If you’re going to live in divine health, there are going to be times when you’ll have to be downright extreme about the Word of God. Times when you may be facing a sickness so severe that you need more than just a few moments in the Word and a quick prayer to receive your healing.
I want to tell you, in very practical terms, what I would do in a situation like that.
It’s time to set the record straight. Angels are not kid stuff. They’re not little fat babies with long blonde hair and bows and arrows in their hands. Angels are big, strong warriors. They are real. They are powerful. And if you are a believer, they are a vital part of your life.
We see examples of what angels can do all through the Bible. For instance, when the children of Israel were fleeing from Egypt with Pharaoh’s army hot on their heels, the Bible tells us that suddenly the wheels on the Egyptians’ chariots got fouled up. They just quit rolling!
Living a life of faith takes courage. Most people don’t realize it, but it does! It takes courage to stand up in the face of sickness and declare you’re healed by the stripes of Jesus. It takes courage to believe for prosperity and put your last dime in the offering plate when poverty is staring you in the face. There are going to be some days when you’d rather pull the covers over your head and hide than take another faith stand against the devil. But you can’t. Because the battle of faith isn’t fought once and then forgotten.
Did you know that the seemingly innocent things in your everyday life can suffocate your spiritual life if you allow it?
A friend of mine said the Lord told her in prayer one day that this nation had become a nation of maintenance men. You have so many things to maintain, He told her. You maintain your house. You maintain your car, your yard, your machines, your hair....
It’s true. You can become a maintainer of so many natural things that you don’t have any time left to maintain your own spirit!
There is one thing you can do that will accelerate your spiritual growth more than almost any other thing: Learn to take correction—from the Spirit of God and from His people.
So few believers seem to be able to do that. When their preacher gets in the pulpit and preaches about something they already know, about some aspect of life they’ve already submitted to the Lord, they think he’s great. They like him because he makes them feel good. But the moment he stands up and begins to preach about something they’re doing wrong, they take offense.
According to Romans, hope is actually looking at something you can’t see. How do you do that? You do it by looking at the promises of God in the Word until with your inner eyes—the eyes of your spirit—a picture is formed.
For example, one of the hardest things I ever had to do was face the fact that the inner image I had of myself physically was fat. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to change, it wouldn’t go away. I was always on a diet. I must have lost (and regained) hundreds of pounds over the years.
Jesus came to earth and gave Himself as a sacrifice for sin in order to buy back for you everything that Adam lost. He came to destroy all the works of the devil...sickness and disease included. Once you receive Him as Lord of your life, all the rights and privileges God originally intended you to have (the right to things like fellowship with God, health and prosperity) are restored.
But you are the one who has to exercise those rights!
One of the problems that hung around me for years was poverty. But I remember the day I decided I wasn’t going to be poor anymore. I was reading in the Word where it says that the blessing of Abraham has come upon the gentiles by Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:14). Then I got down to the 29th verse where it says, “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Suddenly the truth hit me. I got so excited I could hardly stand myself.
Religious tradition says that God gets glory when we bear up nobly under the agony of sickness and disease. But that’s not what the Bible says. It says God gets glory when the blind see and the lame walk and the maimed are made whole!
Right now you and I are standing face to face with situations in our nation that need to be changed. Some of those situations look totally impossible. But they’re not. Because this country belongs to God.
He’s the One who brought the United States of America into existence. He had a special purpose for it. He needed a country where the gospel could be preached freely and not suppressed.
If you were to look up the Greek word that’s translated “knowledge” in that scripture, you’d find out that it means more than just a mental understanding of something, more than the kind of knowledge that can be gained through your senses. It means exact knowledge. Knowledge that’s been revealed directly to your heart by the Spirit of God. I call it revelation knowledge.
As long as you live on this earth, you’re going to be saddled with a weakness. What is it? The flesh and blood body you live in. It’s a body that’s subject to death. A body that’s subject to the physical world around you.
Your reborn spirit doesn’t want to sin. It wants to be completely obedient to God. But the weakness of the flesh causes you to fall prey to the temptations around you.
Does that mean you’re doomed to a life of failure till Jesus comes and that flesh body is glorified?
God’s will is to lead you on a day-by-day basis. He’s given His Spirit to guide you every day.
Most believers don’t know that. They expect God to reveal His complete will for their lives in one big revelation. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t just sit around waiting for God to show you whether or not He wants you to go to Africa for the rest of your life.
Let Him begin to lead you in little things first, to tell you what you need to do about this situation or that one. He’ll show you what you need to change. And, as He does, you’ll change one thing at a time.
The company you keep has such an influence on your spiritual life. Fellowshiping with godly people will help speed you on to victory, while fellowshiping with those who are ungodly will drag you down to defeat.
That’s why the Bible has some things to say about your friends. That’s why it tells you to separate yourself from the world. Because evil companions will corrupt you.
Now, I’m not talking about ministry. Jesus Himself ministered to sinners. You have to mix with them to preach to them and pray for them. What I’m talking about here are the people you choose for friends.
Cancer. Heart disease. Multiple sclerosis. When we think of killer diseases, those are the names that come to mind. But the truth is, there’s a far more deadly killer on the loose in the Church today. And it’s destroyed more lives than any of us can imagine. It’s called tradition. Traditions rob believers of their healing. They steal the power from the promises of God. Here are three you should beware of:
The high life...or the low life? God’s kind of life...or the world’s kind of life? You can’t have them both. It’s one or the other. You have to choose.
You may try to put off that choice. You may try to hang on to the low life while reaching out for the high life at the same time, so you can see if it’s something you really want before you give up everything the world has to offer. But, believe me, you’re not that tall!
I talk a lot about faith. But there’s another force that goes along with it that’s just as important. It’s patience—the ability to stand fast on the Word of God even when your victory seems slow in coming.
Patience is not automatic. It won’t go to work unless you let it go to work. So many people don’t understand that. They somehow think faith and patience will go to work for them without their help. They just let the devil tear their lives apart and then they say silly things like, “Well, I guess God sent that trial to strengthen my faith.”
Someone’s done you wrong! Sooner or later it happens to all of us. Somewhere along the way, we all get hurt or cheated or lied to or abused.
It’s as predictable as it is painful. Yet when it happens most of us find ourselves strangely unprepared. In our outrage, we often cry out to God against the one who wronged us. We ask for justice, or even vengeance, and end up making things tougher on everyone involved—including ourselves.
If that’s been true of you, it’s time you found out how you can put the power of God to work for you the next time someone does you wrong.
God is vitally interested in your finances. He wants to multiply and protect them. But He won’t be able to—unless you open the door for Him to do it.
How? Through tithing.
When you tithe, you give God the legal right to intervene in your financial affairs, to bless you richly, and to defend you against the destruction the devil brings. When you tithe, you lay a foundation for success and abundance. You establish deposits with God you can draw on when you need them.
That verse is clear, isn’t it? The instruction is plain. Yet even in these tumultuous days when our nation is so desperately in need of God’s guidance, most of God’s people don’t do what that verse commands.
Why not?
I believe it’s because most of us are overwhelmed by the problems we see around us. How could my prayers make a dent in the national debt? we think. How could my faith affect foreign policy?
In other words, we fail to pray because we fail to realize just how powerfully our prayers can affect this country.