09/18/2024
THE 2000 YEAR OLD CHRISTIAN
or, Praying for the Sick
What in the world was God thinking? I read in Revelation 6: 9-11 about the saints who were killed for the Lord, asking Him to avenge their deaths at the hands of the ungodly, and what does God tell them? "Wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants who were to be killed as they were was completed." In other words, He wasn't go to do anything until more Christians died!
There is a whole universe of knowledge about suffering and death and I only understand very little. I've had plenty of life shaking trials that God has used to change me from what I was, into His character but not of the physical kind.
When someone asks for prayer for a mild condition, it's no problem to ask God to help. But when someone comes to us with a serious, maybe life threatening sickness or injury we immediately pick up their desperation and fear and, with as much faith as we can muster, we assault the gates of hell to put the devil and his minions back where they belong. Then we remind God and ourselves of the promises He's made to be our healer, helper and comforter, and that we are faithfully believing and receiving the healing we ask for.
Our requests are honest and made in love and concern for those we pray for, and I don't want to belittle anyone's efforts or prayers, but when I pray, I always add something else: "God, let your will for this person be done." I am acknowledging that it may be God's will for them to be healed...but it may be His will that they not be healed, and this sickness/injury will be the vehicle He uses to bring them home--to their real home. God knows.
I don't often--that is rarely--see this being expressed. I see Christians desperate for healing and their emotions and desires are driven more by fear of a future of pain, suffering, hardship and loss then considering the "other" assurances that God gives us.
Without elaboration, here are some scriptures;
2 Cor. 4:16 "Though our outward man is perishing, our inward man is being renewed day by day."
2 Cor. 5: 1-2 "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have...an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan..."
Col. 3: 2-3 "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God."
and finally, Psalm 116: 15 "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
I'm sure you know of many more verses where God makes it plain that this world, this life, is not our home.
In short, God's purpose is not to save or extend your life on this earth, and if that's your goal, you need to search your heart to see if you understand how God sees the matter. The Lord definitely understands our suffering--he lived a life on this earth and experienced more suffering and heartbreak than all of us put together. So He has compassion for what we are going through. And yet Jesus, knowing all that He was about to suffer could ask the Father to spare him, but "nevertheless, thy will be done, not mine."Lk. 22:42
I got to know Jim and Sylvia Nickelson down in Phoenix and was amazed to hear what he has been going through these past 25 years. In 1999, in the best of health, he was given a tetanus shot, and then his world fell apart. Within three days he began experiencing severe complications that multiplied to the point that teams of medical specialists could not pinpoint the source of all his problems.
It started with brachial neuritis: Jim lost all use of his right arm and on a pain scale of 1-10, the pain was 10. This lasted 23 months. He developed Parkinson's. He couldn't walk and just swallowing was difficult. For an entire year, sleep left him: He could only sleep one hour each night. For two years, the doctors couldn't figure out how to help. Recently, his lungs have started calcifying. They're beginning to not work anymore and he walks around with a mobile oxygen tank. He had a bout with cancer and auto immune disease. He suffers from systemic sclerosis.
What is Jim's attitude toward all this? Well it's with a type of faith that a great many Christians won't understand or accept.
Jim prayed for two years, asking the Lord why all this happened, and to heal him, to get rid of the pain. God's answer to this man who was radically saved and served the Lord and his church faithfully for years? Nothing. Jim was ready to give up. If God didn't have an answer or solution, then Jim was done with Him. Then, God spoke.
"This is for your good."
All of a sudden, Jim was washed with relief. The unceasing pain began to subside. In a dream, the Lord identified the treatment that he needed, and Jim told his doctors. Feeling the presence of God, he had been assured that God fully understood everything that was happening, and that it was for his good. The pain, weakness, the doubt, the battle with despair--it was for Jim's good. Now, in the presence of all those troubles, Jim entered into God's rest.
Today, Jim's body is a mess and he knows the time is close when he'll leave this life (but he still wants to live to eighty!) He says, "I will begin living forever when I lose the thing I'm walking around in"--his body. Jim isn't praying desperately for some kind of amazing, eye-popping miracle that will get him speaking engagements from the West Coast to the East. That's not his faith. His faith tells him that he's heading for his heavenly home where all will be right. He will be happy to leave this life. He will be happy to die.
We need to pray for healing. Why? We want to be free from suffering and fear and no one can find fault with that, but perhaps more importantly, because God isn't through with us yet. He has more for us to do and it isn't time to come home. We ask for the Lord to make our circumstances better. The Lord understands, but He has something much larger in mind; that our lives and our testimony of the life of Jesus in us, in a fallen, corrupt world, will be a powerful witness that will help others to believe in Jesus. And then they will have eternal life too. Jim is proof of this. With his condition, when he witnesses to people, "They listen."
But, at some point, for all of us---and it may be a young child, a teenager, a healthy adult or a senior citizen, we will all fall under the weight of a world corrupted by sin and death. King Hezekiah was dying and prayed to live. God gave him fifteen more years. And then what happened? He died. You and I will die, and that will be when we leave this world, and begin living in our forever home.
I was talking to a friend about this subject and she agreed saying, "If God was supposed to answer every one of our prayers for healing, then you would have 2000 year old Christians!" I had to laugh, but she was right. And the fact of the matter is, as God sees it, "...our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor. 4: 17-18
This too, is faith.
P.S. I feel that this is an important word from the Lord. If you do too, feel free to share it.
