November 21, 2022

This Week's Teaching | Four Things to Pray For

Click to watch this week's teaching

This Week's Teaching: Lord, send those with the gift of healing!

Where are those with the gift of healing?

​I've had wonderful conversations with people who believe it's always God's will to heal. I also hear that some believers believe God never heals, but I've never had a serious conversation with anyone who holds that view. For me personally, where I land is that God can heal and does heal, but that he doesn't always heal — unless, of course, you include getting our resurrection bodies as an ultimate healing.

I totally believe the resurrection is our ultimate healing. But honestly, in conversations about whether God heals, the "ultimate healing" answer usually feels like the wild card that we play as a last resort. But maybe that's okay. In fact, if we allow "ultimate healing" as a possibility, we can plead with one voice, asking and believing for God's best in every situation. 

But for those of us who lean skeptical, it's good to be reminded that "ultimate healing" is not the only healing. Not only did Jesus heal blind people and deaf people and lame people and dead people, one time he also healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. God cares and desires for us to be healthy. That should be a core belief, ahead of debates about when and how he heals, and whether he allows suffering.  

I believe God still heals these temporal bodies, even ahead of our ultimate healing. Part of that is just what he does every day.

We tend to forget about this ongoing miracle of creation, where he has designed these bodies to heal themselves! Amen and Hallelujah. We should thank God everyday for that.

But technically, it's not a miracle, if "miracle" means something that doesn't happen naturally. Healing is just something that our bodies do naturally for almost our entire lives. It's just natural.

But then one day they don't heal.

And that's when we cry out for God's supernatural intervention. That's when we gather people for prayer. That's when we lay on hands. That's when we ask him to do what the natural isn't doing. And that's what I believe God still does.

Sometimes he heals supernaturally through our collective prayers. We are all called to this. But I also believe he has gifted some people with a spiritual gift of healing. 

But to our shame, we usually put such healers in cages or on stages. We either tell them to settle down and be normal (put them in cages). Or we make celebrities of them (put them on stages). Both should be ugly to us.

In my spirit, I believe God is calling for a new sending out of normal people with the spiritual gift of supernatural healing. And I believe the Holy Spirit is especially crying out for those who need no hyped up special event. What if the gift of healing looked more like a social visit than a concert? I've heard many stories where healing like that happens. I know some of us are having such conversations when we gather. It's good to tell the stories.

I believe God is calling for this in our times, and churches like ours that have stepped off the stage are especially situated to receive this expression of God's love. And that's what I'm asking for in this week's teaching.

As you watch this week's teaching above, open your bibles so you can follow along:

• Romans 12:3-9
• 1 Corinthians 12:4-31, and 14:1

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Please Spend Time in Prayer for The Following

• Pray for "Sam," the pastor we helped buy winter coats to give out to poor children in the Himalayas. He is being targeted with a severe threat of persecution. Where he lives that can include sanctioned violence as well as imprisonment and fines. Pray for an angelic host to surround him and all those he ministers to. Pray for safety and courage in his travels. And pray for his enemies who are persecuting them, that they would put their faith in Jesus.
• Pray for a minister in Israel who has a small network of microchurches, and is relating to our network. Pray that doors are opened for the gospel to be heard and received. Pray that it would be said in Israel what was said in the early days of the church, that "many of the priests became obedient to the faith" and "many were added to their number." 
• Pray for our own X242 network of microchurches, that the gospel would grow in our midst, and that we would be ready to respond to the call to plant new churches. Pray for me (please) as I am in active discernment about how best to encourage and support the planting and nurturing of microchurches wherever there is interest.
• Pray for those among us who are sick and in need. May it be said of us that "there were no needy persons among them."

​Amen!