God's Big Stick

You wake up in the morning and you’ve got a horrific sore throat. Aarrgh! So you do what any good Christian does. You overdose on Vitamin C, you say, “I’m not sick” and you pray, “O God, please heal my cold.” You’re not any better by 7:30 so you go to work. You sneeze and cough your way through the day, probably contaminating your co-workers and creating warm fuzzy feelings throughout the office (not!) You go home and say to yourself (or anyone who’ll listen) that “God is trying to teach me something; I know I should slow down and this is His way of getting my attention.”

Well, beloved, God is not sitting in Heaven with a big stick waiting to whack you! Let’s break down the above scenario and look at it scripturally:

• The sore throat is real. Jesus tells us to “call those things that are not as though they are” which means that we first have to acknowledge what’s going on in our life before we can find an appropriate scripture to stand on and believe in.
  
• Vitamin C is never a bad idea (FYI).
  
• If you say you’re not sick, you’re lying to yourself. You DO have a sore throat and a cold. What comes out of your mouth should be “I’m healed.” Never speak the problem – acknowledge the problem – but don’t give it a concrete platform upon which to grow. Only allow the word of God to come forth from your mouth no matter what the situation.
  
• The above prayer is asking for something that God has already provided…healing. Throughout the Bible, we’re told and shown that by the stripes that Jesus bore on His back, we WERE healed. We often have to walk through things, but the healing is assured. If you’ve got a compound fracture and a bone is sticking up through your leg, you can rest assured that your leg is broken! But you can also rest assured that God has already healed it. (Kinda sounds like doubletalk, doesn’t it? Please keep reading!)
  
• Identifying the cold as “my” cold only tells the devil that you’ve accepted what he has given you. Remember, beloved, the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy. This is why it’s so critical to speak out God’s word because He has already provided us dominion and authority over the powers (the devil and his evil spirits) that cause our sicknesses. God wants you well; the devil does not. So don’t EVER claim something diabolic as “yours”.
  
• God sent His Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us through this life we live. He does not, never has, and never will send illness or accident or any other bad stuff to “teach” us. Sometimes in the midst of what we’re going through we’ll see Him clearly because we actually have slowed down, but trust me, Beloved, you can’t find a scripture anywhere that substantiates the very erroneous claim that God teaches us through illness.
  
• God wants your attention. Throughout the Bible, we’re mandated to focus on His Face, to seek Him, to draw near to Him, and we must do that on a daily basis.
  

Being a Christian is not a magical place where we live with no pain, no illness, no accidents, no crummy stuff in our lives. It’s life, people, but as Christians, we can do so much more than just cope with it. We can conquer it! But only when we know His word and apply His word (and ONLY His word) to our situation.