Hebron Christian Faith Church - Teaching
Welcome to the Pastor’s Pen, a personal teaching that brings you up-to-date messages from the Pastor’s heart concerning God’s unfolding word ‘in season’ for our church. These are additional, bite-sized extras to our regular, more in-depth Sunday teaching series.
Pastor’s Pen
Dec 2011
God's Word - Health to all your Body
"Give attention to My words; incline your ear to My sayings, do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh” Prov 4:21-22
Numerous verses in the bible teach that healing is a covenant right of God’s people. It belongs to us, bought & paid for by the stripes of our Lord Jesus and it is just as much a part of God’s plan of redemption as forgiveness of sin, the Holy Spirit & heaven. Sadly many think God actually wants them sick, or even worse, that He made them sick! That is a lie straight from the pit of hell. For God to put sickness on His own children is not only perverse but is also a miscarriage of justice since He already laid it all on Jesus, our sacrificial Lamb. The Christian's part now is to receive what God has already freely given us in Christ.
Here in Proverbs 4 we learn a vital key to receiving healing - that we don’t always have to pray for healing but we can apply God’s word to our own bodies, like medicine, to bring the healing we need. God’s Word is health (medicine) to ALL our flesh (that obviously includes every part of our body) Unfortunately when we are ignorant of God’s Word we are unable to appropriate it. But if we know our rights and privileges in Christ, we can take God’s Word into our bodily systems by faith & it will heal our bodies, cleanse blood, get rid of cancer, destroy migraines, etc. His Word will work miracles in us! Remember, the Word of God is creative. In the beginning God created the world through His Words, He literally spoke creation into existence. His Word remains the agent He always uses to accomplish what He desires. It is the ingredient needed to bring us out of every distress. And healing is no exception. Ps 107:17-20 says God sent healing to His people through his word.
Healing is in the word & we are therefore urged to give attention to it. For example that means to attend to 1Pet 2:24 “By whose stripes you were healed”, attend to 3John2 “Beloved I pray that you may prosper & be in health, just as your soul prospers” & attend to Is 53:5. To attend to something goes far beyond just mental ascent. We must study it, meditate on it, give it our thorough attention. To get the Word deep into our spirit/heart, we have to go after it with our full attention.
Then we must also apply the Word in our lives. Just hearing the Word alone is not enough. When the Word gets into our heart, we then must apply it firstly, by consistently speaking out what the Bible says about our healing and secondly, by acting on it. This is how we activate the healing power inherent in God’s Word. James 1:22 tells us that we deceive ourselves if we are hearers only. Without corresponding works, faith will not work. Imagine if you had a wound in your body & the doctor prescribed an ointment or drug to be applied 3 times daily for the next 2 weeks. I guarantee most of us would take the utmost care to make sure we followed the Doctor’s instructions to the letter, never missing a day! Well likewise, God’s Word is medicine to our body & we ought to attend to it & apply it daily to our bodies by declaring it, 3 or 4 times a day if need be. When people ask us how we’re doing, we may not feel or look healed but by speaking the Word we are creating our health just as God did when He created the world.
God’s Word is the evidence of our healing, not what we see or feel. True Bible faith surpasses the realms of reason & sense. It is the evidence of unseen realities (Heb 11:1), the proof that something exists that is not tangible to our senses. We cannot walk by faith & sight simultaneously. When God promised Abraham a son in his old age, he refused to ‘attend’ or consider his natural physical condition, nor that of his wife Sarah, but believed God was able to do what He’d promised. Likewise we must put off the old identity of sickness & refuse to consider natural symptoms or let them dictate our life. Rather, attend to & meditate on the unseen realities of His Word, and apply it to your body by consistently speaking the Word & creating your health.
