of scripture even when these interpretations do not square up with the rest of the Word.  Let’s look at a few scriptures again:

Joshua 23:13 … “then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you.”

Numbers 33:55…” ‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live.”

Matthew 7:3  “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

When Joshua talked about the ‘thorns in your sides’ and Jesus warned about the ‘plank in your eye’, we took them all to be metaphorical, not literal.  Joshua did not mean the physical, literal side of your body or your eyes.  Neither did Jesus mean a real plank in your actual eye.  These are metaphors, aren’t they?  But to give the worst possible interpretation, we have mixed the literal with the metaphorical.  So when Paul says:

there was given me a thorn in my flesh,

we translate ‘thorn’ as a metaphor for sickness but keep flesh as our actual, physical body.  Wrong! Completely inappropriate.  Jesus, in speaking of a plank in the eye meant this as a complete metaphor and so did Paul here.  He meant harassment, just as Israel was harassed, as Joshua predicted.

Why we seek out the most negative in the church is still a mystery to me.  I once thought it was our past programming from the world, but now I doubt it. Some of the most naturally optimistic people I have met have been non-Christians. As I mentioned in a previous post, the world will hold telethons to “fight the enemy, cancer” and “fight the killer, malaria“.  Many Christians, on the other hand, will wax lyrical about how God is teaching them something or blessing them by “giving them” a disease.  We have created church myth to satisfy false humility.

I’m not asking that you misinterpret the Bible to “be positive”.  The Bible is positive enough.  ‘Gospel’ actually means “good news”, not bad. Just read the gospels again and see how positive Jesus was – he healed everyone who came to Him.

I now think that much of what we believe in evangelical and even pentecostal circles is church myth or tradition – things that are just not so. May we interpret the Word correctly to see the great hope to which He has called us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

11God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

Those who are familiar with healing and deliverance ministry understand the significance of touch and how the anointing can be released through touch.

On one hand, we can look at this scripture and say: “well, this was specific to Paul as a healing method and nothing is said about its generalizability to other ministers”. They would recall when a dead body was thrown into a cave in which Elisha had been laid and the dead one came back to life on contact with Elisha’s corpse (2 Kings 13:20, 21). Surely, we would not introduce that as a general form of ministry, would we?

However, there are other precedents that seem to me to permit this form of healing ministry. Elisha (2 Kings 4:29) had his servant, Gehazi, take his staff to lay on the face of a dead boy for healing (although unsuccessful in that instance). Most important though, the woman with the issue of blood was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment.

Clearly it is not the cloth itself that heals, but the Holy Spirit’s anointing from the individual that impregnates the cloth. With these examples, I suggest this is a viable method of ministering and receiving healing today. However, as practiced today, this method is dramatically unsuccessful or at best, “hit-and-miss”. Why?

I believe the major reason is that we have little understanding in our churches about who has what kind of anointing, calling or gifting in any area. We just gather around en masse, lay hands on the cloths and send them out “on a hope and a prayer”. It is almost ritual now.

As an aside, I have been in meetings where twenty believers gather around a sick person and begin to pray. This irritates me, quite honestly. That is dignifying sickness and ascribing importance to the demonic activity behind some sicknesses. Why are twenty Christians needed to pray for healing for one person? Am I the only one to whom this seems ridiculous? The Greater One lives in us, doesn’t He? If one Christian can change a light bulb, one believing Christian should be able to pray successfully for a sick person’s healing.

Anyway, back to anointing cloths. What would it take to have a better success rate? Teaching and recognition of spiritual gifts…much more of it. Are we an army? Yes, but an army of specialists. Pilots fly planes, tank drivers drive tanks, engineers build bridges. This is important. You have this gift, I have another. Those who have this gifting and success in it should be doing it, not everyone. We just don’t operate like an army and so become largely ineffectual in warfare, particularly when contending for healing.

To conclude, I suggest that anointing cloths are a method by which God heals. Trained and anointed ministers in this area can have great results that glorify God and get the sick healed. Please tell us about your own experiences in this area.

“We are just sinners, saved by grace”….

Although it offended my spirit, I never really knew why until I decided to do a study on it. Now I understand why that phrase is not only unscriptural, but also illogical, and one of the sticks we use to beat ourselves up in the church.

The point is that I want to call myself only what God calls me. If you look throughout the entire New Testament, nowhere does God call His people sinners. He calls them righteous.  1 Peter 4:8 is a good example:

“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

There is a name for you if you have believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That name is “righteous”. If you want other names, they are “light”, “believer”, and “temple of God”. Listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14-16,

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.

Could it be clearer than this? In our false humility, we resort to calling ourselves and each other names. Again, nowhere in the NT does God call you a sinner. There will be no sinners in heaven. People are not sinners because they sin, they are sinners because they have not come to Christ to become new (righteous) creatures. Conversely, you are not righteous because you do right things all the time, you are righteous because you are a new creation, because of Christ’s work and the transformation by the Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t matter if you add “saved by grace”. That is irrelevant, as the first part of the statement says “I am a sinner…” (present tense). You are not (present tense) a sinner. You were a sinner, but you are not one now. Why glorify that part of your life, when God does not? You are a saint. Go through all of Paul’s Epistles and see how he addresses the church. He typically begins, as follows,

Romans 1:7  To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints…

1 Corinthinans 1:2  To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy…

2 Corinthians 1:1  To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

Ephesians 1:1   To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus….

Philippians 1:1 To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons…

I could go on, but I hope my point is made. Why didn’t Paul say: “To all the sinners saved by grace in Ephesus…”?  You are NOT a sinner, you are a saint, you are of a holy nation, a peculiar people, a people belonging to God. Do this for yourself: study the NT closely, looking for the names God calls you. See that He calls you a child of God in 1 John 3:2

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.

John didn’t say that you would become a child of God. You are already a child of God!! That’s who you are and what you are. He calls you many other names besides, none of which is “sinner”.  The reason I’m discussing this here is that it affects your faith and your faith is important in healing.  Calling yourself (present tense) a sinner is harmful to your faith because it is a lie.  So let us grow up in Christ and stop using that harmful phrase, “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace”. It is neither humble nor true.