Healing

I picked up a brochure at church on Sunday titled “Healing of the Body, Mind and Emotions.” The instructions on the inside page read, in part, “God’s Holy Word, anointed by His Spirit, spoken out in faith will bring deliverance and health…Speak these scriptures out loud every day, proclaiming that these words are true of you…Speak these words out more often during times of trouble. It is important to say them out loud and not just read them silently. ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’ Don’t give up on bodily healing. We have been promised wholeness and healing through the shed blood of Jesus.”

Then it has several pages of excerpts from the Bible, some of which are declarations about how good and powerful are the words of God, others are quotes like “I will live and not die” or “As I have believed, so let it be done for me” or “I know that I will prosper in all things and be in health, just as my soul prospers” or “Lord, you heal all those who have need of healing.”

I think I need healing now, because this makes me violently ill. Where did they get the idea that speaking Bible quotes would bring deliverance and health? Show me the faithful Pentecostal that failed to get sick and ultimately die because they chanted these verses enough. I am not saying that PMA (positive mental attitude) isn’t effective—I believe in the power of focusing on good things bringing good things. That’s true just as a human principle. I also believe that God moves with compassion on his people. But to suggest that by speaking these magic words and brainwashing oneself to believe things that AREN’T TRUE (your body remains subject to illness and death), to lead folks into thinking they are not at the mercy of suffering, good grief, words fail me.

I do find this sad and offensive. Offensive, because it is a baldfaced lie—the people muttering these verses that weren’t spoken to them, will continue to age, rust, decline, get sick, get in accidents until which time Jesus returns or they die. They are laying claim to something that is not yet theirs—an eternal, resurrection body. It cheapens their hope to pretend it is currently in their hand. What kind of witness is it for someone dying of whatever to go about declaring the life of Christ is healing them? When their body dies, what is the world to conclude but that God failed them? Blind denial declares that one isn’t aging and winding down physically. This is not an appropriate confession for a people claiming to walk in truth.

The Biblical, Christian response to our broken bodies and aching souls is to be very unlike this. We don’t need to chant our way out of it, rejecting the pain, pushing back and denying reality. 1 Peter 4:12-14 says this: 12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” A day will come when the suffering is ended, and our joy will be more than full because of the reality of it—unconjured, undeniable. Meanwhile, our suffering gives us reason to rejoice. Why?

Rom 5:3-5 We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” There is something to be gained in the suffering—jewel-like qualities that will be rewarded by God. Our suffering gives us an opportunity to be weaned away from what the world offers, to put all our hope in what is so much more certain and solid: the eternal love of God. If we are busy repeating declarations that NOW is the time for that reward, we are picking very green fruit.

How should we endure hardship? Financial reversals, accidents, illnesses, etc? Should we shove them back and declare that they are of the devil, cast them away from us? Hebrews 12:7-9 counsels us otherwise: 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”

If we endure hardship with an eye towards God, believing Him to be the good father who filters EVERYTHING that comes to us, we respond to HIM in trial, not to the enemy who may have other plans for our suffering. We look to our Father and learn from him how we can drink more deeply from His bottomless well of life, so that on the other side of it, we are less flappable, less vulnerable to standing on the sand of our money or health or friends. But if we reject our pain as bad, we miss the goodness of God IN it. This brochure is a roadmap to missing that.

How do I not freak out about that? I care about people there, people that are obediently getting up in the morning and confessing that the millenium is now, that the benefits of the resurrection are theirs now, embracing their responsibility to believe the impossible is true. Will they take this to the next logical step and brow beat one another when the doctor's report comes back worse not better? "Did you recite your verses just 10 times when I told you to do it twenty? tsk, tsk, this is what you get..." May it never be. May no heart suffer that abuse.