Healing Hindrances Continued With
LETTER FROM KATHLEEN: Good Morning, Joan... Wow, what a penetrating piece. And how amazing and wonderful your recovery from liver disease! I am so often humbled and speechless to see the Lord work in these ways. We have several in our church that have been healed of cancer or some other life-threatening illness. Everyone rejoices when reports of these things are made known; to God be the glory. This subject is one that has often given me trouble. It's not that I doubt miraculous healings, or the incredible, incalculable price Jesus paid on the cross to bear both sin and disease. I have witnessed miracles. I believe in the power of prayer. The troublesome things to me are these: 1. What of those faithful believers who do not receive a healing? I know there are many factors, but to stand at death's door having no healing could bring with it a sense of guilt and shame. "If only I had prayed more," or,"if only my faith had been stronger." I guess what I am saying is that there seems to be an element of works associated with one's own healing if we don't understand how important it is to "be still and know that He is God." 2. It's the fact that Jesus conquered the grave on our behalf too, and no matter how hard I believe or pray, people I love (myself included) are going to die. I don't mean to be critical, Joan. Your post is excellent. I'm just sharing some thoughts I have had for many, many years on this subject. Call them my "quandries." Some time ago, my sister and I were talking. Her sight has steadily diminished; it's almost gone now and she is still claiming complete healing. Her faith is strong, though there are days when she is baffled by the delays. She stands fast. My friend has had cancer for two years. She has amazing faith, not to mention hundreds of people praying on her behalf. She is no longer able to speak on her own behalf because, as her husband reports, she is literally days from passing to His arms. If ever anyone had the best in faith and prayer, not to mention medical treatment (her husband is a doctor and his brother is a leading Oncologist who has provided every known and every experimental treatment in an effort to eradicate the cancer), my friend is that person. We are still praying for a miracle. If that miracle does not come, she will leave us in the days ahead. As I said, I loved the post. I am reminded of the cross and what happened upon it. As usual, your command of language and word pictures is beautiful, and I am humbled again and anew by God's incredible love. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. God bless you, dear Joan. If you have any clues to my quandries, I welcome them. Hugs, Kathleen
Dear Kathleen, Thank you for your letter. I know your heart is aching for your friend and for your sister, and for others who have asked "Why?" when their healing did not come. Thank you for sharing your hurt with me even though you know my effort to bring comfort may fail, knowing they need so much more than comforting words. They need answers, they need understanding, and they need healing. All I have to give is my own faith in the Word…and the treasuries found in the story of the repentant thief that was crucified, just to the right of Jesus. I have never before shared my insights into this brief story, so this will be the first time I have submitted it for others to read. But first, let’s talk about the faith that most people identify with: Faith for healing is often confused with hope, stirred in the pot so to speak with personal works – or lack of works – together with a low self-esteem or sense of self-worth. It is the usual argument: “But I am so unworthy,” or, “You don’t know what I did. God can never forgive me,” or, “God can heal me if He wants to – He may not want to.” It is a black shroud, covering for burial, all hope and every ounce of healing faith. What a tragedy Satan has blinded the saints of the Living God with such a lie as this. And what a tragedy the Shepherds of the flock have allowed the lie to continue – even encouraged it. How many times have I heard a Shepherd say, “It is your cross – you must bear it,” or, “The days of miraculous healings ended with the deaths of the twelve Apostles.” Such diatribe comes from the deceiver for it undermines the power of the purest Blood that ever flowed, the power of the Cross that crushed the authority of Satan, and the all-inclusive sacrifice and completed works of Jesus Christ. So let’s settle this here and now… The only “works” required for our healing were the works of obedience unto death and these were accomplished and completed at the Cross by Jesus Christ. None other is required, none other is acceptable and none other can apply one way or the other. The works we accomplish daily are a personal tribute to our Lord because we love Him and want to please Him, not to trade favors with Him or to bribe Him to perform an act of mercy that He has already supplied. No work or volume of works can persuade Him one way or the other regarding any gift of the Spirit for all gifts of the Spirit are already ours. They were given to us by the Holy Spirit when we were born again. All nine gifts were given as tools for our labors and although we do not use all nine gifts every day, we will at some time in our lifetime use each one of them at one time or another. We may use most of them only once, we may use one or two of them regularly. They are all in the Divine control of the Holy Spirit who gives each of us several gifts as He sees fit, according to our calling and service. But personal healing belongs to all. I am not referring to the gifts (plural) of healing that are given to those with healing ministries - but the “gift (singular) of healing” that comes to us individually when we are in need of it. It is needful to remember the redemption purchased at the Cross was for all who would come and receive it, and the stripes on the Savior’s back were for the healing of all who would come and receive it. But “come” they must, and “believe” they must. Jesus was not able to do many good works in Nazareth because of their unbelief. In the same way, He can do no good works in you and me if we do not truly and completely believe. It is important that we lay our own labors of love to rest, however great they may be, and in the same way we need to let go – lay to rest - our persistent failures, and our faults. Then and only then can we be gathered to the only works and the only Cross that cries, “Come, all ye that are weary and heavy laden. Come, take shelter in Him. Come my friends, anchor your soul to the rock that is Christ. Come, and be healed today…” It is not right that the saints should suffer a low self-esteem, suffering guilt, shame and sickness because someone somewhere told them it was their fault they didn’t get their healing. What a cruel and brutal thing to tell someone… As for self-worth, you may be surprised to learn we have no “self-worth.” Our “self-worth” has been wrapped up in Christ Jesus and has become a part of His gloriously whole and perfected body. We are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Therefore we live in Christ who lives in God who lives in you and me. We have no holiness apart from our relationship with God the Father and God the Son. We are His and He is ours and because we are not our own any longer, but have been purchased with the purest Blood heaven had to offer, healing was gift-wrapped in the pain of our redemption and it is available to every fiber of the body of Christ. It is God’s pleasure to heal His children. Healing cleanses the body of Christ and is a testimony to the world that we are different, special, protected and cared for by a loving and living God. The world little understands us as it is, but how much more befuddled would they be if all God’s children were in perfect health and there was not one feeble person among them… What a testimony the Church could give to the world if only the saints stood immovable in the faith of God and refused to be denied… There is no hidden mystery… At conversion we were saved by God’s Grace, His favor, though we didn’t deserve it, yet it was given THROUGH our faith in Jesus the Christ and His works of obedience at the Cross. In that moment we were also made the righteousness of God – get this – we were MADE the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus –we didn’t inherit righteousness, we weren’t given righteousness, we were MADE the righteousness of God - and in the same way, if we are entangled again in our stubborn pride and arrogance we can be UNMADE… The faith that brought us to Christ for salvation is the same faith that brings us to Christ for healing…It is not a special faith, it is the same faith. There is ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, and ONE BAPTISM. If we can see Him as He is today, we can say with the scriptures, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.” He does not change. If He healed 5,000 people on His lunch break, and we know He did, He will, with the same compassion, heal you and me. If He raised Jairus’ daughter and the son of the widow woman of Cain from their premature deaths, He will raise a stolen life today. God does not honor the past more than He honors the present or the future for Christ is in eternity past, present and future. He rules over all, He does not change. Thus, if the Holy Spirit that dwelled in Peter raised Dorcus from the dead, and if that same Spirit dwells in you, He will raise the stolen lives of today. All the Spirit needs is a strong show of faith i.e. rebuking with authority the Spirit of death, binding his arms and legs and shutting his mouth, then casting him out of the victim. Quote whatever scripture the Spirit lays in your mouth or on your heart, and quote it with authority. Pray for the immediate return of his soul and for the four winds of the Spirit to give breath. Then command the victim to awaken and open his eyes, in the Name of Jesus. If necessary, repeat the commands or give the victim instruction. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5:15). That word “shall” is not a “maybe.” It is a promise. Accept it as such. Know that He is talking directly to you. Know also that no devil in hell can destroy or alter that promise. It is as real and powerful today as it was in the day it was promised. Just quote it continually until it drops from your mind and your mouth into your spirit where it will abide forever. It is the seed of faith that will grow into a great tree. The tree will then draw others who are weary to come and take shelter in the shadow of the Almighty… These works on the Cross of Christ transform sinner to saint (a child and heir of God with Christ). And, to deny the impartation of HIS righteousness, to deny our new blameless and guiltless born-again life that is hidden in Christ, is to reject the Words of the Creator of heaven and earth and all His benefits. In essence, we call Him a liar…and where there is no faith, there can be no healing. Jesus told the lepers, “Be healed according to your faith…” Wrong confessions prevent healing. Feelings of guilt and shame prevent healing for these negate the salvation experience that cleanses and makes righteous. Therefore our unbelief prevents our healing. Most painful to our Lord is the way the opinions of men are often entertained as greater than the promises of God, for this too prevents the healing He suffered to give us. And when we do not believe the promises, Christ is not glorified… If only we can grab hold of these truths and hold fast to the promises, we can clean out the hospitals and the psychiatric wards. If only we can understand that it is demonic power that holds the people prisoner in their sicknesses and oppressions, and that these can be cast out and put under our feet, the people could be set free. If only we believed God more than the opinions of men, if only we believed the promises of the healing Christ, and the will of the Holy Spirit, we could rise up as a body in the full stature of Christ to do those greater works than He has said we would do, because He made provision for us to do them in His Name…It is that important, it is that real. It is that powerful… But what about those that have exceptional and great faith who do not receive the healing they believe for? These are they whose faith never wavers and whose hope is in God alone, yet they languish and they die and the saints ask, “Why?” First of all, this is not some punishment God has put on them because of their sins. The penalty for our sins was nailed to the cross – remember that! Do not confuse sin with sickness as it was in the Old Testament. Remember that we have a New Covenant and our sins have been washed away and, if we remain faithful to abide in Him alone, God does not even remember our sins anymore. However, there are occasions when a righteous man (or woman) begins to slide backward and God will do a drastic thing to shorten their life before they go too far. This may be a sudden illness (a stroke, a heart attack, etc.) that their soul may be preserved. Sometimes a saint is placed in a position they are not aware of – that of a faithful witness, a willing martyr, or a vessel of honor…and they die, giving glory to God in a place and a time when glory appears to all others to be absent. Healing is denied that the saint may be the example of spiritual faith that will bring the rest of the family to the Lord. Because he/she has gone home to be with the Lord, submitted to His will for them, without fear and without regret, the rest of the family receives the courage and conviction to follow his/her example. For they know by their own witness of the things they have seen and heard that he/she would have no desire to return to the land of the living… Sometimes a saint brings sickness upon himself through carelessness or neglect, (pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, etc.) and sometimes they come through genetic means. In these cases, the patient must identify and repent of the carelessness and neglect, renounce the spirit of sickness (whatever its name is) and cast it out of the body in the Name of Jesus. Then receive the written Word of God and its healing that flows through the Cross. If it is genetic, it is a family curse that must be broken. Demons carry inherited curses like diabetes, etc. from generation to generation and these must be renounced, rejected and put under the feet. The sickness has to go if the demons are cast out and banished. Sometimes God will allow oppressions to remain for a time, even unto death, as He did Paul’s thorn in the flesh, and sometimes just for awhile as He did Job, while he worked a good work in the hearts of those involved. Sometimes He allows sickness to remain for unknown reasons but always for His glory, and for the benefit of someone who needs to hear the testimony of the one who puts all his trust in the Father. It isn’t something the Shepherds talk about too often for it can be misleading and frightening to many, but there are those occasions when our sins have been so entangled with the lives of others that, eventually, the lingering consequences of those sins bring the retribution of sickness. The sins themselves may be forgiven, cast into the sea and forgotten, but the impact of the consequences that remain are seldom connected with the sin, thus it is not repented of, and consequently, these impacts on the lives of others have to be recompensed in this world or in the next. There may be things long forgotten that return to haunt us before we leave this world and it is during those long languishing days and nights of illness that God draws out, cleanses and perfects his saint, and prepares him to meet his Savior without shame and without guilt. It is the only time that I know of, when we pay a personal price for our folly. And yet, it is always with mercy, with kindness and with compassion. God is interested in saving our soul, not our life, and He will do whatever it takes to accomplish that. The Father is long-suffering toward His Creation. He has tremendous patience and will endure many things men do against Him and against His Son, while He watches and waits, sometimes decades, for a soul to turn to Him and repent. He declines to judge or destroy any man who has not prepared himself for eternity, until that man or woman deliberately turns their back to the Lamb of God. At that point, the compassion and patience of God becomes the wrath of God and mercy flies out the window… What is my point? Keep praying for those lost family members. Keep praying for those co-workers and those neighbors and friends that mock you and scorn your faith. No man knows who or when they will turn and come to the Cross. There were three crosses standing on the hill that day. Jesus was crucified on the middle cross. To His right and to His left stood the crosses where two thieves were crucified alongside Him. These thieves were young men, like Jesus, not yet forty years old. But they were old enough to know that stealing is wrong and that they were guilty of this crime and deserved their punishment. The thief on the left was an arrogant soul who mocked Jesus and taunted Him to save Himself and them. One can hear the voice of the tempter in his words, spoken in the same manner in the Garden when the serpent tempted Eve. But the thief on the right must have had a Godly mother who taught her son when he was young about the one true God. The Father promises us in His Word that, if we train up a child in the way he should go, when he is young, that when he is old he will not depart from it. He may wander in the wilderness for a few years but, like the prodigal son, he will return to his Father’s house sooner or later. This young man did not appreciate his friend’s mockery of Jesus. Apparently he knew just enough about the prophecies and birth of Messiah to a virgin, that he wasn’t taking any chances… “Leave him alone,” he said to his former companion. Have you no fear of God? We deserve our punishment but this man has done nothing wrong.” Turning his head toward the middle cross he added, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He called Him, “Lord.” He believed in his heart that this beaten pulp of a man had a kingdom, which meant, He had to be the rejected Messiah the scriptures speak of…”Lord, remember me…” Translated - “Lord, forgive me. I wasn’t always a thief. In my youth I too was a child of God. It is too late for me to make amends for my wanderings, but Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, remember that, in spite of everything, I knew you…” Jesus’ Reply – “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” It was 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The desert sun was blazing. The last drops of blood fell to the ground beneath the Cross of Redemption. Suddenly the sun went dark and darkness covered the earth. Jesus cried out, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and He gave up the ghost. The veil in the temple was torn in the middle, from top to bottom and the darkness remained for three hours, until 6 p.m. when He was removed from the Cross for burial. Jesus died, but the thieves still lived. The Roman guard broke their legs to hasten their deaths for the Passover Feast was the next day. But Jesus suffered no broken bones – God had forbidden it. Jesus descended into hell and when the repentant thief died, he descended into Paradise, Abraham’s bosom, set in a separate section of hell, where the old testament saints waited decades, hundreds and thousands of years for Jesus to come and take them into the promised land of heaven. When Jesus charged out of Satan’s prison, He appeared in Paradise where he preached to the prisoners waiting there, and prepared them to make the journey into their new Paradise. He then returned to the tomb and His resurrection. Later that day, when he ascended to the Father, He led captivity captive into the glory of the Lord. Among them was the thief… The thief may or may not have been beaten or scourged with the whip before he was crucified. But it is certain that he was wounded in his hands and feet with the nails of crucifixion and that he suffered the agonies of the cross as our Lord did. If the thief had failed to repent, he would have entered hell with his wounds still gaping. But repentance assured his healing before he entered Paradise. Remember that those who entered into Abraham’s bosom were comforted. One cannot know comfort and pain at the same time so we can be persuaded that he was healed as he passed from death to a new life. Jesus said, “Today …” There would be no delay. The thief would die that day and that same day would enter Paradise, with Christ going before him… Christ conquered the power of death (“Oh death, where is thy sting, Oh grave, where is thy victory?”). There is no sting of death if Jesus waits in the last breath, and the grave cannot hold that which is promised to be resurrected. He allows the cessation of mortality that we may look toward the immortality of our redemption. We live unto God in this life, and we will live unto God in the next life. Yes, many of the saints do suffer dreadfully before they pass from life to life, and only the Father can explain it, but every saint that accepts the will of God and endures it with Grace, whether as an example of faith, a vessel of honor to show the way to others, etc. as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane after asking, if it were possible, for the appointed cup to be removed, He accepted the will of the Father and endured the Cross to save others. We cannot save, but we can point the way. We cannot always persuade but we can share His love. We may suffer the trespass against us but we can forgive – and forget. And many will remember this vessel of honor unto the Lord… The world may not appreciate our strength of faith, nor understand it. Not even the lukewarm and liberal Laodicean Church will agree with all we believe, for we believe the written Word, every promise and every warning, and we cannot be moved from our place in it. To those that believe, death for the believer is not a tragedy. It is a home-going, for precious unto the Lord is the death of His saints. What a reunion and celebration each of us will one day know… We live and we will die defending the truth, and the world will go on without us, with one day of grieving and the rest of their days in merrymaking, but the doors of heaven will open to us and Christ will greet us with open arms. And, from that moment on, we shall live in His sight forever… Joan Krempel
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