Tag: repentance

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.

Coming Home – Blog and Podcast

June 26, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

God clothes us in garments of salvation and robes of righteousness.

Father’s Day just passed, and I dutifully put a photo of my dad on my Facebook profile. My brother, a few years older than me, wrote a beautiful piece about being a dad. In it, he mentions that he wishes he could have better known our dad. I was 6 when Dad died, and David was about 9. Neither of us have many memories of him, but – even though I am the youngest – I seem to remember more about Dad than my brother. My memories of childhood are vivid, all the way back to the age of 18 months or 2 years of age. But, we both have a new father…

Dad died fifty years ago. Mom died thirty years ago. My stepdad was no role model at all. I am a mature white male who is supposed to have his act together, who is supposed to be living a life of privilege, but – in fact – I often find myself no more than a quivering child in an old man’s body (something that adults are not supposed to admit). Yet, we have another father, our Heavenly Father, and it is to Him that I look when I need guidance, when I am feeling like a child.

In Isaiah chapter 61, there is a brief picture of the Father-Child relationship that our Heavenly Father wishes to have with us. If one reads that chapter, it passes without notice. It is found in the midst of the Servant-Lord discourse, in the section called “The Year of the Lord’s Favor.” It is adjacent to the passage that Jesus pointed to in Luke 4 when he read from the scroll at Nazareth. Here is the passage, Luke 4: 16-19 NIV:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

A little further on in Isaiah, below the section that Jesus read, the voice changes. It shifts from the voice of the Messiah – the Servant Lord – to the voice of God’s Chosen People. Let me call your attention to the first part of verse 10 from the NIV:

I delight greatly in the Lord;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,

This is, as I stated above, a beautiful picture of the relationship that God longs for with you, his child. It is the picture of a child who has come home, restored to his or her rightful place in the house of the Father. The same picture is painted in more detail in Luke 15, where Jesus tells the story of the Prodigal Son, perhaps with this section of Isaiah in mind when told it. Luke 15 expands on this picture in the homecoming of the youngest son. Here are the words of Jesus as found in verses 21-24 in the NIV:

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Isn’t that an amazing picture, our Heavenly Father celebrating when the lost repent and come home? Clothing us with garments of salvation and arraying us in robes of His righteousness? It is incredible. He seals us with a ring on our finger indicating that we belong to His house. We were dead. Now we are alive. We were lost. Now we are found. And, all of heaven celebrates. What a wonderful picture.

Oh, for the wonderful love He has promised—
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon—
Pardon for you and for me!

Come home! come home!
Ye who are weary, come home!
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!

– Will J. Thompson

When My Child Cries

June 25, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

You put my tears into your bottle... — You put my tears into your bottle…

Those of you who have children will likely know what I mean when I say that raising boys is completely different than raising girls. It is true in many different ways. For example, when my boys misbehaved, they world rarely confess to doing anything wrong, even when caught red-handed. My girl, though, when corrected would always tearfully repent of her wrongdoing – whatever it was – and promise to change. As Christians, we should be more like my girl, ready to repent when we’ve sinned.

Repentance is perhaps the most important aspect of our relationship with God. Without true repentance, there is no salvation. Matthew tells us in chapter 4 that, from the beginning of His ministry, Jesus began to “preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'” (v. 17 NKJV).

On the Day of Pentecost, at the birth of the Church, Peter – filled with the Holy Spirit – preached a moving sermon. Everyone within earshot was cut to the quick. “What do we do?” They asked.

“Repent and be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus for the remission of sins,” Peter answered, “and you will receive the Holy Spirit.”

If repentance was message of Christ, and if repentance was the message of the Apostles, then what role should it play in our lives – me and you, 21st century believers?

Repentance should be central to our relationship with Christ. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31 that he died daily. As for myself, before I get out of bed in the morning, I lay down my life before the Lord, telling Him that I am a weak and lowly sinner who, without the presence of His Holy Spirit, can never change. And I beg Him to fill me anew and provide the power to make it through another day.

And, if I do sin, I immediately confess it repent of it, and pray for more strength so that I don’t do it again. John, in his first epistle (2:1-2 NKJV) tells us that we should not sin, but indicates that he knows we will.

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

And, that’s just it. We are liable to sin; we are only human. But if we fully surrender to God, He will live through us. If He lives through us, then we will find that those same old sins – those ones that always trap us in a snare – we’ll find they no longer tempt us.

Once God deals with the major sins in our life, then He will begin showing us sins that we thought we had kept hidden from Him, or that He didn’t care about. This is how we know that God loves us. He loves us too much to let us continue living in an manner that will rob us of His joy.

God is not a ruthless tyrant who restricts us from all worldly pleasure. On the contrary, He is a loving Father who desires only the best things for His children.

He loves us so much that He carefully watches over us. When we wander, he knows our every step, never letting us out of His sight. He collects all our tears like precious oils (Psalm 56:8).

God is like the dad who takes his child to the playground. He turns loose of the child so she may run and jump and climb and swing (how would she learn to grow, if he didn’t) but he never takes eyes off her, and he’s there to dry her tears if she falls.

I beg of you: confess and repent of your sins, and ask God to fill you with His Spirit, giving you the strength and the love to change, for we are unable to change on our own. He is not an abusive Father; He won’t be angry when you repent. He will try your tears, hold you in His arms, and fill you with the joy of His perfect love. What good father can resist hugging a crying child?