Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Blessed Atonement

The Blessed Atonement magnify

No Christian should deny that through the Holy Spirit we are empowered to live holy lives or that we are given the victory over sin and death based on the atoning blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If healing was not meant to be practiced today just as it was in the early church why doesn't it say so in Gods word? In the book of Isaiah chapter 53:5 it says "That by his stripes we are healed" That seems present tense to me. We claim that Jesus is our redeemer and yet place different conditions upon His willingness or to heal our sicknesses and diseases. We profess our faith in Him and place our eternal souls in His care, shouldn't it also make sense to trust him right now? We have a tendency to place our own limitations on God for various reasons. We ask Gods forgiveness and receive it through our faith and acceptance of Christ's sacrificial work on our behalf. We must also come before Him in the same faith seeking providence for any need in our lives especially our healing. God is just as willing to heal us as he is to forgive us. We have no question or reluctance to praise God for His gift of "divine health" which is freely given to us. When we see our "divine healing" as being unavailable or somehow dependent on a new or distinct choice by God we disqualify ourselves from it. Our acceptance of the gift of healing is just as much based in our faith as is our salvation. There is no salvation without repentance and no true repentance without "re-birth" or change in our hearts. Accepting Christ as our savior means we acknowledge our need of redemption and that we have forsaken any other means than Christ to accomplish it. Do we trust too much when we say "You Jesus Christ are my only savior and I will have no other than you" Why should trusting in God for our healing be any different? Proverbs 3:5-8 says "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes;fear the Lord,and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel,and marrow to thy bones." I think it's critical to understand from this verse what it means by "directing our paths." We have no basis for limiting how God see's fit to provide our needs, sometimes that can mean hearing Him tell us to go see a doctor.
I earnestly desire that the world would catch sight of the greatness of our Lord! In order for that to be accomplished we must first sink so that He might rise, sit down before he can stand up! We are utterly dependent on His grace which enables us to be justified to cry out to Him"Abba Father" and know that he hears. Knowing also that He is the perfect father who is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That in seeking first the kingdom of heaven we will find that all good things are added unto us. Not only does He provide for our daily needs, he provides us with divine healing,health and life! With the faith of a little child and a simple promise "I will never leave you,nor forsake you" all of our walls fall down. We are the bottleneck preventing God from blessing our lives through His Spirit. If we find ourselves in the position of attempting to explain why our ministries aren't accompanied by "signs and wonders" Let us not be so insolent toward God as to attribute it to His will...but to our shortcomings

What are these "shortcomings" that prevent us from experiencing the blessings of God?

Pride: It's very difficult for God to bless us if we think we "are" God, or if we try to put ourselves in his place in our lives. Believing that we are in control or that we can handle "the world" doesn't work. Pride is often a cover up for our insecurities which are based in our awareness of the "poor effect" of our worldly remedies. We have great difficulty defending our continued reliance on them or in putting them aside in favor of Gods ways. We should never let our "spiritual pride" limit the way's that God can "love on us." Money isn't evil,but the love of it is! Medicine's aren't evil either,but the love of them is just as evil. There's a balance to be struck and a legalistic attitude to be avoided. God truly can use any circumstances to bless us, it's amazing to me that God would provide our redemption through Christ and include in that atonement our healing. But also love us so much that He would be willing to use medicine's and give doctors wisdom to heal us as well. It's difficult to understand the love that is represented by Jesus' coming to earth from glory to lay down His life for us. Even more difficult for me is to hold onto my pride knowing it.

Unforgiveness: In Matthews gospel it gives us the example of how our unforgiveness compels God to anger. "And his master was angry,and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him." Who or what are our torturers? Sickness and disease? Anxiety and worry? Depression and condemnation? addictions? These are but a few of our "demons." Holding unforgiveness in our hearts prevents Gods spirit from moving when we ask. We need to be motivated by our desire to know God, asking God to change us and being compelled to forgive everyone in our lives who has wronged us. Mark 6:12-13 says "So they went out and preached that people should repent, and they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them."

Fear: The primary tool our enemy uses to keep us in bondage. It's closely related to mis-trust often rising out of our relationship with our earthly father. Each of us will face thousands of decisions in our lives, it's the choice of where we invest our trust that will determine who is the "sponsor" of our thought's. Our hearts and minds are a battlefield, Christ understood this perfectly. Thats why He made such a point of stressing that we should sanctify our hearts and gaurd our thought's, and most importantly...Fear not!

unbelief:
Jesus encountered unbelief when He came to Nazereth. There was an atmosphere of unbelief based in the familiarity they had with who they thought Jesus was, we have the same problem today. We believe in our power and control, we see ourselves as our own gods in many ways. In our hearts we know the definite limits of our facade and in our mis-understanding of God we project those limits onto Him.

The Holy Lamb Of God by myboogers.



I love this pic, It's awesome! by myboogers.

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