Healing and Prosperity

So much is on my heart this week, and my mind is playing squirrel, jumping in different directions, but I wanted to get at least some of it on paper.

We had a guest speaker at my church earlier this week, a healing evangelist. He started strong. God was healing people, right there in the services! There was a genuine excitement over God, and an expectation of His touch. And God DELIVERED. God was glorified. And it was AWESOME. But then he switched over to the message that was actually on his heart. Prosperity.

I had heard of something called The Prosperity Gospel before, but I had never personally encountered it. Scriptures were severely twisted and cherry-picked to try to show that God's WILL is to give us earthly riches, when the Bible says no such thing. In fact, often the opposite is true. Jesus said things like "Lay up for yourselves treasures in HEAVEN, where moth and dust doesn't corrupt," and "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Does God prosper some believers? Certainly, but he preached it like it's God's specific will for each individual believer, saying things like "God always gives his people land," citing the Garden of Eden and Abraham. "Abraham was RICH." Except, Eden wasn't Adam's garden, it was GOD's garden. And God later kicked man out of His garden for disobedience, and their lives became much harder. Jesus (who should be the wealthiest man around if riches were how God shows favor) told a potential follower, in Matthew 8: 19-20, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

I think the normal Kingdom of God experience on earth is that believers live like their neighbors, in pretty much the same standard of living. Because God is interested in making them HOLY, as opposed to more comfortable. I am thinking of the Nigerian missionary to Senegal that gave me a tour of his home. He and his sweet wife lived in a single 14'x16' room in a cinder block apartment building. He pointed to his pallet of bedding on the dirt floor. "This is my bedroom," he said with a smile. Then he pointed to the single change of clothes for each of them, hanging on nails driven into the wall. "This is my wardrobe." And to cushions on the floor. "There is my living room!" Then he pointed out his front door to the community fire-pit ("There is my kitchen.") As my wife put it, "If the Prosperity Gospel isn't true for a single mom in Haiti, then it's not true." That resonated with me. Do I like prosperity? Yes I do. I LIKE electricity and indoor plumbing and automobiles and air conditioning. It's NICE. But these things aren't the true sign of God's favor resting on me as an individual. God already blessed me to be born in America, which makes me better off than 96% of the world, and I am grateful. But extraordinary riches are not the norm for followers of Christ.

The speaker quoted Psalm 23: 5, ("My cup runneth over") to say that "God can't give JUST enough, God ONLY knows how to give MORE than enough!" When I think of this passage, material blessings of food, clothing and shelter come to mind, to be certain. But I also think of Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi in Acts 16. It says they were SEVERLY flogged, and placed in the stocks. (How do you poop?) In spite of this severe pain and physical discomfort, Paul and Silas were praying and SINGING. I would say that their emotional and spiritual cup was definitely full and running over with the goodness of God. Their physical situation, a DISTINCT lack of wealth, was irrelevant. And I think of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, imprisoned by the communists in Romania, who worked out a deal with his prison guards. Every time he and his friends preached, they were beaten severely by the guards. As he put it, "We were happy preaching, and they were happy beating us. Everyone was happy!" I think his cup was running over too, full and overflowing...

God doesn't actually limit himself to a single mode. There are many examples in scripture of God providing JUST enough: the manna in the wilderness, the ravens bringing food to Elijah each day, the widow's bread and oil lasting each day after using all she had left to make a little bread to feed the prophet. In my own life, I went to missionary school in Africa on a one-way plane ticket with about $20 in my pocket. Every time I needed money ("God, I need $1.30 for a stupid mandatory party today"), God provided. And then God provided just enough money to get me from Senegal to Paris at the end of my school, but no farther. Classmates invited me a few days later to come stay with them in England, and I agreed to go. Then the night before, God gave me through other classmates JUST enough money for train fare to get there, but no farther. After a week in England with my friends, God gave Just Enough money to get back to my family in Washington DC. And later, Just Enough to get back to my home in Texas. God was showing me that he knew my exact situation. He knew exactly what my needs were. I never missed a meal, and always made it to my destination. The whole thing was a trust exercise. To build my faith and my trust in Him.

But there are other times when God operates in His MORE THAN ENOUGH mode, also to build our faith. The feeding of the five thousand and feeding of the four thousand with baskets of food left over are great examples, as are the miracle catch of fish in John 21. "Cast your nets on the OTHER side of the boat!" Jesus shouted to them. And immediately, the net was full with 153 large fish... This also, is for faith building. Right now, God is telling me that despite my current sickness and reduced ability to work, He has me in a season of More Than Enough. I am grateful for that. Later, a season of Just Enough will come, and that's fine too.

This preacher was rightfully disinvited and another man, took his place. Many ugly things were said about my pastor and my church on social media, saying that hundreds were turned away when he was asked to leave. I replied, as did others, that no one was turned away, that the meetings were ongoing, and that they should come out and see what the Holy Spirit was still doing. I got a strong response from one of his followers:

"God doesn't put sickness on you. The devil does. Unless you get in His word and receive what He's already done for you, you'll die before your time. Staying in a religious church without the full gospel will kill you. Stop wearing sickness like a badge of honor. That's foolishness and spitting in the face of Jesus.

Why would anyone want to come where the Holy Spirit is shut down?"

The thing is, I KNOW God heals. I have personal friends God has healed of cancer, and had limbs lengthened. I have SEEN God heal people. God healed people in my own church right this very week! I know TWO women who were told the babies in their womb were dead- no more movement and heartbeat. Their friends laid hands on them and prayed, and their heartbeats returned and their babies were born healthy. I was privileged to be part of that prayer team for the second woman. I KNOW God heals, not because of Isaiah 53:5, ("By his stripes, we are healed") but because He is GOD, and has all power over our health and bodies.

The guest speaker erroneously taught that ALL sickness comes from the devil. Job was cited as an example of Satan touching Job with sickness and it's true. But it was with God's permission. But if you think about it, if God is only about healing, if the sign of righteousness with God is healing and wealth, why did God allow His Servant Job to lose everything and be desperately ill in the first place? If Wealth and Healing are a sign of God's favor, than poverty and sickness must be a sign of God's disfavor, right?

The bible has many examples of sickness coming from God at times of His choosing. In Numbers 14, God strikes down the spies who brought back a bad report with a plague, for causing the people to lose trust in God, and in Numbers 16:48, God struck the whole body of Israelites with plague for grumbling. Aaron made intercession and stood between the living and the dead and the plague was stopped, but 14,700 died. In 2 Samuel 12:14-18, it says "After Nathan had gone, the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife [Bathsheba] had born to David, and he became ill. In 2 Kings 5:27, Naaman's leprosy was given to Elisha's servant Gehazi for trying to use the Ministry to get material wealth for his personal use. (INTERESTING!) In 2 Kings 6:18, God strikes the Aramean soldiers surrounding Elisha with blindness. In Daniel 4:9, God stuck king Nebuchadnezzar with mental illness until he acknowledged that GOD is sovereign and gives kingdoms of men to whoever he will. In the New Testament, God struck Zechariah mute for his unbelief (Luke 1:20), struck King Herod dead for accepting worship as a god himself and not giving the true and living God glory, and struck Annanias and Saphira dead in Acts 5 for lying to the Holy Spirit. God is God, and can do whatever he wants. Clearly from scripture, God can and does cause sickness as it suits Him. But he also heals.

Sometimes, God chooses NOT to heal, to our great consternation. In John 11, Jesus has a close personal friend, Lazarus, who becomes deathly ill. His sisters, Mary and Martha send word to Jesus. "Come quick! The one you love is sick!" Instead, Jesus deliberately waited another three days and allowed Lazarus to die of that sickness. Why? Because he had a bigger agenda. The Glory of God. Jesus eventually worked his way over to Bethany and raised Lazarus to life. But the sisters were plenty peeved meanwhile. "But Jesus, if you had BEEN here, our brother would not have died!!!" These women had FAITH. They KNEW Jesus could heal. They had been watching Jesus work miracles for months. Healing people is what Jesus DID. So why would Jesus do it for others and not for them??? Because he had bigger fish to fry. Because the Kingdom of God is where God is glorified, and Jesus was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. But first he had to die of that disease. Sometimes God chooses to be glorified through healing the body. Other times, God chooses to be glorified by how the believer responds to that suffering, like Paul and Silas and Richard Wurmbrand, publicly worshipping God in the middle of their pain. It's God's choice, not ours. God is not a gumball machine. Insert a prayer coin, twist the knob, and get a healing out. NO! We are commanded to heal the sick and raise the dead, to showcase God's glory. We are told to ask, and so we do. Often, God responds by healing people, and I love it when that happens. But the dominant prayer needs to be that of Jesus in the Garden of Eden. "THY will be done."

In my own life, I currently have cancer. I believe God will heal me at the time of His choosing, whether directly by His hand, or through doctors. It really doesn't matter much to me which one He chooses. My job is to glorify Him meanwhile, in whatever circumstances He has me in. My own mandate, my mission in my current time of sickness, He gave me on Sunday night, at the start of the first meeting this week. It is found in Psalm 71:14-16, quoted from The Message:

I'll write the book on your righteousness, talk up your salvation the livelong day, never run out of good things to write or say.

I come in the power of the Lord GOD, I post signs marking his right of way.

I wrote a song a few weeks ago, asking God Why. "Why am I here, in this place of sickness? What is my task? What is my mission? Why did you let this happen to me?" But this is His response. My mission in this time of sickness is to come in the power of the Lord GOD, and to post signs marking his right of way. His DOMINION. A year ago, He was walking with me through the Covid forest, but it was HIS forest. Right as I was feeling sorry for myself, He showed me a vision from the movie Apocalypto, where the hero is pursued by enemies and escapes by jumping off a massive waterfall. At the bottom, he has a complete change of perspective. He shouts to his pursuers that he is a hunter, and this is HIS forest, and then challenges them to come and get him. God was telling me to buck up. That this was HIS covid forest, and that he was there with me. And my perspective changed. God's Dominion isn't just in church were people are jumping for joy and people are being healed. It is also in places of pain. Of suffering. Of Hardship. Isaiah 53 says,

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Jesus told his disciples not to run from suffering but to embrace it. It's par for the course. He told his disciples in John 16:33,

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In the world, you may have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Trouble comes in many forms. One of them is sickness. Our Job One is to focus on God, worship Him, cling to him. To ASK for healing, but more than that to adore Him. If he gifts us with healing, we are grateful. If he chooses a different path, then we are his willing servants, and he wants us to trust His judgement- trust that He has a plan. Trust in his GOODNESS. That he really does love us and have our best interests at heart. Our prayer really needs to be, "Holy God, accomplish your purposes in our lives, no matter the cost."

After this man departed, another was invited to take his place in our pulpit, and the contrast was startling. Instead of arrogance, we saw humility. We saw a preacher who came with a message, but then stood by quietly and just waited. God was moving, and there was weeping around the auditorium, as was often the case in revivals back through history. Broken people, weeping in God's presence. He preached eventually, and God USED him. But I think the biggest work of God in the service was before he even spoke. In the WAITING. I suck at waiting. But God is into it. I am reminded of the time not long ago, when He said to me, "Do hours and years mean ANYTHING to me? is there ANYTHING I can't do?"

As I first pondered the early meetings, with God working and doing GOOD things at our services in spite of the half-truths the preacher was selling, I wondered Why. The answer is that God is into glorifying Himself, and God WAS getting glory from people being healed. And Romans 11:29 tells us, that God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. I believe God truly called this man to the ministry, gave him the gift of healing, but then he got off track. But God STILL uses him to heal people. I never really understood before why 1 Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, had to be written. But now I understand. Paul was telling the local church, that even though they were moving in the gifts of the spirit, if they didn't have love, then it was for nothing. It's possible for God to use you through spiritual gifting, but not to walk in love. This was a good lesson learned.

It's been an interesting week. I'm glad he came and spoke to my church, and I'm glad he is gone. Lessons all around. May God teach us to walk in humility, and in tune with what He is doing.