To lead a significant life

In our series titled, “Have we been given power to heal in Jesus name,” we’ve been looking at reasons why prayers for healing fail. Today we continue with Part Four.

Please don’t look at any one of these reasons as being necessarily applicable to you.

Such a conclusion would be premature. Rather, you should see them as a set of diagnostic tools. A way to check your spiritual health, if you will, to see if any of them apply so you can take the appropriate action.

Demonic Interference
In the NIV translation, the New Testament contains 82 references to “demon” or “demon possessed” and 8 more for “evil spirit.” The King James does not distinguish between “the devil” and “a demon” using only the word “devil” to describe Satan and all of his hordes as well. But it’s clear that Satan, not being omnipresent, could not perform all of his evil work alone but needs a vast army to assist him.
Most of us will never receive his personal attention, but that doesn’t make us immune to his schemes. His associates are well trained and vigilant, looking for any opportunity to help advance his cause.
Compare them to criminals in the physical world who know what they’re doing is wrong, but they do it anyway thinking they won’t get caught. When they see an open window or a flimsy lock they see a chance and in they go. It’s up to the police to catch them.
Demons operate the same way in the spiritual world, only there the “open window” is behavioral. Paul showed us an example of this in Eph. 4:26-27 when he said, “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
Anger that’s not resolved by sundown that same day is an open window through which a demon can crawl and establish a foothold in our mind. Unfortunately, there are no demon police to catch him and carry him away. Once he’s in it’s up to us to get him out.
Other behaviors besides unresolved anger that can leave us with open windows include all kinds of addictions, habitual sexual sin including pornography, and other flagrant sin.
Jesus had some advice on this subject for those who have gotten rid of a demon:
 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” (Luke 24:24-26)

Leaving a demon’s habitation empty is like hanging out a welcome sign. It must be occupied by something else.

One of the reasons some folks find AA effective is that it replaces the spirit of alcoholism with the Spirit of God. Every recovering addict should receive this advice and take it to heart to avoid reacquiring the addiction.
And Paul said we can demolish the stronghold a demon has built in us with divine weapons we’ve been given as believers.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

Demons want us to believe false doctrine. Once they’re in our mind they begin feeding it to us to cause us to doubt the promises of God, just like the Serpent did to Adam and Eve. These promises include the fact that we can be healed. If the demon can cause us to doubt that, he can hinder our prayers for healing.
When we know what the Bible really says we can dispute the demon, tearing down his arguments, taking the thoughts he feeds us captive to make them obedient to Christ. In the process we demolish his stronghold and force him to leave. James said, Come near to God and He will come near to you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
Demons can seem like powerful creatures, but John said, “He who is in you greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), and Paul reminded us, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).

Remember, these demons know their Bible too, so you can’t just make this up as you go. You have to know what you’re talking about. This is exactly the way Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11) and it’s the way you can defeat the demon you’re fighting, too.

Failing to Steward the Natural
For the most part people ignore their bodies, taking them for granted and acting like they’ll last forever. It’s commonly known that much of what we eat and drink is not what our bodies really need and a lot of it isn’t even good for us. But we go blissfully on not paying any attention to what we ingest, as long as it tastes good, and most of us get away with it.
But there comes a time when some of us get a warning that all is not well. It could be mild or it could be serious, but for most, a couple trips to the doctor and a hand full of drugs with a warning that we should start watching our diet usually puts us back on track, at least for a while. We quickly forget the doctor’s dietary advice, maybe even forget to take the medicine, and go on as if nothing happened.
This is the time when we should get serious about “stewarding the natural.” Signs like this tell us our body needs attention. If we give it what it needs now, better food, reduced weight, no more smoking or drinking, reasonable exercise to work off the stress, faith building prayer and Bible study, we can avoid big problems later. All these things will result in better health, But we don’t apply them, and because we don’t we’re not prepared mentally, physically or spiritually later.

I know of a man who actually got into a huge argument over a scratched fender while he was still in the hospital after suffering a major heart attack, and made his wife, who was responsible, leave the room. The monitors attached to him showed the effect of his anger but he paid no attention. Another acquaintance stopped by a fast food chain on the way back from a trip to the emergency room for a burger and fries. Just minutes earlier the doctor had warned him about the need to reduce his cholesterol.
People like this keep smoking and drinking even though they know they’re poisoning themselves. They maintain their high stress lifestyle, knowing that it’s killing them, but convinced that they’ve beaten the odds. Finally it all comes crashing down and as they listen while their loved ones ask God for healing they finally realize they haven’t taken very good care of themselves. They’ve neglected their mind, their body and especially their faith and are in no way prepared for the ordeal they’re facing.

Our Allotted Time in Life is Fulfilled
“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16).
After Adam and Eve sinned God withdrew the eternal life with which they had been created and they became mortal. He said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22). He banished them from the Garden and placed a cherub with a flaming sword at the entrance to guard it.
Since that time man has been mortal and God has written in the Book of Life the total of days appointed to each one of us. None of us can know what the total of our days is, but when that total has been reached our time on earth has come to an end.

It’s not that God chooses how many days we’ll get, but that having seen the end from the beginning He has seen our last day and appointed it to be so. In the meantime we can be healed to prevent our days from being shortened, but once our last day has come our time on earth has ended.
The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10)
According to this Psalm, the average life span is about 70 years. But this is a principle and not a rule. And is not meant to imply that we’re guaranteed 70 years of life. However, when a person reaches the upper levels of this 70-80 year range, it does appear likely that his time on earth is nearing an end . It would then seem that prayers for healing would be less likely to be answered.

As an example,  while responding to a request for visitation to the hospital to pray for an elderly person who had been admitted that night, and upon arriving at her bedside, she looked at me with piercing eyes and said, “Are you here to pray for me?” When I said yes she said, “Then pray for Jesus to take me home.”
This woman had been in pain for years. She said she was tired, and that although she knew her family would prefer her to stay with them, she felt that it was time for her to go. This woman was sure that if she died she would be with Jesus. So I prayed and I asked for her to be healed, but added that it was her desire to be taken home. It was her desire that the Lord answered, and later that night she died and received the ultimate healing, eternity in the presence of the Lord.

Based on my research, these represent the major reasons why prayers for healing can fail. Certainly there are others. And there are admittedly many unknowns. But my purpose here is to show that God is not arbitrary. He doesn’t heal some and not others based on His own reasons, anymore than He saves some and not others.
The idea that He would do such a thing is simply man’s attempt to justify not being healed. Remember, when we try to justify ourselves, we end up condemning God. Better we should spend a lifetime trying to understand the human component of healing than to spend even one hour trying to make God responsible.

As I’ve indicated before, the reason that this study is being offered is only that  I am an evangelical Christian who takes the Bible very seriously, believing it means just what it says.
My goal in posting this study is to see what the Bible actually says about healing, as opposed to what people think it says, and to see if I could find any reasons for the disconnect between what it says our experience should be and what it actually is. My research identified several reasons, which I described in the previous segments.

In this concluding segment, I want to explore what the Bible says about who we are in Christ, and by that I mean what is the extent of our authority in Him.
We all know our destiny is to be kings and priests in the Lord’s Kingdom, but what are we between now and then?                    Let’s find out.

Ambassadors of Christ
The fact that we’re destined to be kings and priests makes us a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9) and having been adopted as God’s own children (Galatians 4:4-7) confirms that we’re part of the ultimate royal family.
In royal families the princes often serve as ambassadors and that’s exactly what Paul called us. Using a Greek word he only applied to us (2 Cor. 5:20) and himself (Eph. 6:20), he called us ambassadors (representatives) of Christ sent with the ministry of reconciliation to reconcile men to God (2 Cor. 5:18-20).
Through the cross, God has made peace with His creation (Colossians 1:19) and as His ambassadors we are called to explain the terms of His peace to all the nations, in other words to share the gospel with them.
When an ambassador is appointed to the country where he will serve, he presents his credentials to the host country. His credentials show he has the authority to act on behalf of his home country’s leaders.

When Jesus sent His original 12 disciples out to minister to the people, He gave them credentials to show they had the authority to act on His behalf. He said, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons” (Matt. 10:8).
Later He sent out 72 others telling them to heal the sick in every town that welcomed them (Luke 10:9). And just before He left, after reminding them that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him, He told His followers of that day and ours:
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:18-19).

To show that we have the authority to act as His ambassadors today, we have also been given the ability to do the things Jesus did.
[He said,] “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing” (John 14:12).
Notice He didn’t say, “Whoever in this generation” or “Whoever until the New Testament is complete” but “Whoever believes in me.” Prefacing His statement with the phrase “Very truly I tell you” indicates He was being as honest and direct as He could possibly be. That means whether you know it or not, you have the authority as the Lord’s ambassador to do the things Jesus did.

We who believe in Jesus have been authorized to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, preach the gospel, and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
 
 We don’t need anyone’s permission to do these things, they are part of our job, even part of our responsibility. They are what we’ve been sent to do, just as they are what Jesus was sent to do.
Jesus didn’t pray to His Father, asking Him to heal someone if it be His will, He commanded the person to be healed. He commanded demons to depart. He commanded dead people to come to life. He did this because He had the authority to do so.

The disciples didn’t pray to Jesus or the Father, asking for healing on behalf of someone.Instead in Jesus’ name they commanded the sick to be healed, the lame to walk, the demons to depart, the dead to rise. They had been given the authority to do so.

What Can I Do for You, Lord?
So many times I’ve received emails or have counseled with people who say, “I’ve prayed for God to show me what He wants me to do with my life. I keep listening, but I never hear anything back. What’s missing?”
What’s missing is that He’s waiting for us to do what He’s already commissioned us to do as one of His ambassadors.
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, preach the gospel, and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Why do we expect Him to give us another job when we’ve yet to begin the one he’s already given us?

It doesn’t matter how busy you are or how important your job is, you could find at least a little time to begin acting as an ambassador of the Lord by doing some of the things He has commissioned you to do. Even if you could only commit a few hours a week to this, you would be serving the One who gave His life to redeem yours.
Imagine, if you can, how different the world would be if each of us spent just a little time each week in our role as an ambassador of Christ. 
Instead of being known primarily for what we hate, wouldn’t the Church be better known for Who we love? Isn’t that what the Lord wants? (John 13:34-35).

One final word about ambassadors. They don’t try to impose their country’s culture or values on the country they’ve been sent to. And they certainly don’t try to take it over. They know they are guests who serve a special purpose.

In the same way it’s not the Church’s job to take over the world or impose the Christian culture upon it. We are also guests who serve a special purpose. Jesus told the 72 that if they entered a town and were not made to feel welcome, they should leave, shaking the dust from their feet as they did (Luke 10:10-11). And Paul said it’s not our responsibility to judge those outside the Church (1 Cor. 5:12).
Our job is to show them something better by our actions. 

So before you say that to be an ambassador for Christ you would have to leave your home and become a missionary in a foreign land, consider this.
“Our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).
No matter where you live on earth, you are only a visitor here, so you could start right where you are.
Our purpose is to introduce the very special benefits of our home country (heaven) to those who live on earth and influence them to change their citizenship.
And how do we do that?                               The way Jesus told us to.
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, preach the gospel, and make disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

If you’ve never done anything like his before, you shouldn’t expect to do all these things successfully right out of the box. For example, just as it takes faith to be healed, it takes faith to heal others. Most of us don’t have that kind of faith because we’ve never developed it, and we’ve never developed it because it has never occurred to us that we could.

But there are thousands of ways to show the gospel to people. All it takes to get started is to make a commitment to do something. And with prayer, study, and practice, we can all learn to do all these things because we have all been given the authority to do them.

It’s who we are in Christ.