When we become too busy to spend time with God in prayer and in His Word, when we become preoccupied with natural, earthly things and disconnect from communion with Him, we immediately begin to wither.
When I first came in contact with the Word of God, I was what you might call a free spirit. I hadn’t been indoctrinated with a lot of religious lies. On occasion, when I was growing up, I’d attended a church that was famous for its unbelief, but I didn’t go often enough for it to affect me.
So, when I got born again and found out from the Bible that Jesus had provided healing for me, I simply believed and started receiving. Other Christians, however, have had a different experience. They’ve struggled to receive healing because they’ve been taught unscriptural doctrines that get in their way. Maybe they grew up in a church that preached God isn’t in the healing business anymore. Maybe they spent years hearing good, well-meaning Christians say that healing isn’t always God’s will. I don’t mind telling you, I can’t stand those kinds of man-made traditions! They’re based on lies and they’re deadly to faith. The Bible says the traditions of men make the word of God of no effect (Mark 7:13). In the same way that truth sets people free, a religious lie keeps them bound. It stops the Word from working in their lives because there is nothing to produce faith. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Jesus said in Matthew 15, when He was warning the Pharisees about all their unbiblical rules and ideas, “Ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (verse 6). It’s shocking to think that anything can undercut the effectiveness of God’s Word, but this is the truth: tradition can do it. It can put you in such a spiritual stupor that you start acting like the people Jesus talked about in Matthew 13:15. Do you remember how He described them? He said, “[Their] heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”
Personally, I want to make sure that I never fit that description! I’m determined never to believe a lie instead of what the Word of God says. I don’t want my heart to get hard and unperceptive so that I can’t see and hear the truth. I want to walk every day in faith so I can be healed and blessed in every way. I’m sure you do too. So let’s take the time right now to check up on ourselves. Let’s look at some of the most common healing-stealing traditions and make certain we’ve run them completely out of our lives.
Tradition 1 – God gets glory when we accept sickness with a good attitude. I’ve never figured out how people came up with this idea, but somehow (with a lot of help from the devil) they did. They decided that, as Christians, we can glorify God by suffering physical illness or infirmity without complaining. There could be no greater lie in the world than that! Only the devil gets glory when our bodies are incapacitated. God gets glory when we have the physical strength and health to be of service to His kingdom and a blessing to others. As Jesus said in John 15:8, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” You can read the New Testament from front to back and you won’t find any record of God getting praise because someone on a sickbed said they were suffering for Jesus. No, He received praise when someone had a testimony to share with the world. In the ministry of Jesus, God got glory when “great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel” (Matthew 15:30-31). Clearly, it’s healing, not sickness, that glorifies God!
Tradition 2- God puts sickness on you to teach you something. I imagine the whole throne room of God shudders over this tradition. It’s totally contrary to the Scriptures. Nowhere in the Bible does God say that we learn truth and grow up in Him by suffering sickness, disease and turmoil. Not once in the New Testament does it say that sickness is the teacher of the Church. On the contrary, the Bible says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Look at those verses again. What do they say corrects us? God’s Word! What do they say instructs us, furnishes us and makes us perfect (or mature)? God’s Word! In addition to His Word, God has also given us the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. That’s why it’s important for us not only to be born again but filled with the Spirit. Jesus said the Holy Spirit is the One who will “teach you all things” (John 14:26). He is the One who will “guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). If we want God to teach us something, we don’t have to go out and catch the flu. All we have to do is take
If we want God to teach us something, we don’t have to go out and catch the flu. All we have to do is take time to open our Bibles. We can just read the Word, believe what it says, and let the Holy Spirit show us how to apply it to our lives. It’s a simple process. Anyone can do it, and I can tell you from years of experience, it’s a lot of fun. I love getting up in the morning and heading for my prayer-and-Bible-reading place first thing. I always get happy looking in the Word and seeing what belongs to me as a believer. It’s a great way to start the day. If you haven’t already made it a habit to spend daily time in the Word, do it now. It will change your life. You can’t read the Word, believe it and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and stay sick and defeated. God’s Words “are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh” (Proverbs 4:22, The Amplified Bible). What you learn from the Word will bring victory in every area of life!
Tradition 3 – Sometimes sickness is a blessing in disguise. The only time people believe this tradition is when they’re in church. They only treat sickness like a blessing when they’re around their religious friends. The rest of the time, they’re trying to get rid of it. They’re going to the doctor, taking medicine and doing anything else they think will cure them. Why? Because, as every sound-minded person knows, sickness is never a blessing. It’s always a curse. It’s the work of the devil and it came into the world as a result of sin. The Bible confirms it. In Deuteronomy 28, God described in detail the curse that came on people who broke His Old Testament laws and said it included “every sickness, and every plague” (verse 61). But here’s the good news: As New Testament believers we’ve been set free from that curse! Jesus redeemed us from it. When He went to the Cross, He was “made a curse for us” so that the blessing of Abraham might come on us through Him (Galatians 3:13-14). Isaiah 53:4-5 says it this way: “Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses)…. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole” (AMP).
Tradition 4 – Healing has passed away. This tradition was particularly popular among religious folks when I was a kid. They believed that it had passed away. They weren’t exactly sure when it happened but, nevertheless, they seemed certain of its demise. When I started reading the Bible, however, I realised they were mistaken. I found out that God said, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). He didn’t say, I was the Lord who healed you, or I will be the Lord who heals you in heaven someday. He said, I am your Healer—right now, today! “I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). If those verses hadn’t been enough to convince me that healing couldn’t possibly have passed away, 2 Corinthians 6:2 would have. It says, “Today is the day of salvation” (New Living Translation). Salvation means more than just being born again. It means deliverance, preservation, material and temporal deliverance from danger and apprehension, pardon, preservation, protection, liberty, health, and restoration. In other words, salvation refers just as much to healing as it does to any other part of redemption. So, if you need healing you can always be confident that today is your day!
Tradition 5- If it’s God’s will, I’ll be healed. There’s no question about it, God’s perfect will is for us to be healed. But God won’t make us get healed any more than He’ll make us do anything else. If we want God’s will to be done in our lives, we must cooperate with Him. We must believe His Word and act on it. We must also be on guard against our enemy. His name is Satan and He’s come to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). He and his little demons will rob us of everything that belongs to us, including our healing, if we let them. But, thank God, we don’t have to let them! We have authority over them. Jesus said that in His Name we can cast out devils (Mark 16:17), so when Satan tries to put sickness on us, that’s what we should do. We should say, “Devil, you get your hands off my body right now, in the Name of Jesus. I rebuke you! Sickness is under the curse and I’ve been redeemed from the curse. I am healed by the stripes of Jesus!” The Bible says if you resist the devil he will flee from you (James 4:7). But if you don’t, he’ll bug you all the time. Even my grandchildren know that. One time some years ago, back when Courtney (John’s daughter) and Max (Kellie’s son) were preschoolers, they were sitting next to each other in the car. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Courtney exclaimed, “Shut up, Devil!” “Why did you say that?” her mother asked. “What happened?” “The devil just told me to break Max’s leg,” she answered. Of course, we all laughed about it. But the truth is, Courtney got it right. She knew if she wanted God’s will to be done in her life she had to get rid of the devil. The same is true for you.
Tradtition 6 – It’s sometimes God’s will for people to die young. Amazingly enough, Christians who fall prey to this tradition actually think it’s scriptural. When they hear about someone who died at an early age, they say things like, “Well, you know the Bible says it’s appointed to every man a time to die. I guess this was just their time to go.” As spiritual as that might sound, it’s wrong. What the Bible actually says is this: “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27, emphasis mine). Whether we’re young or old when that once comes is up to us. If we believe and obey God’s Word, we can put it off until we’ve lived to a ripe old age. If we have the faith for it, we can be like Moses. He lived to be 120 and he wasn’t sick when he left this earth. He still had enough strength to climb Mount Nebo and his eyes were so sharp he could see the Promised Land from there. How can you be sure that kind of long, strong life is actually God’s will for you? Because of what He said in Proverbs 3:1-2: “My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of a life [worth living] and tranquillity [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you” (AMP). What a WORD! Those verses paint a picture of what God wants for all of us. He wants our lives to just get better and better. He wants us to enjoy the fulfilment of the promise in Psalm 91:16: “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.” That’s what my friend Dodie Osteen did. Many years ago, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a short time to live. Since the doctors had no cure, she went home from the hospital, put together a list of healing scriptures and started going over them twice a day. At the time, I’m sure there were some people who, because of their religious traditions, expected her to die quickly. But she’d gotten rid of those traditions herself so she surprised them. She kept living…and living…and living. After a while, the doctors verified it: Every trace of cancer was gone. Although her husband, John Osteen, went on to heaven years ago, Dodie is still around today. She must be in her late 70s now and she looks beautiful. She’s healed, happy and going strong. Come to think of it, Dodie is living proof of the wonderful things that happen when you exchange tradition for truth!
Those verses paint a picture of what God wants for all of us. He wants our lives to just get better and better. He wants us to enjoy the fulfilment of the promise in Psalm 91:16: “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.” That’s what my friend Dodie Osteen did. Many years ago, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a short time to live. Since the doctors had no cure, she went home from the hospital, put together a list of healing scriptures and started going over them twice a day. At the time, I’m sure there were some people who, because of their religious traditions, expected her to die quickly. But she’d gotten rid of those traditions herself so she surprised them. She kept living…and living…and living. After a while, the doctors verified it: Every trace of cancer was gone. Although her husband, John Osteen, went on to heaven years ago, Dodie is still around today. She must be in her late 70s now and she looks beautiful. She’s healed, happy and going strong. Come to think of it, Dodie is living proof of the wonderful things that happen when you exchange tradition for truth!
Article by Gloria Copeland from the BVOV August 2013
