Hi all,
This series is about obstacles that stand in the way of healing, not so much about how to be healed. I do have a series called 'Healing School' for those interested.
Learning of possible obstacles is helpful, though there is no one 'magic key' that unlocks healing for all. As we've seen with the Corinthians, issues of the heart can be a reason the body gets an illness, something only recently 'discovered' by medical science.
Ignorance isn't protection
We've also seen that sins against the body stay in the body, meaning it is our responsibility to deal with, not God's. The trouble is, ignorance does not prevent us from suffering injury, sickness, or disease. In the late 1800's 'radium pills' were offered for health, and smoking was promoted as healthy. It wasn't until people started dying they realized they were wrong - but that ignorance didn't prevent many good people from being sick and dying early.
That means today in our realm we may have things which make us sick or give us a chronic physical ailment, but we are ignorant about what caused it. It leaves us wondering how God could let this happen. But we live on a fallen earth in bodies that are of that fallen earth. That means genetics and environment and things we eat and breathe and touch and smell can all play a role.
And because we procreate which is passing on our genes to our offspring, anything flawed in those genes gets passed on. It isn't always the devil or a curse, sometimes is just basic procreation.
It isn't that God isn't around, it is that we are on a fallen earth in bodies of that earth (which are therefore temporary and transitory), so there are things here which afflict us. When we add in a very evil devil walking around looking for whom he may devour, it further complicates the issue.
Don't be in fear and hide behind 'faith'
I've also known many people who proclaim faith because in truth, they are afraid to go to the doctor because of what they might say. Or perhaps they suspect they would need surgery or procedures that would mean a massive change to their lives. So in fear, they proclaim faith - but that's not faith, that's foolishness. I've never seen God heal someone who used so called faith to hide behind their fears. I have seen Him walk with a person through surgery and procedures as He asks them to deal with their heart. Always be honest with the One who knows your thoughts before you form them in your mind.
And there is spiritual pride at times too - I've known several people who were diagnosed with cancer but chose no treatments at all, choosing what they called 'faith' because people looked to them as examples of 'faith people' so to speak. But God resists the proud, and when they rejected medical treatment they took their lives into their own hands, and died early.
When our boys were young we followed this general guideline: We'd lay hands on them for healing, but if they weren't improved by the next day we went to the doctor. I'm not being a good father if I'm letting my child suffer just because I want him healed by faith but its not happening. We follow that general rule with ourselves as well.
I got this condition before I knew the Lord - can I be healed?
The question of the 'old football injury' or other condition received before you knew the Lord, that stays with you or rises up in later years to require surgery or other treatment begs the question, would God heal me?
Consider that not a single person healed in the gospels was born again. Whatever they needed healed of, the condition was acquired before they met Jesus. Upon meeting Jesus those conditions were healed. So why cannot a believer upon meeting Jesus expect healing? Yes, a believer can expect healing to be available to them for a 'before Christ' condition.
But from what I've seen, once we choose a medical route, God's grace is there to walk with us. And He seems to move in the same way over years with a person. Each of us have patterns in our lives of how the Lord deals with our hearts, our bodies, our emotions - If He healed you 1 way a few years ago, from what I've seen, He is likely to do that same thing this time. If it is no surgery and slow recover, it will repeat. If it was surgery but full recovery, it will repeat. Just an observation - learn how He deals with you, look for patterns over years, and go that route for He will often be there.
Drawing the line between aging and believing for healing
As I mentioned above, our bodies are of the earth, therefore on their way to assuming room temperature. Scientists tell us after about age 35 the body starts declining and anyone over that age can testify to that fact. So where does healing enter the scene if part of what is going on is a natural decline in a bodily system?
I've shared before how in years past I would get vertigo when I got very tired. Not dizziness, but vertigo, which is very different. In dizziness the room spins, in vertigo you don't know which way is up or down, left or right. It happened during an EU conference in the Netherlands a few years ago. I could feel it starting on Thursday the day before the conference started.
We opened the meetings that Friday, and in the evening worship I was fighting it. Suddenly my eyes were opened to His realm and I saw the Lord. Others either saw or felt Him as well. He came over to me and told me some personal things, direction for life sort of thing, and went around to the others.
By Saturday morning I could hardly stand up, but made it through breakfast and the morning session. I was to have a Q&A session that afternoon, but could barely get out of bed, so I asked Barb and Brian to take that session. While in bed I asked the Father what was going on, telling Him: "The Lord was here last night and He could came over and talked to me, He could have healed me, why didn't he?"
The Father responded: "You did this to yourself. I've been dealing with you for some time about taking a day off each week, but you've ignored me. Barb has been telling you too to take a day off each week, and you've even disobeyed your own wife. Your body is going the way of the earth; you need to learn to adjust. You've done this to yourself."
As I said, this series has been about possible obstacles to healing, intended to provoke thought and introspection. I must have been about 40 years old before I realized there were some things that I just wouldn't know this side of heaven. Resting in that, combined with resting in His faithfulness, have given me so much more peace than what I had earlier in my walk with Him.
Verses like Deuteronomy 29:29 bring peace now instead of a drive to push the limits: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things revealed belong to us and to our children..." (Which is a great verse to pray for your children, that He will reveal to them what they should know). But I'm content that there are secret things I won't know until being on the other side.
And Acts 1:7: "It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has put within His own authority."
There is peace in that - peace is ceasing from our own works, to rest in Him. Next week some things the Lord shared in visitations about healing and Him dealing with us. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and meal me at [email protected]
This series is about obstacles that stand in the way of healing, not so much about how to be healed. I do have a series called 'Healing School' for those interested.
Learning of possible obstacles is helpful, though there is no one 'magic key' that unlocks healing for all. As we've seen with the Corinthians, issues of the heart can be a reason the body gets an illness, something only recently 'discovered' by medical science.
Ignorance isn't protection
We've also seen that sins against the body stay in the body, meaning it is our responsibility to deal with, not God's. The trouble is, ignorance does not prevent us from suffering injury, sickness, or disease. In the late 1800's 'radium pills' were offered for health, and smoking was promoted as healthy. It wasn't until people started dying they realized they were wrong - but that ignorance didn't prevent many good people from being sick and dying early.
That means today in our realm we may have things which make us sick or give us a chronic physical ailment, but we are ignorant about what caused it. It leaves us wondering how God could let this happen. But we live on a fallen earth in bodies that are of that fallen earth. That means genetics and environment and things we eat and breathe and touch and smell can all play a role.
And because we procreate which is passing on our genes to our offspring, anything flawed in those genes gets passed on. It isn't always the devil or a curse, sometimes is just basic procreation.
It isn't that God isn't around, it is that we are on a fallen earth in bodies of that earth (which are therefore temporary and transitory), so there are things here which afflict us. When we add in a very evil devil walking around looking for whom he may devour, it further complicates the issue.
Don't be in fear and hide behind 'faith'
I've also known many people who proclaim faith because in truth, they are afraid to go to the doctor because of what they might say. Or perhaps they suspect they would need surgery or procedures that would mean a massive change to their lives. So in fear, they proclaim faith - but that's not faith, that's foolishness. I've never seen God heal someone who used so called faith to hide behind their fears. I have seen Him walk with a person through surgery and procedures as He asks them to deal with their heart. Always be honest with the One who knows your thoughts before you form them in your mind.
And there is spiritual pride at times too - I've known several people who were diagnosed with cancer but chose no treatments at all, choosing what they called 'faith' because people looked to them as examples of 'faith people' so to speak. But God resists the proud, and when they rejected medical treatment they took their lives into their own hands, and died early.
When our boys were young we followed this general guideline: We'd lay hands on them for healing, but if they weren't improved by the next day we went to the doctor. I'm not being a good father if I'm letting my child suffer just because I want him healed by faith but its not happening. We follow that general rule with ourselves as well.
I got this condition before I knew the Lord - can I be healed?
The question of the 'old football injury' or other condition received before you knew the Lord, that stays with you or rises up in later years to require surgery or other treatment begs the question, would God heal me?
Consider that not a single person healed in the gospels was born again. Whatever they needed healed of, the condition was acquired before they met Jesus. Upon meeting Jesus those conditions were healed. So why cannot a believer upon meeting Jesus expect healing? Yes, a believer can expect healing to be available to them for a 'before Christ' condition.
But from what I've seen, once we choose a medical route, God's grace is there to walk with us. And He seems to move in the same way over years with a person. Each of us have patterns in our lives of how the Lord deals with our hearts, our bodies, our emotions - If He healed you 1 way a few years ago, from what I've seen, He is likely to do that same thing this time. If it is no surgery and slow recover, it will repeat. If it was surgery but full recovery, it will repeat. Just an observation - learn how He deals with you, look for patterns over years, and go that route for He will often be there.
Drawing the line between aging and believing for healing
As I mentioned above, our bodies are of the earth, therefore on their way to assuming room temperature. Scientists tell us after about age 35 the body starts declining and anyone over that age can testify to that fact. So where does healing enter the scene if part of what is going on is a natural decline in a bodily system?
I've shared before how in years past I would get vertigo when I got very tired. Not dizziness, but vertigo, which is very different. In dizziness the room spins, in vertigo you don't know which way is up or down, left or right. It happened during an EU conference in the Netherlands a few years ago. I could feel it starting on Thursday the day before the conference started.
We opened the meetings that Friday, and in the evening worship I was fighting it. Suddenly my eyes were opened to His realm and I saw the Lord. Others either saw or felt Him as well. He came over to me and told me some personal things, direction for life sort of thing, and went around to the others.
By Saturday morning I could hardly stand up, but made it through breakfast and the morning session. I was to have a Q&A session that afternoon, but could barely get out of bed, so I asked Barb and Brian to take that session. While in bed I asked the Father what was going on, telling Him: "The Lord was here last night and He could came over and talked to me, He could have healed me, why didn't he?"
The Father responded: "You did this to yourself. I've been dealing with you for some time about taking a day off each week, but you've ignored me. Barb has been telling you too to take a day off each week, and you've even disobeyed your own wife. Your body is going the way of the earth; you need to learn to adjust. You've done this to yourself."
As I said, this series has been about possible obstacles to healing, intended to provoke thought and introspection. I must have been about 40 years old before I realized there were some things that I just wouldn't know this side of heaven. Resting in that, combined with resting in His faithfulness, have given me so much more peace than what I had earlier in my walk with Him.
Verses like Deuteronomy 29:29 bring peace now instead of a drive to push the limits: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things revealed belong to us and to our children..." (Which is a great verse to pray for your children, that He will reveal to them what they should know). But I'm content that there are secret things I won't know until being on the other side.
And Acts 1:7: "It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has put within His own authority."
There is peace in that - peace is ceasing from our own works, to rest in Him. Next week some things the Lord shared in visitations about healing and Him dealing with us. Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and meal me at [email protected]
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