The Way Forward for the twenty
first century Christian.
Mike Endicott
"Do not be
afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
" (Luke 12:32)
For twelve years we have battled away in the
ministry of Healing and Wholeness, the last eight being involved on a full-time
basis in and out of the Well Centre.
Those years have given us our ‘fair share’ of miracles but never,
never enough.
We have been quite adequately employed in the
wonders of Inner Healing, the healing of memories and the building of personal
wholeness in Christ but how we have yearned to see the lame walk!
Now, in 2001, God is displaying his goodness with a
new season of the Holy spirit, not in gifts of joy or of revival conversions but
of miracles! He is
freely demonstrating the signs and wonders of his kingdom once again.
The intervening prayer battle has not been against
evil or lack of faith or tragedy or lack of leadership support but has been
fought on the downward slopes of fading hope.
The modern church as a whole has become so cerebral
in our thinking on the things of healing, often developing unbiblical theologies
to justify suffering and attending numerous lectures entitled ‘Why am I not
healed?’ and so on. We
read Christian self-help books and water down the power of the cross into
counselling techniques and ineffectual styles of ministry.
Faced with the challenges of the healing miracles in the Gospels we have
become masters of the ‘Ah, but…’ dismissal technique for covering over our
own lack of trust.
Slowly and surely our church mentality is allowing
the word ’Healing’ to merge into the idea of some sort of general Wholeness,
and then re-defining the whole ministry as being limited to bringing people one
step nearer to Jesus. Wonderful
though that is, there has to be more in the kingdom.
Like what, for example? Let’s get simple about this.
In the Garden of Eden there was no sickness, no pain
and no tears. That’s all at
the beginning of the Bible and Jesus knew all that stuff – he was around in
those earliest days.
Our glimpses into the coming heaven at the end of
the Bible show a world which is exactly the same and we who believe will be
given it - no sickness, no pain and no tears.
When Jesus walked this earth he healed everyone who
asked and then said he never did anything that he did not see the Father doing
and wanting to do. Then he
told his disciples to go out and do it themselves.
Simple conclusion – God wants to heal people –
he’s going to do it all anyway one day so we might as well ask for it now!
Is that cheeky, asking for it now?
Well, we do it every Sunday after all, without even knowing that this is
exactly how Jesus wants us to pray.
Our Father, which art in Heaven etc, give us this
day our daily bread.
The original Greek actually translates as
‘tomorrow’s bread’ but someone got it slightly wrong and the church has
been cursed with a wrong understanding ever since. Jesus is telling us to ask the Father today for
the fruit of heaven which will be coming to us tomorrow anyway - no sickness, no
pain and no tears. Give
us today tomorrow’s bread. That's what he did when he healed the sick - he
gave them today something that was on the way anyway in God's good time.
Is this all too child-like an approach?
Matthew 18:3
‘And he (Jesus) said: "I
tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven’.
So we
did.
In the middle of July 2001 we caught a distant
glimpse of the first signs of a new season of miracles.
These were few in number but wonderfully impossible to the human
expectation! By the time we
arrived at Builth Wells at the end of August to give a seminar on Physical
healing at the Anglican
Renewal Ministries Conference the whole shape of ministry had changed.
Within five minutes of our starting to speak the miracles began and kept
up in a steady stream throughout the afternoon
. The glory was so thick that it was difficult to teach from the Bible
but we managed somehow, although few heard.
All that were there can witness to the work of God in that place.
Those who had lost courage to ask for prayer were
healed, those who had been blessed in healing ways in the past and somehow lost
it had their healing resurrected. People sitting quietly in the room were healed
without even being prayed for. Medically incurable complaints disappeared,
torn muscles and ligaments grew back into divine order.
The lame jumped up and down and the deaf began to hear. Some could not take in the enormity of what lay before
them and some just cried with joy all the way through in the holiness of the
moment.
Give glory to God! – we are now into October as I
write this and the anointing swirls around, if anything growing even thicker and
more gloriously fruitful!
Will the ‘Ah, but’ philosophers win the day?
This is God’s season – let him have his way!
Amen