We are continuing to work through the “beatitudes” of Christ as presented in Matthew 5.  We’re doing so because Jesus taught these things over and over as essential qualities in the life of a believer.  These qualities are really fruits of the Spirit that increase our intimacy with God which, in turn, increases our authority and anointing for ministry.  The declarations of Jesus that I want to consider this week is…

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

 We need to notice that blessedness comes from developing qualities that belong first to the Father and making them our own. Mercyis one of those qualities that is almost wholly assigned to the Father in the Old Testament.  “For the Lord your God is a merciful God” (Dt. 4:31). Mercy carries with it the idea of having empathy for the plight of a person and not requiring perfection in order to continue a relationship.  Related to mercy is the realization that men are but flesh and blood and will all stumble at times – even the best. Because we are imperfect we cannot require perfection of others.  That constitutes judgment rather than mercy. Righteous judgment sees to it that s person gets what he or she deserves.  It is the opposite of grace through which we receive underserved favor. I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to get what I deserve but rather grace and mercy that overlooks my great imperfections and failings. Jesus is saying that God will extend mercy to us in the same proportion we extended it to others.

A definitive illustration of mercy is found in Matthew 18. You know the story.  Jesus tells of a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. These were servants to whom he had entrusted money for investment or to whom he had loaned money. One of his servants owed the king ten thousand talents and, when the time came, was unable to repay the king. The king ordered that the servant, his wife, and his children to all be sold as bond servants to pay off part of the debt. The text says, “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the enormous debt, and let him go.”

The king recognized the servant’s inability to keep his financial commitment and that he would never be able to pay back the debt with his own earnings. The servant had taken the money, promised to pay it back, and then had made foolish or even unethical decisions that caused him to loose much. If not all,  of the money. The king had every right to jail him or sell him into slavery but decided to forgive the servant for his immense shortcomings. The twist comes when the forgiven servant goes out immediately and demands that another servant, who owes him a small amount, pay him immediately.  When the servant couldn’t pay, the forgiven servant had him jailed.  When the king discovered what had happened, he called the forgiven servant, and rebuked him saying, “You wicked servant…I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”  He then revoked the mercy he had originally shown and turned the man over to the “tormentors” until he could repay the debt. Jesus went on to say that that is how God will treat us if we do not forgive others from our hearts – not just the words but sincerely.  The story illustrates the connection between forgiveness and mercy.

The parable reveals that forgiveness flows out of the mercy we extend to the imperfections of others.  We are to extend mercy to others because God has had great mercy on us.  The psalmist said, “The Lordis compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities…As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lordhas compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Psm.103:8-14).

We tend to reserve our mercy, our forgiveness, our charity, or our empathy for those that we believe ”deserve it.”  James tells us that mercy triumphs over judgment (Ja.2:14).  The truth is that when we withhold mercy, we  have judged another person as unworthy of our care and concern.   Jesus warns us when he says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Mt.7:1-2). Mercy triumphs over judgment because when we show mercy, God withholds judgment from us.  There are two aspects of God that must always be satisfied – holiness and love.  Judgment relates to his holiness that demands payment for wrongs.  Mercy relates to love and is considered a higher virtue than even righteous judgment because the greatest of qualities is love.  The cross has satisfied judgment so that I;n love he can extend mercy.  He fully expects us to do the same.

There is a true blessedness when we give up the role of judge and release all of that to the Father for his perfect judgment. When we judge others we always fall into the trap of comparisons.  We judge that we are more righteous, more deserving, smarter, etc. so that we somehow have the right to condemn or point out faults that we presumably don’t share. As we do, we will always be measuring ourselves against others and either feel “less than” or we will have to justify our shortcomings in order to judge another. Both of those options leave us in a bad place with God. Blessedness comes from our freedom from comparison, judging, and justifying.  We simply extend mercy because God extends it to us and there is a blessedness and peace in knowing that we live under the grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father who does not treat us as our sins deserve. Jesus has covered our weaknesses and failings. Like the forgiven servant in Matthew 18, we should be quick to extend that mercy to all who cross our paths.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:10-13

The verses above are, perhaps, the most well known verses regarding spiritual warfare in the Bible. Sometimes it is worth going over familiar texts to see if the Spirit will give us any “new treasures” from the midst of the familiar, so let’s take a look.

It’s always good to take a look at the context of any scripture so that we might sense some of what was in the mind of the writer when he penned the verses. The Bible is anchored in history and the Holy Spirit was speaking into that moment of history whenever the scripture or letter in this case was penned. Here Paul was writing to a relatively small, fledgling church in Ephesus that was about ten years old at the time he wrote the letter from a Roman prison. Ephesus was a major commercial center as well as a center of idolatry. The temple of Diana (Artemis) was central to Ephesus and has been named one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Being a Christ follower was not politically correct in Ephesus. Not only that, but wherever there is extensive idol worship, there is tremendous demonic activity because behind every idol is a demon. Moses said, “They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God” (Dt.32:16-17). Two years after the writing of this letter, Nero would become emperor of Rome and a brutal persecution of the church would be launched.

Paul is writing to a church in hostile territory that would soon face persecution on an empire wide scale. If they did not already know, Paul needed to tell them or remind them of the some things we must all know during hard times.

First of all, in the face of day-to-day persecution from the citizens of Ephesus who were offended by the notion that Jesus was the only way to heaven and in the face of demonic assaults and more intense persecution on the horizon, they needed to know that strength and power would be found in the Lord. Whatever they needed to maintain their faith and stand against cultural and demonic attack could be found in the Lord and his strength would be their only real resource. Nothing else would do.

Secondly, they needed to know that the time would come when they would have to make a stand against the schemes of the devil. It wasn’t “if trouble came” but “when trouble came.” The most important concept in this text is that our struggle or wrestling is not against flesh and blood. The idea of wrestling is that the battle will get close, hand to hand, and face-to-face. It won’t be a drive by where the devil takes a shot and speeds away but we will have to engage him and persist in the contest to win.

In a microwave culture, many of us have no endurance. If the issue isn’t settled quickly, we give up. The devil is into protracted warfare that wears us down at times and uses up our resources. Understanding his strategies is key and also knowing that God will give us strength and power to resist…to stand. We may have to stand for a day, a month, or even years and we need to understand that.

Most importantly, since our struggle is not against flesh and blood, strategies and weapons of the natural realm will not do. Money, politics, psychiatry, drug therapies, self-help, and so forth will not be sufficient. We may be tempted to compromise and try to make peace with the culture around us, but Satan drives the culture and he will not compromise unless it gives him an advantage that he will use against God’s people at a later time.

Not only that but our struggle is against rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies (spiritual realm). Not every demon can be easily brushed aside. There are ascending ranks in the demonic realm just as in any army and with the rank comes more power. We need both God’s strength and his armor when the day of trouble comes.

It may be a sobering thought that “the big, nasty demons” might come after you. Some believers fear higher ranking demons and hold back rather than going after major strongholds of the enemy, Paul alludes to these ranks but nowhere suggests that we should fear them. His point is that the strength and power of God, along with our spiritual armor is sufficient to stand against any of those listed. After all, he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world and our King has all authority in heaven and in earth.

Another aspect of this verse is that in our personal. Interior struggles, the main battle is also wrestling with the enemy more than ourselves. If Satan can convince us that we are the problem, we will never go after him with divine weapons but will continue to focus on our own issues, our own brokenness, and our own past with counseling, self-help, twelve step programs, and self-criticism. What we need instead will be the truth of God’s word about us and a dogged declaration of that truth over our lives with a bit of deliverance mixed in. We too often take blame for the sinful or crazy thoughts bouncing around in our heads rather than treating those thoughts as something coming from a lying spirit so that spirit operates without opposition. Remember, our struggle is not against flesh and blood…not even our own flesh and blood,

The key to victory is found in training ourselves to look to the spiritual realm first and the use of divine weapons as we face every challenge. I understand that not everything is demonic or spiritual, but we should start there and work back to the natural. Too often we operate in the natural and exhaust every “solution” the world offers before taking up divine weapons which, according to Paul, should be our first defense. God is more than sufficient, but we primarily stand in his strength and power when we engage the enemy in the spiritual realm with spiritual weapons rather than asking him to bless what the world offers. Think about it. Blessings in Him.

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. Philippians 2:14-16

I recently visited with a young woman who grew up in church, loves the Lord, hosts a small group Bible study in her home, but continues to struggle with overwhelming feelings of fear and condemnation. She lamented that the churches in her area were “powerless to help people like her.” In many ways she had no more freedom in her life than the unsaved men and women in her community.

If we are honest, many believers today are saved but remain in bondage to sin, addiction, shame, fear, and a host of other hindrances to their walk. The truth is that other than church attendance, a very large number of believers feel and act just like the people they work with or go to school with who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them. Divorce rates in the church rival divorce rates in the culture at large. Christian teens seem to have little power over the cultural pressure to drink, experiment with drugs, or to be sexually active. A significant number of believers live on antidepressants, tolerate marriages dominated by anger and rage, live with bitterness toward people in their past, and are crippled by an overpowering sense of unworthiness and rejection.

I’m not scolding these believers for not being “the Christians they should be” because I have struggled with many of those issues as well. These believers are desperately looking for freedom, but in many cases have not been shown by their churches how to access the freedom and healing that Jesus promises.

A gospel that only gets us to a place of forgiveness but does not radically free us and change us so that we stand out in contrast to our culture is not the gospel that Jesus preached. Paul pointed to this truth in the text from Philippians quoted above.   Stars stand out in stark contrast to the darkness like the sun’s brilliant corona as it shines around a total eclipse. Jesus himself declared that his followers were to be the light of the world. Those who wear the name of Christ should stand out in the crowd by their sheer “differentness.”

Jesus spoke of being “born again” not as figurative language for trying harder or simply starting over with a clean sheet, but as a reality where something real and essential has been altered in everyone who comes to him. Scripture tells us that before Jesus came into our lives we were dead in our trespasses and sins and living under the dominion of darkness. We were in bondage to sin whether we knew it or not. Satan literally owned us. But in Christ, all things become new. Jesus declared that he came to heal broken hearts and set captives free. Those promises are for this world not just the world to come. After all, the same power that raised Jesus from the grave operates within us. The Spirit of God who has constant access to the mind of God lives within us and is willing to download the knowledge and creativity of heaven to those who ask for it. Because we have “the mind of Christ,” we should be the smartest, most creative, most resourceful, and most optimistic people on the planet in very noticeable ways.

When the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, an incredible potential for radical change is released. The door to our prison cell is unlocked and opened wide. The question is whether we will walk through that door into a radically new life or voluntarily stay in our familiar environment. Many Christians stay because they are unaware of the open door because it is only perceived by faith. They are also unaware of the destiny and power Christ offers them to set them free and transform their lives.

Satan’s first goal is to keep us from coming to Christ. His second goal is to make us ineffective. One of the enemy’s most effective strategies is to convince a believer that he is the same person he always was and will always be even after coming to Christ. Satan peddles the lie that the only difference between the saved and unsaved person is that the saved has his or her sins forgiven. Otherwises, we are still as powerless and broken as the unsaved around us. If he can’t keep us from accepting Jesus, the next best thing is to convince us that we will only experience the power, healing, and blessings of heaven after our funeral. Until then, we will simply struggle and do the best we can while our life plays out like a sad country song. That is not what Jesus has in mind on the cross. That is not the abundant life.

After coming to Christ, the essential difference between those with the Spirit of Christ living in them and those without the Spirit should soon become apparent, not as a reflection of our efforts but as a reflection of the power of God working in us. The fact that so many believers blend in perfectly with the world around them reveals that something is amiss. Speaking of Jesus, John tells us, “In him was life and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4). There was a measure and quality of life in Jesus that was unmistakable. It stood out and drew men to him. With Christ in us, we should exude the same life. That life comes through the power that heals and sets men free (Isa.61:1-4) and the power that transforms us into the image of Christ. A powerless gospel will not take us there.

Paul gave a stern warning to the church at Galatia regarding the gospel of Jesus Christ. He declared, “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.  But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal.1:6-8). Paul was concerned about a gospel that included salvation by works but an incomplete gospel also borders on being another gospel. To teach forgiveness only, without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, leaves believers vulnerable to the oppression and affliction of the enemy.

Whenever Jesus and his followers preached the gospel, they immediately healed the sick, cast our demons, cleanse lepers, and raised the dead on more than one occasion. That power was not just a demonstration that they were speaking for God, but it was also necessary for those accepting Christ to be released to meet their full potential in Him. Much of the church is reclaiming the power of the Holy Spirit but that realization has not yet made it to the majority of churches or believers in America. My hope is that a time will soon come in which no one will have to say that the churches in his or her area seem powerless to help, “for the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). I also hope that you will be a clear voice in the Kingdom of God for all that Jesus purchased on the cross for all those who follow him.

 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 2 Corinthians 6:14

Having stated the principle of separation, Paul gives a list of reasons for the separation. In general, he makes the case that because the Spirit of God lives within you, you are sacred and set apart for exclusive service unto God just as the temple was. Anything that is profane or secular that touches the sacred defiles it. To underline his command, he simply asks a series of rhetorical questions.

He first asks, “What do righteousness and wickedness have in common?” and “What fellowship can light have with darkness?” He lists two incompatible things that are polar opposites. In many cases, we are so desensitized to the world that we often don’t see wickedness for what it is. The Greek word is anomia which means lawlessness. Righteousness is living based on God’s standards or God’s law. Of course, we don’t always measure up to his standards but we have an “imputed” righteousness through the blood of Christ and an innate desire to live up to the standards. An unbeliever does not submit to the law of God nor does he desire to but lives by a set of worldly standards that have been established by the prince of this world. Although those standards may have an appearance of goodness and morality, the basis for the standards is polar opposites. The righteousness of the kingdom is based on the moral nature of a holy God who will judge men and nations. Worldly standards always place man as the judge of all things and truth as his truth rather than the creator’s truth.

The world can imitate goodness and morality but at the core, righteousness exalts God while wickedness exalts man and self. Eventually, that road will lead us away from God and the fallen nature will have its way. When speaking of light and darkness Paul simply reminds us that they too are incompatible. Fellowship implies close and harmonious association. Darkness is the absence of light and light pushes out darkness. They cannot coexist in the same space. From God’s perspective, believers are incompatible with unbelievers because the Holy Spirit living in us makes us so different from the unredeemed that we can only be contrasted not compared. Again, I think our desensitization to the sin and self-centeredness around us dims our awareness of how different children of light are from children of darkness. But God does not lose sight of the vast difference.

Paul then raises he question, “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?” Belial seems to be one of several Greek names for the god of the underworld and is a reference to Satan. Believers belong to Christ while unbelievers belong to Satan. Most unbelievers are unaware that Satan owns them and would deny that they serve him but there is no spiritual Switzerland – no neutrality in the spiritual realm. We either belong to Christ or we belong to Satan and the two have declared war on one another. There is no peace between the two kingdoms and to be yoked to an unbeliever opens the door to the presence of the enemy. Satan will always use his subjects to draw you away from Christ. To be in a binding relationship with an unbeliever is making an alliance with the one who rules over him or her and that “ruler” is bent on destroying you.

Paul then summarizes his point by asking what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever. Of course, you might answer that you both like baseball or that you both need love and purpose and those things would be true, but Paul is talking about our natures, our allegiances, our purpose, and our destination. From Paul’s perspective, you have nothing eternal in common with an unbeliever.

Paul finishes with the rhetorical question, “What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.” This again raises the question of the sacred mixing with the profane. The temple and everything in it was dedicated to the service of God. Because the presence of God was in the temple, great care had to be taken to purify all of the grounds and instruments related to the temple from sin. Sacrificial blood was sprinkled on everything on a regular basis to cleanse the temple and its furnishings from the defilement of sin. Any bowls, knives, plates, tables, censers, etc. that were used in the temple services were to be destroyed if they were ever used for ordinary purposes. Once you have been dedicated to the service of God you are not to involve yourself in anything that will defile you. In addition, idols are always associated with demon worship in both the Old and New Testaments and so Paul is declaring that to be yoked with unbelievers not only connects you to profane things that defile your sacred standing with God but also brings you into agreement with demons and empowers them in your life.

Our problem is that we don’t value the presence of God within us and the holiness of God as we should. We become careless with it and often compromise with the world and may even yoke ourselves to what is unholy in the eyes of God. But God calls us to be separate and to serve him only. He is not calling us to isolate ourselves from the world because them we could not rescue the lost from the dominion of darkness but we are to maintain a separation in our hearts and refuse to make alliances binding agreements, and covenants with anyone or anything that is not willingly submitted to Christ and made clean by his Spirit. Those relationships will always pressure us to compromise.

That does not mean that we separate ourselves from the lost or refuse to love them because God loves them. Jesus associated with sinners but never came into agreement with their values and never bound himself to them in order to win their approval or even their love. He never compromised his allegiance to the Father or his mission. Paul’s challenge is this section of scripture is for us to never forget who we are, who we belong to, and who lives within us. We must consider ourselves and all those who have the Spirit of Christ within them as sacred – as holy ground. We must also remember that those outside of Christ belong to the devil and have the spirit of disobedience within them. Our job is to bring them into the light not to participate with them in their darkness. You are holy. You are sacred. You house the presence of God. Live like it.

When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. (Matt.8:1-4)

I know many people who read through the entire Bible every year. That is a great way to grasp the amazing scope of God’s story but when we read huge sections of scripture we often miss the depth of truths that the Holy Spirit can pack into just a few verses when we take time to read and reflect. A few years ago, John Ortberg wrote a book and recorded a DVD series entitled Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. In the section on the discipline of reading the word he made a very strong argument that real transformation comes not so much from reading huge sections of scripture each day but from reading only a few verses and meditating thoroughly on the truths embedded in those verses throughout the day.

The little section above is a prime example of the many levels of God’s truth that can be mined from just a little sample from God’s storehouse. In the context of Matthew’s story, Jesus has just completed his “Sermon on the Mount.” In that sermon he spoke of many things including humility, caring for the needy, laying up treasures in heaven, and refraining from judging others.

As he descended the mountain, he encountered a leper. Leprosy could include any number of skin disorders bur each one rendered the person “unclean” and contact with any leper was forbidden and would make the person who touched the leper “unclean.” Those with the leprosy we think of were forbidden to enter any city and were usually confined to a hermit’s life or a life with other lepers. Jews believed that leprosy was a judgment by God against the sinner and lepers were to be avoided by a distance of no less than twelve feet and, if the wind were blowing and a person was down wind from the leper, they were to maintain a distance of at least one hundred feet. Lepers who came too close were often driven away by stones. Lepers were considered to be “dead” and were treated as such – first of all because of the possibility of contagion but also because they were seen as gross sinners bearing the judgment of God. They were “cut off” from the people.

Lepers lived with the possibility of being healed but only directly by God for no physician or priest could touch them. Their plight was to “repent” of whatever sin had brought on the “judgment of God” and then to desperately pray to God for healing. If they were healed, they were to find their way to a priest who would verify the healing and then apply cleansing rituals before they could return to the community. It seems that this healing was a theological possibility but rarely, if ever, seen in the worse cases.

In this scene in the gospel of Matthew both the leper and Jesus violate the Law of Moses in the sight of the crowds. In the mind of Christ, the needs of men were always greater than the demands of ritual law. Like healing on the Sabbath, the needs of this desperate man superseded even the Law of Moses. In the Kingdom of God, love and mercy always trump the rules of religion. The man himself risked the panicked response of a crowd and, perhaps, stiff rejection from the Teacher who might have reminded him that he was afflicted because of the depth of his sin and who might has sent him away.

As in many other settings, we are reminded that Jesus never turns away the desperate. Not only that, but the leper came to a man for healing when everyone knew that God was his only alternative. Perhaps, he sensed somehow that he was coming to God for healing. In the first seconds of this brief and hurried encounter he expressed his faith by declaring, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus then expressed the heart of God toward even lepers when he said, “I am willing.” No judgment. No rehearsal of the past. Only grace and love for a desperate man asking for that grace. When Jesus responded with “Be clean,” he was not only announcing the healing of the man’s skin but also the forgiveness of sin and the cleansing of his soul. Once again we are reminded that healing is available to all whose sins have been forgiven. “Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps.103:3).

Then the moment that shocked the faithful occurred. The young rabbi Jesus not only spoke to the leper but actually touched him. By every measure of Jewish Law, Jesus had just become unclean and should have been cut off from the people himself. But something else happened that no one in the crowd had ever seen. The leper was spontaneously healed by the touch of another man. Bill Johnson says that the Old Testament reveals the power of sin while the New Testament reveals the power of righteousness. Under the Law, any man touching a leper would become unclean. Under the mantle of God’s grace, the man touching the leper made the leper clean. The cross changed everything. Here is the equation. A helpless and hopeless man risks coming to Jesus to plead for grace on the basis of a little faith. Jesus responds with a huge “Yes” and the man becomes a new creation cleansed of every vestige of his past. In essence, the crowd witnesses the gospel in all of its fullness.

Interestingly, Jesus then instructed the healed leper to tell no one. On several other occasions he said the same thing to those he had just healed. If the miracles of Jesus testified that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, then it would seem he would want them to tell everyone what he had done for them. Why the silence? One interesting thought suggests that he was keeping them from facing the doubts and questions of others that might undermine their faith in the healing they had just received. After a few days of walking in healing, they might be confident that what Jesus had done was not just a fleeting taste of healing or a 24-hour miracle that faded away.

There is wisdom in that for us. Sometimes when individuals have just received healing or deliverance from the Lord they should surround themselves with people of faith until their faith in what God has just done for them is established. Surrounding ourselves with doubters and cynics right after a work of God in our lives is a circumstance Satan uses to steal our faith so that we lose what we have been given. The doubt of others can erode our faith.

After healing the man and telling him not to disclose the source of his healing, Jesus sent him to the priests so that his healing would be confirmed. That confirmation would solidify the faith of man that he had indeed been healed but also opened the door for the man to return to his family and his community. The only thing worse than leprosy was the complete isolation it imposed on the carrier. How many people in our society still feel isolated because something in their past has convinced them that they are unacceptable and unlovable (unclean)?   Forgiveness of their past and the open arms of Christ’s community is also where these will find healing and life again. In many places the church fears contamination by sinners. Instead of sending them off to live in colonies, we isolate ourselves and live in colonies. Remember, under this new covenant, we are not made unclean by our contact with unbelievers but they are healed by the touch of Jesus through his people. May we be open to the “lepers” around us be willing to touch them as Jesus did.

From time to time, having faith for healing is still a challenge to me. Sometimes my prayers for healing have the flavor of   “I hope this works” rather than “I fully expect God to heal this person.” My issue is continuing to believe for healing when I have not seen my prayers for healing answered on a regular basis. Much of the contemporary church has interpreted scripture through their own experiences rather than maintaining a commitment to bring our experiences up to the biblical standard. So…if a certain fellowship has not personally witnessed miraculous healing for a few decades, it is easier to declare that God no longer heals in such ways rather than asking what is wrong with us that we are not witnessing what we clearly see in scripture.

For those who believe in God’s healing today, there are also two general camps. One camp says that God is still willing to heal through supernatural means occasionally. For that segment, sporadic healings are simply windows into heaven that let us know what life will eventually be like after Jesus returns. For them, illness can and does come from God as a means to build faith, purify a person spiritually, or to bring glory to himself through the person who, though suffering terribly, still praises God. If healing doesn’t occur it is either because there was not sufficient faith or that it is God’s continuing will for the person to be ill or disabled and that his ways are simply beyond understanding.

The second group of those who believe in God’s healing today will state that sickness never comes from God and that it is always God’s will to heal. If he doesn’t heal, it is simply because there is something in the spiritual realm that we don’t yet perceive or understand that is blocking the healing. The problem is on our end rather than His. This group points to Jesus who healed all who came to him as the standard form the church. Not only did he heal but he never visited sickness or disability on anyone to make that person more holy. Jesus said that if we have seen him then we have seen the Father. Therefore, what we see in Jesus is what we can expect from the Father as well.

For this group, the fact that Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven clearly implies that illness is never God’s primary will for man because there is no illness in heaven. This group will also point out that those who believe it is always God’s will to heal experience many more healings than the group that is never sure about whether or not God wants to heal the person they are praying. I know that observation is accurate.

The question, however, is not what we believe but what the Bible teaches. One of the things that helps my faith in God’s healing for today is to see what God’s will has always been in this area. Let me point out a few texts on this that are helpful to me. The more convinced I am that the Bible promises healing, the more faith I can bring to a prayer for healing.

First of all, I doubt if any of us believe that Adam and Eve had to deal with sickness and disability in the Garden of Eden. Part of God’s primary will for his children then was health. Sin and the curse it brought on the earth changed the environment but did not change God’s will for his children. I believe we can say that God always wants to bless his children. Our sin and rebellion may get in the way of that blessing but it is still what he wants to do. That was true even under the Old Testament and the Law of Moses. Notice the following verses:

If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you. Ex. 15:26

Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. Exodus 23:23-26.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases. Ps. 103:2-3

He brought them forth also with silver and gold: And there was not one feeble person

among their tribes. Psm. 105:37

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. Isa. 53:4-5. KJV

These verses and many more make it clear that healing and health are blessings that come from the Lord. God often calls for Israel to repent so that he can heal their wounds and bless them. Illness came into the world as a result of sin. It is always an expression of a world cursed by the actions of men. It is an expression of a curse not an expression of the blessing of God. It comes as a consequence of unrepented sin and rebellion but as soon as repentance comes, God wants to heal. Illness, under the Old Covenant, was a curse that came on the heels of persistent disobedience. A state of blessing always brought with it healing, health, and prosperity. This reality is consistent with the nature of God who reveals himself and “the God who heals you.”

Since God is the life-giver and illness wars against life, then it is the very nature of God to heal and to oppose illness. That will always be his first choice. From the scriptures above you can see his desire to heal if his people will let him. More than that, healing and health was a covenant promise under the Old Covenant. How much more should it be so under the New Covenant which is a better covenant?

The Isaiah 53 passage above highlights God’s intent for his people under the New Covenant. This is a Messianic Prophecy. Notice what the Messiah will do for those who have faith in him. This is the prophecy that declares what the suffering Messiah would bear on our behalf so that we would not have to. Of course we are aware that he died and took on our sins – our transgressions and iniquities. That is a familiar part of the gospel. But he also took on our infirmities and diseases. The same gospel that declares that Jesus took our sins away also affirms that he bore the curse of illness so that we would not have too. It is summarized in Psalm 103 where we are told he forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases.

So why do faithful Christians experience illness? To some degree we experience illness for the same reasons that we experience sin. We live in a fallen world with a fallen nature which also means our physical bodies come with defects. Sometimes we just get sick. In the New Testament we are not promised that we will never get sick but that if we do, healing is part of our covenant. “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (Ja.5:14-15).

Notice that James does not say that Christians only get sick when they sin but rather if one has sinned and opened himself up to illness, that person will be forgiven so that healing can occur. Persistent, unrepented sin can still open the door to illness coming in as a natural consequence of sin even for believers. It can also block healing if there is no repentance. Remember Psalm 103. He forgives our sins and heals our diseases. There is an order to the process. Sin opens the door to illness. Repentance opens the door to forgiveness. Forgiveness opens the door to healing. Sometimes the sin lies not in what we are doing but in what we are failing to do…like failing to forgive.

Sometimes we get sick because we ignore God’s directives for healthy living. We eat junk, fail to exercise, abuse our bodies with sugar and alcohol, etc. We can’t ignore God’s wisdom without consequence. God has given us bodies over which we are to exercise good stewardship. Poor stewardship invites disease.

Sometimes, illness comes as a result of demonic attack. Spirits of infirmity show up often in the gospels and deliverance was needed before healing could occur. If you are part of a fellowship that doesn’t believe in the demonic or in deliverance, you may go for years with symptoms that are never quite healed or diagnosed because the source is spiritual not physical.

Healing does not come for many because they have been taught that God no longer heals in supernatural ways. They receive the best the medical field has to offer and if that is not enough they simply resign themselves to death. James said that we have not because we ask not. I have been amazed at the number of believers I have known who have not asked because they were taught that there was no point in doing so. I have been more amazed at the number of elders I have seen come to pray for a quick and peaceful passing rather than the healing they are commanded to pray for. Unbelief never gets it done.

Regardless of the source of illness, God has provided for our healing because it is his desire for all of his children to walk in strength and health. Through Christ he has given us forgiveness, promises of healing, healing gifts in the church, deliverance and wisdom. All those things work toward our health and healing because Jesus has purchased our healing with his blood as well as our forgiveness.

Does that explain every incidence of illness and premature death for Christians? No. I must admit that there are still situations that puzzle me because it seems we did everything needed to open the door to God’s healing and still did not see it come. I then fall in with those who believe God heals and desires to heal but that there are some things in the spirit realm that still get in the way. Those things have not yet been revealed to us. It is certainly better to look at Jesus and his standard of healing (all those who came to him) and ask for a greater revelation of keys to healing than to assign unhealed illnesses to God’s will and resigning ourselves to whatever medicine can do.

Whatever is promised in scripture is God’s heart and will for his people. Healing is definitely promised. So as I sometimes struggle to have faith for healing, I go back to Word and see it all over again. When I know it is God’s desire for his people, part of my covenant with him, and my inheritance in Jesus … I can begin to pray with faith again.

One of my favorite contemporary prophets is Graham Cooke. I have never met him personally but have heard him at conferences and read his books. One of the things I have heard him say that is worth pondering is that, as believers, we tend to be obsessed with our sin while God is obsessed with our righteousness.

His point is that we constantly worry about our past failures and let the enemy beat us up with condemnation and accusation. We often confess the same sin over and over and tell God how sorry we are for what we did years ago when God has completely blotted out any record of that sin in heaven. God is not thinking about our sin because that has been taken care of by the blood of Christ. He is thinking about establishing us in the righteousness that is ours in Christ.

I believe God’s great challenge with most of his children is to get us to understand who we are in Christ. We tend to live up to the view we have of ourselves. If we define ourselves as wretched, struggling sinners who are barely saved by the blood of Christ then we will continue to be just that. Our self-image will not allow us to paint very far outside the lines of our self-definition. Some of us feel like condemnation is the way to maintain our humility and, thus, be pleasing to God. But if that were the case, why would God tell us all these amazing things about ourselves in scripture.

Biblical humility is not self-rejection and abasement. It is the mindset that rejoices in who we are in Christ but always remembers that who we are is a gift from God and not something we have achieved by our own efforts. We do partner with God in many things, but our identity and our standing in heaven is still a gift of grace. If we spent the same amount of time and energy thanking God for who we are in Christ that we use to remind ourselves of our failings, we would be much further ahead. The proverb says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov.23:7). God says that in Christ we are sons and daughters of God, a chosen people, friends rather than servants, priests of the Most High God, saints, holy ones, the righteousness of God, the household of God, those seated with Christ in heavenly places, the temple of the Holy Spirit, ambassadors of Christ, the loved, the accepted, the forgiven, the anointed of God, and so forth.

If we thought we had earned that position and that standing with the Father, we might certainly become proud and arrogant. If, however, we remember that all of that is a gift and an expression of God’s unconditional love for us, then it can only produce thanksgiving. To ignore our standing in some misguided effort to remain humble is to ignore or even reject the gifts of God and to leave much of what Jesus purchased for us on the table.

It is certainly a biblical matter to acknowledge and confess any sin that does arise in our life, but we should confess it quickly and leave it at the foot of the cross rather than carrying it with us. It should never define us. It should never become our focus and certainly not our obsession. Jesus should be our obsession and who he has made us by his blood and his grace should be the only thing that defines our life.

If you are in the habit of rehearsing your past failures over and over and continuing to bring them up before the Lord, let me encourage you to trade that habit in for a better one – rehearsing who you are in Christ and bringing that up before the Lord with an abundance of thanksgiving. That has much greater transformative power than living in the past and is a powerful acknowledgment of what Jesus has done for you. Blessings in Him.

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Hebrews 2:14-15

The writer of Hebrews declared that Jesus, through his death, has rendered the devil powerless. The word that is translated powerless, means to make insignificant or ineffective. Too often, those who are involved in spiritual warfare give the devil too much credit and, in their minds, give him too much power. Paul wrote, “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’ (In saying, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things’” (Eph. 4:7-10).

Not only did Jesus render the devil powerless but he also descended into hell and either set those who had previously been held captive by the enemy free or brought enemy captives with him as trophies. Either understanding is possible. The probable picture Paul is painting is that of a Roman general coming home from war after securing a victory. Victorious generals were given a “triumph” by the Senate, which was essentially a tickertape parade through the streets of Rome. As he entered Rome, he would be riding in a chariot pulled by four horses. His chariot would be followed by prisoners that he had taken captive as a display of his power and his authority. After the prisoners, came all the spoils that had been taken from the enemy. Then the general’s soldiers and other dignitaries would come behind. After the parade, which sometimes took more than a day, the general would often throw a huge banquet, giving away gifts and providing food paid for by his part of the spoils of war.

This picture of Jesus confirms that by his sinless life, his willing death, and his resurrection he was completely victorious over the enemy. He rendered Satan ineffective and irrelevant for those who are in Christ. After the cross, the only power that Satan has over God’s people is the power we give him through sin, unbelief, fear, and by believing his lies. Ultimately, we are in the same condition Adam and Eve were in while living in the Garden. In the Garden, Satan could not assault them, kidnap then, take their lives, or even harass them until after they believed his lies and surrendered their authority to him.

Today, as believers, we give him the authority to harass us and afflict us by coming into agreement with him. Apparently, Satan has the ongoing right to tempt us and cause others to persecute us because we are told to beware of his schemes and that persecution will come to the righteous. But, he does not have the legal right to afflict us, take our lives, or harass us year after year unless something in our lives or the lives of those we are attached to has given him power. When those things are taken care of by the blood of Christ, his authority is revoked again.

I like what Jonathan Welton says about this. “ I do believe demonic forces are at work in the world, but not in the way many think. Most true spiritual warfare takes place in the arena of truth versus lies. The devil is a liar, and he uses his craftiness to get us to lay aside our identity and authority. Our battle must be understood as a battle to maintain our identity, because the authority we have been given as believers is contained in our identity.

Many Christians have reached a point emotionally where they feel as though they have been stripped of their armor. They have been beaten to a pulp. They have been chained and are being dragged behind the devil’s chariot as his spoils of war…The truth regarding our identity is that we have been put into Christ. ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28). We abide in Him and he in us (Jn.15:4). We have been seated with him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6)…If we understand that we abide in Him (which also means that we abide in his authority), then our spiritual warfare is very different: we are not fighting for victory, we are fighting from victory” (Jonahtan Welton, The School of the Seers, DestinyImage Publishing, p.155).

In our own lives, when Satan shows up and seemingly rents a room in our house, we need to remember who Christ is and who we are in Him. We need to take a personal inventory and inquire of the Spirit to see if anything or anyone is giving the devil a key to our front door. If we find something, then we should immediately deal with it through faith and the blood of Christ. Having done that, we should reassert our authority as those who speak for Christ and represent him on this planet. When we command the enemy, we should do so with full confidence that we have the authority to do so and that he must comply because he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world (1 Jn. 4:4).

We already have the victory over Satan because Christ already has the victory. We should have no fear of this enemy who has been rendered powerless, but rather he should fear us for we sit in judgment on him. If we want to be effective in spiritual warfare we must maintain that mindset. When we go onto the field to face the enemy we should walk on with the swagger of those who already know that the game and the victory is theirs. It is that swagger in Christ, the certainty of who we are, and the total confidence that victory is already ours that intimidates demons and causes the devil to flee.

If we walk onto the field fearing defeat, being unsure of our Captain, and thinking that the enemy looks bigger, stronger and faster than we thought, we will be ineffective. We will empower and embolden the enemy by forgetting who our Captain is and who we are in him and we will not win the lopsided victory that was ours. I remember a scene from a cheesy vampire movie from my youth. It was the classic scene where a priest was facing the vampire, pulled out his silver cross, and shoved it in the face of the dark one. Instead of wilting, the vampire laughed and told him that the silver cross had no power in that moment because the priest had no faith. It didn’t turn out well for the priest. There is some truth in that for us as we face the enemy. Know who Christ is, who you are in him, and that Satan has been rendered powerless, in your case, by the resurrection of Jesus. Then exercise the authority of one who is already seated in heavenly places next to the King of Kings.

Some of the newest genetic research is revealing the impact of environment and decisions we make on our own genetic structures. This influence on genes is called epigenetics and science is discovering that what we are exposed to or expose ourselves to not only affects our brain structure but actually turns on and turns off certain genes. This effect on genes can also be passed on to our children. What that means is that our children are not born into this world as blank slates ready to be written upon. They bring with them certain predispositions for certain behaviors and probably attitudes that they inherit from parents. What the parents chose to involve themselves in or expose themselves to impacts what is passed on to their children at a genetic level.

In practical terms, if a parent exposes himself to years of pornography, his child will likely have a predisposition toward pornography or addiction at a genetic, cellular level which means that his child may have a real vulnerability or attraction toward that sin as he or she grows up. On the other hand, if a parent exposes himself or herself to the word of God and practices godliness, a child of that parent will have a genetic predisposition toward godliness and will be drawn toward the things and people of God. Epigenetics is in its early stages but research is strongly pointing towards these realities. It means that not just physical characteristics are passed on to children but also behaviors and attitudes may be passed on as well.

This research adds a dimension to God’s declaration in Exodus 20 that the sins of the fathers will be passed down to the children to the third and fourth generations. This verse stands not as a judgment but a warning that what we do will affect who our children are. It’s not that our sin and brokenness cannot be overcome by the blood of the Lamb, but that our destructive and sinful behaviors do not just affect us but our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren as well. Our sins cannot only establish neural pathways that create habits and addictions in our own brains, but make our children vulnerable to the same destructive impulses. That should be a motivation for godly living.

This new research, which simply confirms what many of us suspected anyway, helps to explain why certain scriptures state that God does not punish one person for another’s sins or the children for the sins of the parents and yet other scriptures say that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. God is not punishing the children but warning us that in some way our sins are passed on to the children.   We know that demonic spirits are given legal rights to family lines through the unrepented sins of “the fathers” but now science is also confirming that our sins or our righteousness affect them at the deepest levels of their genetic makeup.

However, since environments turn on or turn off certain genes, it stands to reason that repentance and a change of lifestyle can also change us at a genetic level so that our predispositions can lose power over us and our children. God is brilliant and has called us to the behaviors that give life not only to ourselves but our descendants. As this research progresses, I am confident that the words we speak will be classified as part of the environment that shapes the expression of our genes. The tongue has the power of life and death. Science does not replace God but simply continues to reveal his wisdom and confirm that he understands our inner workings so well that he must indeed, be the designer and creator of man.

Make good choices today for your sake and the sake of your children and their children! Blessings in Him.

Easter truly begins with Passover. Passover will begin at sundown this Friday. The death of Jesus cannot be fully understood without the background of both Passover (Pesach) and Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. But since this is the season of Passover let’s focus on that element. As you know, Passover is the annual celebration of the Hebrew’s release from centuries of slavery in Egypt. For Jews, it is the equivalent of our Fourth of July, Independence Day, yet with much greater spiritual overtones. It is the day God set them free and led them out of bondage to make them a nation and give them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was a time when the power of God was manifested on behalf of his people to deliver them from Pharaoh, the most powerful despot on earth at the time.

Through Moses, God had commanded Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go that they might serve and worship him. Pharaoh had no mind to do so. One ragged, stuttering prophet Moses and his brother Aaron stood before the sovereign leader of Egypt and conveyed the edicts of the Almighty. Of course, Pharaoh who considered himself a god backed by pantheon of gods that Egypt worshipped, felt no compulsion to listen to this former but disavowed prince of Egypt. And so…God sent plagues, one after another, on the nation of Egypt. Each plague demonstrated God’s power over the “god’s” of Pharaoh: the Nile turning to blood demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Anuket, the goddess of the Nile; total darkness over Egypt demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Ra, the sun god, and so on.

After nine plagues devastated the nation, Pharaoh was warned that unless he let God’s people go, every first born (human and animal) in Egypt would die at the hand of God’s judgment. The Hebrew people were warned to stay in their homes that fearful night as God’s judgment passed through Egypt. They were to kill a lamb for each household and spread the blood of the lamb over the doors of each house. The sign of the blood would mark them as God’s people and the angels executing judgment on Egypt would pass over them, sparing their first born. Interestingly, even non-Jews who feared their God could come under the protection of that blood.

Inside that house they were to prepare themselves to leave Egypt. They were to roast and eat the lamb whose blood covered their door and they were to eat “the bread of haste” or unleavened bread prepared quickly for the journey. Exodus 12:11-13 states it this way: “This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.  On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people 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. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”   Of course, this final judgment targeted Pharaoh himself and those who proclaimed the rulers of Egypt to be gods. At the death of his own son, Pharaoh released Israel that night into the hands of their God.

Other regulations regarding the Passover lamb state that the lamb (or goat) had to be a year old male without blemish. After marking their doors with his blood, the people were to consume every part of the lamb that was edible and to be dressed and ready to leave on a moments notice which underlined their faith that deliverance was truly at hand.

Christ is all over Passover. Paul declares, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). A year-old lamb is considered mature. A thirty-year old Jewish male was considered mature. Jesus began his public ministry at about the age of 30. The lamb had to be without blemish. Jesus was without sin. The blood of the lamb marked a household as belonging to God’s people and therefore allowed judgment to pass over that house. The blood of Christ marks every believer as belonging to God and allows God’s judgment to pass over each of us as his blood marks our sins and transgressions as paid in full. The household took the life of the lamb. Our sins took the life of Jesus. After the blood of the lamb was shed, the household was to eat or ingest every part of the lamb. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53). It’s not enough that we are marked by the blood of the Lamb but we must consume and assimilate every part of Jesus into our lives. Jesus died at Passover. He was raised three days later but his death marked deliverance for each of us.

I find it almost jarring that Jesus said to his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk.22:15). What must it have been like for Jesus to go through each step of the Passover Seder with his disciples that night knowing that each part pointed to a the terrible death assigned to him in just a few hours? Yet Jesus said he eagerly desired to share that meal. Jesus dreaded the suffering to come but through the meal he looked past the suffering and saw the life and freedom that his death would purchase for each of us. Everything that Passover represents to the Jewish nation, should speak ten times more loudly to us for Christ is the ultimate Passover, our Passover.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36