Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-8-15

Yes, I can spell; hold on. I want to address the topics of disease and sickness; and of God’s will and whether God allows infirmities – or whether He visits them upon us at times. Hot-button topics, always. I want to consider spiritual gifts, whether Divine Healing is a grace available to the contemporary church, or whether it was a “sign” to heathens and believers only in the first century.

The questions are not arcane, nor abstract. To the afflicted they can be of burning urgency. To some believers, some factions, they represent attitudes that, for all intents and purposes, define one’s faith.

My own life-experiences reflect different theological viewpoints. Rather, changing viewpoints through the years. Apart from the Theory of Evolution, about which theory I am a skeptic, my views on Divine Healing have evolved. I am persuaded that God has worked a sort of progressive revelation on my spiritual views.

I am not being flippant: I believe we always should invite God to inspire us – to have the Holy Spirit guide and inform us – as we search scripture and exercise our prayer life, our conversations with Christ. As our faith matures, we are “baby Christians” when that state is sweet and seemingly sufficient, but eventually we graduate from such mother’s milk and subsist – require – heartier spiritual food. The Bible assures us that this characterizes the life of the believer.

When I became a fervent Christian, born-again with all that implies, including multiple blessings, my wife and I were convinced about God’s invariable will to heal. We never quite ventured into “name it and claim it” territory, but if God can heal, and He answers prayer, and the fervent prayer of righteous men availeth much… healing was only a prayer away.

Right? Or a prayer hankie, which could be purchased off the TV ministry. Or a “love offering,” taken up at the preacher’s crusade, with promises of the hundredfold return, not just healing. I saw miracles. I did. A crippled leg extended; deaf ears opened. But when such things did not come, many preachers blamed the sick person’s faith, not germs or viruses or accidents or heredity or self-destructiveness or…

Eventually, I wondered why the evangelists who promised perfect health all wore glasses. Surely they were not fashion statements.

During this time my wife developed illnesses. Diabetes led to heart attacks and strokes. Celiac disease struck. She was listed for heart and kidney transplants. Her faith was never shaken, but at the point of death she received two organs. She believed that God worked a miracle through surgery, science, and doctors’ hands. Healing came. Christ’s promise of “life, and more abundantly,” she came to believe, was about more than money.

Also in her life she was healed of blindness, and, later, thyroid cancer, when the healing prayers were not as fervent, but they were cases “where the doctors can’t explain it.” Spiritual evolution: God was displaying His sovereignty, and we learned obedience.

Where once we thought that “by His stripes ye are healed,” that Jesus guaranteed Divine Healing for all because of the cross, we came to realize that we should pray as we are instructed, the burdens of our hearts; then trust and obey; and when and if healing comes, to give God the glory. By those stripes – Christ’s sacrifice, not a preacher’s sermon – He identifies with us, our fears, and, yes, our pain and infirmities.

Recently I have been acquainted with close family members and close friends with mysterious, serious, troubling afflictions. How should we pray?

Always – for healing. That is the burden of our hearts. There is NO instance in the Bible where God’s prophets, or Jesus, EVER claimed that physical affliction is from the Lord; or that disease is from God; or that sickness is sent to “test us.” Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”? Just as likely temptations or distractions as illness. So: we pray, believing.

If healing does not come… or as we desire… or as fast as we want… or at all… we trust and obey. Our puny selves, with maturing but never matured faith, when it comes down to the paths we walk, cannot even walk without God holding our hands. It should never be, “heal me that I may run away,” but “hold me close that I may walk with You.”

This understanding is not a safety-valve for those who pray and their prayers go “unanswered.” No, it is a mature exercise of faith.

Why is there sickness in the world? God does not send it. But there is sin in the world; in this broken world there is sickness and death; dangers and strife; hostile natural forces (insurance companies have a nerve calling them “acts of God”). The rain falls on the just and unjust. God does not promise that we would be free of these things – only that He would be with us, comforting us, increasing our faith, sometimes healing us, always loving us. Holding our hands.

Does God bring (or even allow) sickness in order to chastise us, keep us in line? God forbid, I say. I know that many believers (orders within the Catholic Church, for instance) believe that sorrow is a virtue and that some people are meant to suffer. I had a friend with many infirmities who memorized the entire Book of James, for its verses that seem to accept and embrace suffering.

However, it can become, it should become, our duty, when illness strikes, to turn to God, to trust Him, to ask for wisdom, to plead mercy for loved ones… all the time praying for healing, and acknowledging that He is the Lord who healeth thee. Of course. He can, and He will. Let us not forget the “Divine” component of Divine Healing. He is the God of Understanding.

And in the meantime, acknowledge that we can’t even walk without His holding our hands. In obedience classes, that would be called “heeling.”

My son-in-law Norman is going through trials of body, emotions, and his work with family and ministry. In his faith, seeking understanding, he has turned to Proverbs 3, and its following verses. Good prescriptions indeed:

3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

3:19-20 The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the dew.

3:24-26 When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror, Nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes; For the Lord will be your confidence, And will keep your foot from being caught.

Next week, some thoughts on how to cope with the burdens that, naturally, remain when infirmities attack our bodies, our loved ones, our families. We will discuss a surprisingly little-used source of strength.
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Click: I Can’t Even Walk Without You Holding My Hand

7-28-14

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly….” (I Cor. 13: 11, NKJV) Although I came to belief in Christianity as inextricably related to Holy-Spirit Christianity as an adult, I can still put myself in this scenario.

But it has become evident to me that portions of the church have corrupted Biblical doctrines, or exaggerated them, even violated them. Can I put it this way? – some preachers, today, have actually made that glass darker, not clearer, for believers.

I have to come to see that God’s power is mightier than the misinterpreted promises shared by some preachers. His miracles are more profound than those recounted by television preachers. His mysteries are more intense AS mysteries, than theologies that explain God as a spiritual butler on hand when we have desires.

I am talking about healing, and abundance, as in the “prosperity gospel” we hear preached.

“By His stripes we are healed.” Some people preach that Christ’s suffering and death, by this verse, means that healing is ours, and we only have to claim it. That physical ailments, when not healed, indicate that our faith must be weak. Yet I have noticed that the most prominent “claim it” preachers wear glasses. Is this their choice – a fashion statement?

My wife had diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, celiac disease, amputated toes, a heart transplant, a kidney transplant, dialysis, and other health problems. Yet her faith was secure, and she was a mighty witness. She was miraculously healed of a cancerous thyroid, yet underwent a heart transplant despite prayers to be spared. She believed she received emotional and spiritual healing, and accepted God’s sovereignty. By Jesus’ stripes, not an evangelist’s, she was healed.

I believe that verse means that when we are healed, it is BECAUSE of Jesus’s “stripes,” that He ordains healing, guides the hands of doctors and nurses… and deserves the glory when healing does come. Spiritual priorities.

Likewise the verse “I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). That’s King James; other translations say “… Christ who strengthens me.” Words are important. “Claim it” preachers will say that God clearly gives us the power that Jesus had… to move mountains , for instance. Yet we do not see mountains moving. “Yes, but ALL things…”

First, we can sense metaphors more than hyperbole in this verse. Spiritual roadblocks, or spiritual mountains, we all have them. But my new understanding of that verse hinges on the emphasis of certain words. Can we not think that we possibly are being taught – return to the King James translation – that whatever we do, we should determine to do in, and through, Christ (to stay in God’s will); and that fact will strengthen us?

Yes, to answer my own question. I can touch on the prosperity gospel, and I remember how one preacher actually printed a chart – how much you would donate to his ministry, and (by the “hundredfold return” of Mark 10:31) how much money you could expect to receive, probably by miraculous surprises, in return. That, and “have life, and that more abundantly,” was answered by my wife with the realization that God can bless us in uncountable ways. If we define Him by cash we are sorry examples of Christ-followers.

Yes, God is a miracle-working God. Yes, we need miracles in our lives, often. But I would suggest that, even in our brokenness and desperation, we chase after miracles, and healing, and prosperity – even just subsistence – when we should be more passionate about chasing after and pleasing God, doing His will, and being obedient.

By the way, concerning miracles: I have seen some that people classify by that term, for instance a withered leg being made whole at a service. But, personally, the greatest miracle I have witnessed is the experience of my sinful life being forgiven, my heart turned from rebellion. I know what a miracle that was.

We will understand it all better farther on, but in the meantime the Holy Spirit can lead us, better than evangelists, in the ways of God: that is why He was sent, and why He dwells in our hearts.

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An ancient American hymn, a frontier hymn whose writer and composer are lost to history, is “It Is Better Farther On,” also known by its incipit, “As We Travel Through the Desert,” first appearing in a hymnal in 1877. (Not to be confused with the standard, “Farther Along.”) It speaks of the proper priorities of life’s journey, meeting our challenges, and trusting the Savior’s leading, as well as our destiny. “Oh my brother, are you weary Of the roughness of the way? Does your strength begin to fail you, And your vigor to decay? Jesus, Jesus will go with you, He will lead you to the throne, He who dyed His garments for you, And the winepress trod alone.” Here it is sung by the Zahasky Family, the Alaska String Band.

Click: Farther On