Tag: faith

The Remnant

May 18, 2019 by ChristianHolinessDaily

For several years I’ve been reading stories of the miraculous things happening in the persecuted Church: stories of Christ appearing to Muslims in dreams and visions; stories of Christians protected by angels; stories of lions appearing to rescue Christians about to be beheaded. Many more such stories have been told. Are they believable? I believe that God is working in miraculous ways.

I have communicated with a handful of Christians native to persecuted areas. Many have now vanished from social media and email. I know this about them: they felt abandoned by the Church in the West, if not by God; they felt alone.

It is in our nature to sometimes feel alone in the struggle of righteousness, even here in the US. It is both easy and self-serving to believe we are the only ones standing against the post-Christian version of Baal worship. In truth, the Church in the West may be fooling itself into believing we are a part of the Church at all. Our faith paddles in comparison to the faith of Christians in Africa.

We in America may be a type of Church of Pergamum while the Church in Africa and the Middle East is the Church at Smyrna (see Revelation 2:8-17).

Yet, know matter how often or to what degree any of us feel abandoned, we never stand alone. God always has a remnant. Just as Elijah knew nothing of his 7000 contemporaries who had not bowed down to Baal, Christians worldwide are refusing to bow to the false gods of this world. We are not alone, even when we stand unto death.

Christ said, “For I am with you always, even into the end of the earth.” He is with us, and there is always a remnant.

Sin and Sickness

April 17, 2019 by ChristianHolinessDaily

In 2015, I had surgery to remove and scrape a lump of fluid from my leg. Turns out, it wasn’t fluid at all. The doctor had misread the MRI. It was an uncommon cancer called myxofibrosarcoma.

While waiting for yet another surgery to remove any cancer cells in the muscles and tissues around the tumor site, I went to a men’s prayer breakfast where two men pulled me aside to pray with me. Specifically, they prayed that my sins would be removed and my faith would be bolstered so that my cancer would be healed. A few weeks later, the surgeons flayed my leg from my knee to my ankle to obtain “clean margins.”

Though I was offended and confused by by the prayers of those two gentlemen, I knew they meant well; they are good men. However, they told me directly that if my faith had been strong enough then I would have grown close to God that I wouldn’t have gotten cancer. Over time, I became resentful of that statement. Still, I had to investigate the truth of the matter.

Is there any truth to the belief that Christians battle illness because of sin and lack of faith? That question is too big to deal with in its entirety. The question of faith-healings and faith-healers has incessantly stalked the Church for a century and a half. Any stance taken has been and will be largely subjective. Instead of looking at faith and healing, let’s see what the Bible says about sin and sickness.

We will begin with James 5, where the brother of Jesus asserts that when someone is healed of their illness, their sins are also forgiven (James 5:14-15 NIV).

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

The relationship here, though not explained, is undeniable: the prayer of faith makes one well and raises them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

Moreover, the next verse could not be clearer (James 5:16 NIV):

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

It follows, are you sick? Call the elders, ask to be anointed with oil, pray in faith, confess your sins to one another, and then your sins will be forgiven (if you’ve sinned) and you will be healed.

Still, that is a far cry from saying that the sins of the person who is sick are to blame for their illness. There is a growing belief in people that I know who attend churches that put greater emphasize the practice of praying for the sick than they do anything else. It goes like this: many are sick because they have sinned, and because they are unrepentant we won’t pray for them, but instead we will turn them over to Satan. This is a dangerous, unloving, and calloused belief. It may be why James concluded his letter with a call to rescue the perishing.

The belief that illness is directly linked to the sins of the ill was also a common belief in the first century. But, is it a sound belief?

Let’s look at John 9:1-7 NIV:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Here we see that Jesus and His disciples encounter a man who had suffered a lifetime of blindness. His parents would have suffered as well, raising a boy who was blind. The disciples look at the man and – in their minds – condemn him for his sins. But then they think that perhaps they are being too harsh. Maybe he didn’t sin at all; maybe it is his parents who are to blame*.

Jesus tells them that neither supposition is correct. The man had been born blind so that God would be glorified in His healing. God knows why we suffer illness, but we cannot with certainty determine such things, so we must not pass judgement.

While we cannot and must not conclude that anyone is sick because of one’s own sin (only God can say for sure), we can be certain that the path to healing begins with the attitudes and faith that James outlines in the steps in his epistle. Corporate confession (genuine confession must include repentance), faith, personal and corporate prayer, and the symbolic anointing with oil. One may not be sick because of sin, but unrepented sin demonstrates a lack of faith in Christ, and one cannot be healed without faith in Jesus.

Isn’t it interesting that the Bible never tells us (not that I can recall) that Jesus asked believers to gather together, pray, and anoint the sick with oil while He walked in this earth, but after He ascended into heaven this practice became the norm. Why? Because it is just as important to God that we (His body, filled with the Holy Spirit) love and care for each other in the same way we love God. He emphasized this in naming the Greatest Commandments (Matthew 22:36-40).

This too is certain: sickness and death have been with us from almost the beginning of this age and will be with us until the end of this age. Sickness and death, though, are not part of God’s ideal journey for humankind; sickness and death came about only because the first-created of mankind (Adam and Eve) chose to be like gods instead of loving and cherishing the true God. Original sin.

*It is interesting to note that even the Pharisees, experts in the Law, believed that this man had been born blind because of sin. See John 9:34.

Fading Away

April 11, 2019 by ChristianHolinessDaily

Martin Luther, it seems, so suffered from depression that he instructed his wife to be sure that he never retreated into a place too quiet or dark, and that his mind be continuously stimulated by people who lived and laughed. Luther felt that God had singled him out to suffer. He felt abandoned and alone, even when in the presence of company. He lost faith.

Once, when his wife noticed Luther in the midst of a bout of depression, she put on her finest mourning garb. Dressed in black, face veiled, she presented herself to him.

“Who died?” Luther asked.

She lifted her veil and replied, “It seems as if God must have, by the way you’re acting.”

Like Luther, I suffer depression. I often feel like I am fading away, or like there is a veil that prevents me from looking within, or like I simply want to stay in bed forever. Like Luther, I have learned to cope most of the time. He seems to have figured out how his wife could help lift him from the depths. His wife, it appears, had a few tricks of her own to help him cope. I think most people who suffer fron depression develop some coping skills, even if they do not seek professional help.

Too often, though, pastors and others in Christian ministry dismiss the idea of Christians suffering from depression. One pastor I spoke to in preparation for this blog represents the attitude of many. When asked how he counsels parishioners with depression, he responded with, “… I also tell them that they have no need to be depressed because there is an inner joy that we as Christians possess.”

While what he says is true so far as it goes (Christians are blessed with an inner joy), he is misinformed. Depression is an illness not an attitude. Like any illness, the attitude of the patient can affect the sickness, but it does not cause or cure it. To tell that someone suffering from clinical depression is akin to telling a man who just suffered a heart attack that there is no need for bypass surgery because he has Jesus in his heart.

While pastoral education about depression and other mental illness is becoming more common, it is not yet common enough. Today, more Christian pastors are trained as counselors than ever before. The science of psychology has grown by leaps and bounds, just like all the sciences.

Personally, I have no doubt that, had my sarcoma been diagnosed in 1915 instead of 2015, I would have died a slow and miserable death. Had it been diagnosed in 2005 instead of 2015, I would have likely lost my leg. There have been so many miraculous medical advances in the last 100 years that practically no pastor would counsel a sick parishioner to change their attitude so that all will be well.

It is time to start viewing mental and emotional diseases like we do cancer and heart disease. Sure better attitudes help, but better attitudes don’t heal us. God heals us and He usually – but not always – does so through the hands of medical professionals.

Just as a pastor would advise someone with acute chest pains to go to the ER, a pastor should advise someone with chronic depression to seek medical attention. Besides that, though, what can pastors – or anyone – do for those in depression? Here are a few ideas:

Do not be dismissive of their problems.
Ask them how you may help.
Sit with them without speaking if necessary.
Let them know they can talk to you without judgment.
Let them know you will support them emotionally and prayerful through the entire journey (do not say this if you don’t think you can handle it).
Let them know you are their friend and would love to hang out whenever they are ready.
Without condemnation and without cliche platitudes, help them look at the positive things in life.

Pray for them. Pray for them daily or even more often. If they will not allow you to pray with them, let them know you are continually praying for them. Pray for healing. Pray that they have strength. Pray for their loved ones and those who care for them. Pray just as you would for anyone who is sick.

We should remember, though, with every illness – physical or psychological – that though He usually works through the hands of doctors, it is God alone that heals. Every illness should be taken to God in prayer.