We
want to be healed………..
Is
this our desire as Christians, our desire as the Church in the twenty first
century? Recently I
have found myself looking at the subject of physical healing and asking again
why it is that many are not being
healed. Is it that they
are, for one reason or another unable to receive the healing that God has for
them or is there something much
more fundamentally wrong in our approach to God and our expectations?
It
is now four years since Brian’s cancer was diagnosed and it is what the
clinicians call a “well-behaved” tumour.
Surgery was not an option and chemo-therapy did nothing for him. The insertion of a stent (a tube to allow bile to
flow) into his bile duct has given him relief from the jaundice and pain that
were the presenting symptoms. Several
changes have been necessary and he has enjoyed reasonable health for most of the
time. However
the last six months have not been so good and they have just agreed a
repeat of the procedure. Now we have total faith in this being a success
and freeing Brian from problems for another couple of years or so.
God after all works through doctors, and we praise God for the way He is
looking after us. Many of you have prayed for Brian and because you think
He looks well assume that he has been “cured” as a result of prayer.
Yes it is right to thank Him for this healing, during this time we have
both received much from our Lord but I want to raise a number of issues that
have a wider bearing on our relationship with God.
When
Brian first became ill things were desperate, but I could hear God saying
“Trust Me.” My only
prayer was “May your will be done and your name glorified.”
I praised God that so many of you were praying when we didn’t get to Flames
of Fire in 1999.
I had to hand Brian over to the Lord and I knew
that He was in charge. I
have come to realise that I really do believe that God has given Brian his
healing but for one reason or another we have not yet received it.
Since March he has had jaundice ten times, just for short periods, and
because I was usually the only person who knew he was in pain I had to ask the
Lord firstly, if I could now pray and secondly how to pray.
Mostly the prayer has been simply the “Prayer of Love” with no words
just allowing God’s love to flow through us, His stream of living water.
Without fail this takes away the pain and brings us into peace, calm and
surrender but it has not yet brought physical healing.
It has though taught me something about praying for the sick.
When we pray for a loved one there is inevitably an element of
selfishness in our prayers. I
believe that is why I was told not to pray four years ago, only to trust and
give Him the glory. Now
I know that my prayer for Brian must be no different to praying for any of you
or indeed for someone I do not know.
This is because God loves us all equally, He has no favourites.
But this is the awesome thing, it is not about me loving Brian less but
being available to love others with the love of God. This is a major factor when praying for healing but it
has a bearing on the way that God wants the Church to be, that is holy and
available for His purpose.
I
have thought and prayed more about being filled with “the fullness of
God”.(Eph.1:23; 3:19;
4:13) because I
believe it to be the key we need.
It is about love and holiness and all the other qualities of God that
Jesus exhibited on earth, that is the “fruit of the Spirit”(Gal.5:22-23).
We rejoice in the fact that God loves
us but we need to be so aware of that truth that we become willing to receive an
abundance of that love for his purpose, for the benefit of the world (
Rom. 5:5).
It is through the Holy Spirit that we receive this gift of love, the
most excellent way, as St.Paul describes it in his teaching on the “gifts
of the Spirit” (1 Cor.
12-14).
Here
we are on familiar ground, being an organization which acknowledges the
importance of both the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit, but do we really
understand and accept all the implications?
Baptism in the Spirit is about being filled with the Spirit
of God, it is so often
misunderstood and the expression has caused a lot of pain to many sincere
Christians. Firstly we
must remember that all Christians have the Holy Spirit within them (Rom.8:9),
but not all
Christians are filled with the Spirit and very few are “full”
of the Spirit all of the time. Why
is this? It is what
Christ intended for His Church. Stephen
and the other deacons were chosen because they were “full of the Spirit” (Acts
6).
We are happy to soak up any outpouring of the Spirit at Flames of
Fire but if we were already full on arrival any fresh filling would
bring the overflow which God can use – His power, the promised Streams
of living water will indeed flow.
We
must realise that we can be filled not only with the Holy Spirit but with Jesus
and the Father (John
14:20,23; 17; Rev.3:20-21), and
then ask ourselves why we are not; for this is why the church is weak today.
Do
we have the desire to be filled?
Are we willing to surrender all and let God have control of our lives?
Do we really believe that God lives in each one of us and can work
through us? These are all
blockages to His power and reasons why we do not see the miracles and healings
that we want so much. I
leave this editorial with the reply I hear from God; it is that we must go to
Him and say “We
NEED to be healed….” But
that is about much more than
physical healing.
In
the last issue I asked you take notice of Romans 11. This time our friends from Northern
Ireland, Niall and Gerry Griffin, have elaborated on it.
It is all part of the healing.
Other
articles encourage us to look again at ourselves and how we
respond to God’s plan.
Mary
Newsom