Perhaps the most profound difference between the life of the flesh – that life which we knew before the Spirit of God entered into our hearts – and the life which we experience in Christ is the role of Faith in how we see the world around us. Before, everything we did, everything we trusted in, every motivation was centered on ourselves and our belief in our own power to control our destiny. If we wanted to be successful, it had to be by our own strength and intelligence. Everything we learned about the world around us was through our own eyes and ears and powers of observation. We defined "success" on our own terms. As a result, we became slaves to the Powers of this world, namely sin, Satan and finally, to death.
When we become a child of God, everything changes. Rather than trying to occupy the center of our existence with our own feeble will, we give that position to Christ. Though we hardly understand the implications at first, we put our faith in Christ, to do with our lives according to His design. In exchange, He releases His transforming Power in our lives. Through faith, rather than rebelling against His direction as we have done since the time of Adam and Eve, we have the power to work in concert with Christ. By the power of Christ, we overcome sin, the flesh and the power of Satan in our lives.
As we grow in our knowledge of Christ, it is vitally important that we understand how He works to accomplish His design and purpose in our lives. Recently, we have seen an unbalanced focus on the power that God has given to us to miraculously overcome trials and tribulations in our lives, in particular in the visible aspects of physical and emotional healing, relationships with others and finances, without trying to understand the purpose that God may be trying to work in us. The central focus of this teaching is that, if we have problems, then it is always God's will that we have more Faith, that we pray against Satan and that we be miraculously delivered.
The underlying logic in this belief follows along these lines:
- We are God's children, and He desires to give us good things.
- Satan is God's enemy and our enemy.
- Problems are the result of Satan attacking God by attacking us.
- God wants us to defeat Satan.
- If we have enough Faith, and demonstrate that faith by praying hard enough and long enough, then God will deliver us from Satan's attacks and our problems will go away.
The belief is that, if we are experiencing hardships, then they must be a sign of Satan's attacks. It is certainly not a failing on the part of God, or His Power to deliver us, so therefore, it must be a failing on our part to either fast and pray long enough or to have enough faith. Alternatively, if we really do have enough faith, and are praying fervently, and we still don't see the manifestation of God's miraculous healing, then we must actually be healed, and we just don't see the manifestation of that healing yet.
One argument given to support this belief is the verse in Matthew 4:24, where word spread through the region of Syria about Jesus healing, “and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them." Another verse is then quoted that Jesus is, "the same yesterday, today and forever." The conclusion then is, since Jesus apparently healed all the people in that one place, and He never changes, then He must necessarily wish to heal all diseases all the time. Unfortunately, the logic here simply doesn't hold, since there many other instances in the Gospels where Jesus heals "many" people, but no mention is made of "all" people. In fact, in the instance of the healing of the invalid at the pool at Bethesda, He would most likely have stepped over many others there laying by the pool – others who had no more or less faith than the man Jesus singled out. The man didn't even know who Jesus was, and his faith was only in the story of the angel who was said to "trouble the waters." Yet, Jesus chose in His sovereignty to heal the man.
We have in our minds an idea of how we define success. The pastor wants a large church with a thriving ministry. The evangelist wants to see many people coming forward in his crusades. The businessman wants to have a growing business so that he can give generously to the church. Parents want to see their children happy and successful. The goals we have may be lofty, but they are all based on externally measured goals that we can see. When God doesn't conform to our definition of success, we fret and run around, trying to figure out what has gone wrong – why God isn't following our plan.
It is clear from Scripture that we cannot approach God without faith. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus instructs us that, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." The difficulty with the belief that it is always God's will for us to be healthy and wealthy, and that any deviation from that will is merely a sign of our own lack of faith, is that it supplants the Sovereignty of God with our own interpretation of the situation we are in, and how we think God should act. In particular, it ignores two other fundamental sources of difficulties and stresses in our lives.
The first source of problems in our lives is our own fleshly nature. In Romans 7:28, Paul bemoans the fact that he struggles with his old nature. "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me." This is not a question of forgiveness or "punishment" for the things we have done wrong. The Blood of Jesus covers our sin, but that does not mean we no longer suffer some of the short term consequences of our behavior. When there is un-confessed sin in our life, God allows difficulties to lead us back to him.
Sin comes in many shapes and sizes. It may be in remorseless breaking of the Ten Commandments – adultery, stealing, murder – or in an infinite number of more insidious sins. If I am harboring a bad attitude toward my neighbor, then I will have a difficult time sharing the Gospel with him. If I am so caught up in materialism and the things of this world that I am not paying attention to my family, then my children will be wild. If I am cultivating a root of bitterness in my heart over wrongs I have suffered in the past, then my body will likely be racked with a host of physical ailments. If, in response, we focus on the symptom (the sickness) and try to buck up our faith, rebuke Satan and cast out the sickness, Satan will simply laugh in our face. It's as if we lock and bar the front door on our house to keep out burglars, while the back door is swinging in the breeze and all the windows are standing open. James tells the church that, "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless."
Regardless of whether we consider the sin large or small, it is still disobedience in the face of God's direction. I believe that many financial problems that we see in the Church are caused by Christians skimping on their giving, or in some other way, putting their confidence in their own ability to provide for material needs. Materialism still stands as one of the greatest sins of the entire Church in America. Again, in James, the apostle tells us, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
The danger here is to think that, any time we are suffering, it must be because we have done something wrong, or that God is punishing us. Once again, God does not bring down punishment on our heads because Jesus has already born the effect of this judgment. He is no ogre sitting up in heaven, cackling in glee, waiting for us to slip up so He can throw a lightning bolt at us. There is no sin for which we have not already been forgiven. Rather, God uses the fires of trial to purge us of that which is defiled, incomplete or defective. His goal is the perfection of his bride, the church, and as members of that bride, we are to be perfect. God knows our weakness, and while He has no patience with sin, He has infinite patience with us, and chastens us as a father chastens his children.
This leads to the second clear source of trials and difficulties that we experience in our lives – namely the Hand of God, molding us as one would mold clay, into a vessel for His own purpose and glory. The clearest example of this is the statement of the Apostle Paul where he recounts a time when he prayed that God would deliver him from a "thorn in the flesh". Paul leaves the reference vague, leading to endless speculation on our part as to that exactly the thorn was. There is certainly the possibility that was a physical (in the "flesh") ailment, such as poor eyesight. Others guess that it was the persecution of the Judaizers that constantly hounded Paul through his ministry, trying to destroy his work and corrupt the churches that he planted. It is likely that he intentionally left the exact character of the thorn vague because wanted to communicate a principle rather than limit us to a specific example. In either case, it was a problem that Paul fervently prayed for deliverance from. It says he prayed "three times", but I'm sure it was more than three short prayers before he tucked in for the night. His belief was that this thorn was impeding his ability to minister, and therefore, God must surely want to deliver him! Why would God intentionally weaken him? These were intense times of prayer, where he exercised his faith in every way he knew how, seeking the face of the Lord. In response, the Lord spoke directly to Paul, telling him that He would not deliver Paul from this thorn. However, the reason was not due to any failing on Paul's part, either in sin in his life or in some lack of faith. Rather the Lord said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." As a result, Paul decided that he could boast in his weakness, that the power of God was more completely shown when he was weak.
God's sovereignty is so infinitely greater than anything we can say or imagine! His plan for us is that we see nothing around us save Him and His Glory. In Matthew 8:28, Jesus rebuked the disciples not because they hadn't calmed the storm on their own, but because they did not have the peace to sleep through it like He had.
There are several reasons why this mistaken belief that it is always God's will that we be perfectly whole has resurfaced time and again throughout the recent history of the Church. One source of this belief is the confusion between God's ability and His desire. The thinking is that, if I am not praying for deliverance from my problems, then it must be because I do not believe that God is able to deliver me. Conversely, if I believe that God is in fact powerful enough to be able to heal me, then I must believe that it is God's Will, and that I will be healed if I have enough faith. Hence, the statement that, if we don't think that God will miraculously heal us, then we don't really believe in God. The logical conclusion of this belief is that Paul, since he stated clearly that he believed that he would not be delivered from his thorn in the flesh, that he must not actually have believed in God.
If we hold to this unbalanced view of the power of our faith to bring about God's healing and deliverance in our lives, we will end up falling into a host of other spiritual tar pits. The first consequence is that it sets our hearts and desires on the Gifts of God, rather than on God Himself. Rather than seeing how He wants to work in our weakness, we set our sights on a vision of perfection that we have created ourselves. The center of our focus moves inward, on seeing God's POWER in our own lives, meeting our needs, rather than on God's ability to show His power in my weakness. Our attitude becomes that God has promised the riches of the kingdom to me, so I will not rest until I experience those riches. Meanwhile, the rest of the world around us withers in sickness and poverty, sin and death, but our eyes are focused on the glitter of reaching what we think is God's abundant life for ourselves.
Another, perhaps surprising consequence of forcing God into the position where He desires to bring physical healing all the time is that, suddenly, our healing depends on us rather than God. If it is God's will that I be healed all the time, as long as I have enough Faith, then if I am not healed, then it must be because I don't have enough faith. Rather than focusing on God and His will, the focus is on my praying enough, or fasting enough, or "marinating in the Spirit" (a fall-back to the meditation rituals of Eastern religions), and bucking up enough Faith to be healed.
Perhaps the most insidious and dangerous consequence is that the unbalanced focus on Miraculous Power given to Christians to overcome physical problems in their lives leads to the false impression that the lack of visible problems must be a clear indication of God's Blessing and Pleasure. If I'm healthy and wealthy, then I must be in God's Will, and everything is great in my life. God's will is that I be healthy, so if I am healthy, I must be in God's will. This is an open invitation to Satan to lead us down the primrose lined path to destruction.
To pray for miracles, we need to understand God's purpose in miracles. It has been observed by some that, the places where we see the greatest miracles taking place are where the Gospel is going out to the unsaved. It is often in foreign missions, where the saints are beating back the wall of spiritual darkness around them, that God shows His greatest power. This follows the pattern of Scripture where, when Jesus sent out the disciples two by two to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, He promised that they would exercise great power over Satan. The purpose of that power is to point to Jesus and His Kingdom.
Clearly, our enemy is Satan, and he is doing all that he can to keep us from experiencing the real power of God in our lives. However, he has an able accomplice in our own carnal nature and its fleshly desires. Our tendency is to love God and follow Him because He gives us good things. God wants us to follow Him even when we don't see the good things. As Oswald Chambers said, "the ordinary view of prayer is not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer (or for that matter, faith) as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself." That knowledge of God is the true source of POWER in our lives, and an open channel for God to work His purpose through us.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
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