Every believer’s birthright in the Kingdom of God is freedom and healing – both physical and emotional. Scripture emphatically declares that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and to set captives free from every form of bondage (Isa.61). It also declares that by the stripes or wounds of Jesus, we are healed. If that is true then …

• Why are so many Christians still in bondage to anger, addictions, depression, and relational brokenness?
• Why do destructive behaviors still devastate Christian families from generation to generation?
• Why do so many Christian marriages end in divorce even after dozens of sessions with Christian counselors and therapists?
• Why do so many Christians experience minimal life transformation after coming to Christ?
• Why do so few Christians experience God’s supernatural healing?

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you possess a birthright of healing and freedom that too many Christians have yet to experience.  Many believers are unaware that healing and freedom are blood-bought promises that come to us through the cross.  My first twenty-five years as a Christian, I was taught the powerful and supernatural works of God were true, but were limited to the first century.  Once Jesus was confirmed to be the Son of God by his miracles and once the apostles were confirmed to be God’s anointed for writing most of the New Testament and establishing the first century church, the miracles were no longer needed and faded away.

After that era of miraculous validation,  we were told God began to work only through natural means and every believer was then left to receive direction from God only through the written Word, to live a moral life with some ambiguous help from God, and to face hardships like any other human.  The only real difference between believers and unbelievers was  faith that when the struggle was over, you would be rewarded with peace and blessings in heaven. 

Interestingly, we are told that scripture teaches us how to live.  We are to pattern our lives after men and women in scripture so that we might live the same life of faith as they did.  And yet, from Genesis to Revelation, there is an emphasis on the mighty works of God and his miraculous intervention for his people.  Genesis points us to numerous miracles.  Exodus reveals the miracles that brought Israel out of Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness.  Joshua begins with the walls of Jericho collapsing and the conquest of Canaan as God intervened over and over again for the armies of Israel. Judges is filled with God’s miraculous touch on ordinary men and women whom God raised up to lead the nation.  The prophets are filled with miracles and then the New Testament records all the works and miracles of Jesus as well as the twelve and many others.  So from Genesis to Revelation, God calls on his people to trust him for miracles…but suddenly, when we have received a Better Covenant through Christ, God goes out of the miracle business and the Holy Spirit no longer works through supernatural gifts.

There is something wrong with that view.  The argument that God no longer heals and delivers supernaturally is based on the absence of such miracles. ” We don’t see them anymore so God must not do them anymore.”  In scripture, when God’s people did not see miracles,  it was because they were either given over to idolatry or had no faith for miracles.  If we have no faith, then we are not asking for miracles and, therefore, will certainly not see them.  If we are given over to idolatry, we are looking for other sources to meet our needs rather than the supernatural hand of God.  Therefore, we also will see no miracles.  

Any natural reading of the New Testament with its emphasis on miracles and spiritual gifts, would never lead a person to believe that God was going to pull the plug on miracles and supernatural functions of the Holy Spirit.  You have to approach the scriptures wanting to prove that premise rather than finding in its the scriptures as a clear doctrine. If God were going to make such a radical shift in the way he irelated to his people. surely he would have been as clear about that shift as he was about the shift from the Covenant of Law to the Covenant of Grace. Yet you have to search for scriptures that might suggest God isn’t serving up miracles anymore and then interpret them to say much more than they actually say in context.

Too many of us have accepted the idea that the power we see on every page of the New Testament faded away centuries ago.  Yet Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The Spirit in us is the same Spirit that brooded over the face of the waters in Genesis, that empowered the prophets, that rested on Jesus, and that raised him from the dead. .  He has not changed and He is a Spirit of power. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could merely manage crippling and destructive issues in our lives, but so that each of us could be set free from bondage and brokenness. The promise is this: “So if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).  Don’t settle or live with a sense of resignation in the face of pain and brokenness. Go after everything Jesus paid for.

When God began to deliver Israel from Egypt with a series of plagues, there were a few of the plagues that Israel had to deal with as well as the Egyptians. But then God began to exempt Israel from the plagues in order to demonstrate that his relationship with Israel was unique. We are in a unique and covenant relationship with the Father and he wishes to demonstrate that difference through our healing and our freedom that come through the power of the Spirit and the supernatural works of God. Any theology that denies that truth, is keeping us from the very things Jesus died to provide.Someone once said, “A gospel without power is no gospel at all.” I agree with that. Don’t settle. Go after everything he has provided because the wonderful works of God bring glory to him.

I rarely walk on the weird side of spiritual warfare.  Weirdness tends to discredit the realities of the spiritual realm and our fight against unseen enemies. However,  I am going to cautiously put out to sea a little ways into some speculation because the devil is up to something and I feel like the Holy Spirit is highlighting these things for a reason.

Years ago, the Twilight Zone aired an episode entitled, “To Serve Man.”  The story was about aliens making their presence known on earth.  Imagine an impressive space craft landing on the White House lawn with emissaries from a planet in another galaxy descending the steps and declaring they have come in peace.  They declared they had come to share their knowledge and abundance with earth and to eliminate disease and war.  The earth, of course, was once again on the verge of destroying itself so, out of a sense of desperation, these alien emissaries were given the chance to demonstrate their good will.

In short order, they ended food shortages around the globe.  They provided cures for a huge number of devastating diseases.  They provided keys to eliminating natural disasters.  In short, they became the savior of mankind.  The world clamored for more.  In the process, there were skeptics who doubted their altruistic motives, but they brought so much good, who could doubt them.  Eventually, more ships came and they started taking men and women to their home planet for ten-year excursions.  One of the skeptics had secretly stolen a book from one of their ships and was trying to translate their difficult language.  The first breakthrough was the title, which read “To Serve Man.”  Those aware of the attempt to decipher the book were encouraged because that is why these aliens said they had come.  In the closing scene, the skeptic who was translating the book was feverishly trying to stop a friend from going on the interplanetary voyage to the aliens’ home planet.  He had finally broken the code and to his horror discovered that is was actually a cookbook and those leaving this planet were doomed to be feasted on when they arrive on this other world.  The scripture occurs to me that Satan appears as an angel of light.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because we are about to be inundated with news about alien visitors. Congressional hearings are opening the doors on secret files containing reams of reports about UFO’s going back to the “Roswell coverup” decades ago.  Notice, however, that the language has changed.  Now we are talking about non-human entities and interdimensional visitors.  When chased, these current UFO’s seem to disappear through some portal that closes. Non-human and interdimensional actually describe the demonic.  I have seen two reports on alien abductees.  Both reports claim no spirit-filled Christians have ever been abducted and those who were threatened sent the “travelers’ scurrying at the name of Jesus.  When aliens are revealed and interviewed on CNN, beware. They too may be interested in “serving man” and what power they would have to bring about a one world government and to endorse the “anti-Christ.”  Of course, AI can play a huge role in this as well as it becomes more and more difficult to discern the genuine from the computer generated.  

I know, this sounds like conspiracy theory gone wild, but if these kind of events begin to unfold, please be prayerful and discerning.  Only Jesus is the Savior of the World and his one world government will not be established until after he returns…and it won’t be on a flying saucer.  I won’t venture into these realms again unless compelled to do so, but sometimes we need to keep a closer eye on the enemy.  This possibility is not gospel so simply consider it and do with it as you will. 

I’m reading through Exodus again as we begin this new year.  It is such a familiar story that I have to be careful not to assume I have learned all that can be learned from the reading.  Jesus said, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Mt. 13:52).  In other words, every time we search the word of God, we will affirm old truths we have known, but will also discover new insights that have great value as well.  There is always more that fresh digging will uncover.

In Exodus 12, God begins to give instruction about the Passover.  He has already decimated Egypt with nine of the ten plagues.  The final plague and the breaking point for Pharoah will be the death of the first born of every man and animal in Egypt…except for the Hebrews.  Speaking of this final judgment, the Lord says, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Ex. 12:12-13).

Until this chapter, God had spoken about bringing judgment on Pharoah and the nation of Egypt.  But in summary, he says, I will bring judgment on “all the gods of Egypt.”  One of the most important revelations of scripture is the spiritual realm that exists and powerfully influences the physical realm.  Even as Christians, who have been given a greater revelation than the Old Testament men and women of faith received, we often forget that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual rulers and powers in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).

The Old Testament does reveal that behind every idol was a demonic spirit drawing people away from God through false worship.  We tend to think of demons as spirits who always torment and bring devastation into the lives of people they touch.  Ultimately that is true, but in the beginning these spirits can bestow power, fame, riches, relationships and all the things people hunger for, believing that their happiness and even salvation will be found in those worldly pursuits. But after a while, the demons take control and control their followers through fear, threats and intimidation. Their end game is destruction, but they often begin with things perceived as blessings.  

People follow the demonic because they believe that Satan is more powerful than the God of the Bible.  Many who have fallen deep into the occult, are amazed to discover that Jesus has more power and authority that Satan. When they discover the truth, they often renounce Satan and give their lives to Jesus.  

Ultimately, God’s plagues on Egypt were displays of his power and authority over demons or the false gods of Egypt who claimed to be all powerful.  The showdowns that took place in Pharoah’s court time after time, were between the one true God and the false god’s whom Egypt worshipped…the Nile that was turned into blood, the sun god that was blocked out by darkness for three days, the first born of Pharoah who also claimed to be a living god, and so forth. Each plague either directly or indirectly demonstrated God’s power was greater than the power and authority of a “false god.”  

In a secular world, we don’t think in terms of false gods because we don’t erect idols to them or build temples to them…but they still influence the culture and create their own worshippers.  There are demons behind wealth – Baal, the god of fertility and prosperity.  There is Molech, the god who prompts his followers to offer their children in sacrifice to obtain blessings.  There is Ishtar, the goddess of sex, immorality, and gender confusion whom some worship for an entire month in June each year.   How many of us treat celebrities and power brokers as gods and pursue career, fame and success as if it provided some form of eternal salvation?  

Eventually, these gods must fall to either the gospel of Jesus Christ who brings men to faith and banishes false gods from their hearts or to the judgment of God on a nation that demonstrates his power and authority over each one.  Our God is a jealous God who hates the enemy because he draws those whom God loves into eternal punishment. In America, we need to recognize the reality of spiritual warfare…not just in the lives of individuals but also in the life of the nation. We need to pray.  We need to speak out against sin and corruption.  We need to declare the Lordship of Jesus and vote for righteousness.  We need to share the gospel with those we encounter. The future of our nation lies in the spiritual realm not in the realm of politics or Wall Street.  In this year to come, we must remember that more than ever.