Is The Law Of Attraction In The Bible?

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The concept of the “Law of Attraction” was made famous by the book “The Secret” which was published in 2006, and its material has garnered quite a bit of attention over the last decade. This “law” is based on the idea that the things we release as far as our hopes, dreams, goals, and most specifically our inner intentions go out into the universe where they will then be reflected back upon us with the things that we desire. The term most often used for this is “manifesting”, where someone releases an intention into the universe and “manifests” their will. While the concepts in it are usually applied to money or possessions, and are not new ideas even among the New Age where it is primarily marketed and targeted, it certainly can be confusing to a reader who feels like the information resonates in some way but isn’t sure how this “Law of Attraction” fits in with biblical principles. Let’s take a look at the answer to the question, “Is The Law of Attraction in the Bible?”

The simple answer is “No . . . and Yes.” So, really, not so simple after all.

The Law of Attraction as it is usually touted is based on the concept of a benevolent and intelligent Universe that keeps track of our thoughts and intentions and reflects them back upon us. Keep in mind that “universe” is always capitalized in this context because it is treated not as an inanimate existence, but a benevolent force with a mind of its own. In fact, this Universe sounds SO benevolent that it almost could be mistaken for God. And that’s really where it fails the Biblical sniff-test. This teaching takes the created universe and elevates it to the level of God, something that believers were warned about pretty clearly in Romans 1:18-23. The passage is actually pretty enlightening regarding this subject, so let’s read the whole thing then continue:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

While the focus of the verse is on the wrath of God, let’s skip that part and look at the why of the wrath. It says that God has made His nature plain to everyone because of what? The creation. God’s creation displays His invisible qualities, such as His eternal power and divine nature. Furthermore, it goes on to explain that because this is all clearly visible in creation, everyone is without excuse.

Here’s where this connects with The Law of Attraction and “The Secret”: In verse 20 it says, “for since the creation of the world. . . ” That word for “world” isn’t actually the word world, but the Greek word “kosmos” (Strongs G2889), which is, unsurprisingly, the English word “cosmos.” Another word for the “cosmos” is the “universe.” If we read it with that in mind, it tells us that the Universe spoken of in the Law of Attraction is 1) a created thing and 2) that it points directly to God’s power and divinity, so we are without an excuse to deny His existence.

The New Age has taken the universe as a created entity and done what the rest of the passage speaks of—turned it into what is essentially an idol to worship. This is where the New Age concept of the Law of Attraction isn’t just not-biblical, but is actually fairly anti-christ in nature, putting the focus on created beings instead of the One True God.

There’s more to the story however, because as I said before, it is both unbiblical and biblical. Let’s look at the other side of the equation, but before we do that, let’s ask ourselves the question, “Why is the Law of Attraction so attractive?”

What makes this idea so attractive are actually two primary things:
1) It has a positive feeling connected to it.
2) It works.

If it was just that someone gets good feels related to the idea, that wouldn’t really be enough to keep people on board long-term, but the fact that it actually works is why this idea is propagated and is partly why people are, dare I say, attracted to the Law of Attraction. People like things that work and people tend to tell others about things they have tried that work. In other words, the Law of Attraction gets a lot of word-of-mouth advertising when people find it effective. Since that’s the case, let’s take a peek at what about it is scriptural, and how we can put that to use in our own lives.

There are two primary verses that can be used to explain the Law of Attraction in Scripture. The first is Luke 6:37-38 which says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

It’s quite simple—what we put out, we get back, whether it is judgments, condemnation, forgiveness, or anything else at all. Furthermore, when we put it out, we get it back in a greater degree than we put it out, so there is a wisdom-nugget in there to be wise about what and how we act and think because “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The second passage that expresses this concept is Galatians 6:7-9 which states:

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

This passage shows us another aspect of this Law—that really, the Law of Attraction is simply the Law of Sowing and Reaping by a different name. It makes a mockery of God to think we can sow without reaping, because whatever we sow, we are guaranteed to reap. Galatians 6 has two tidbits of wisdom for us as well in this regard. The first is to pay attention to what we sow, because everything either brings death or life with it in return. The second nugget of wisdom is that we must persevere in our sowing because while things do not always appear immediately, as long as we persist, we will receive our harvest. Hebrews 6:12 explains that concept by saying, “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Faith and patience are primary keys to reaping what we have sown.

To answer the “Yes” side of “is the Law of Attraction biblical, it is literally just a repackaging of the Biblical principle of sowing and reaping. It says that whatever we put out, we will get back . . in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.

One key point to remember here is that our prayers, our thoughts, our words, and even our actions all play a role in sowing and reaping. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The last part, thoughts and intents of the heart means exactly what it sounds like—the things we think and our intentions and expectations for things. That’s why Proverbs 23:7a says, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The things we think, we become—sowing and reaping yet again.

There are other ways of expressing this concept, such as “what you behold, you become” but at the end of the day whether we call it “Beholding”, “the Law of Focus”, “the Law of Attraction”, “Sowing and Reaping”, or something else entirely, it is all just various ways of expressing the well-supported biblical concept that what we put out, we will receive back in like kind. Even Jesus taught on this subject. However, regardless of what one reads and what tools someone decides to use related to intention, manifestation, faith, and attraction, please let us always keep in mind that we aren’t sowing it out to a benevolent and sentient Universe, but a benevolent and sentient God who created that universe. And let us always remember what Psalm 37:4 says, which is that as we delight in Him, this benevolent and sentient God of the cosmos will give us the desires of our hearts.

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Should We Prophesy About Dates, Spouses, And Life-Altering Decisions?

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Over the past century, God has been restoring the prophetic to the Body of Christ. People have been learning about the gifts of the spirit, prophets, discernment, hearing God’s voice, and more. One of the things that are commonly taught when learning about prophecy are the three things that we should never prophesy. The first is dates that things will or will not happen. The second is who we will or will not marry, and the third is about any kind of life-altering decision. Should we prophesy about dates, spouses, and life-altering decisions? Let’s find out.

My dad is a Charismatic-leaning Episcopal priest, and he doesn’t like dealing with the prophetic. Why? Because he absolutely hates when people say foolish things and tack a “well, God told me so it must be true/wise/good” on the end. He’s always like “That’s the ultimate trump card. What am I supposed to say to argue with that, even though it’s obviously a dumb idea?” His solution to issues like this is to avoid it as much as possible, much like the prohibition on prophesying about dates, spouses, and decisions. There is some wisdom behind this to a certain extent, but it is also somewhat of a reaction to past abuses, and there is a risk that we inhibit future growth by avoiding these topics entirely.

Before going further, let’s look a little at the levels of prophecy in scripture. In 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul outlines the gifts of the Spirit, and in 1 Corinthians 14 he expounds in more depth on the gifts of prophecy and tongues. Prophecy, in that context, is for building up others, strengthening one another, and comfort. There is another passage in Ephesians 4 that talks about prophets as a gift of Jesus to the Body of Christ. Some argue that anyone who can prophesy is a prophet, but the gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit and the gift of the prophet from Jesus are two different things. Both can prophesy, but I suggest their functions are different. Furthermore, Romans 12:6 says, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith . . .” Prophecy, then, has levels that are in some measure designated by our level of faith as well.

The common teaching in spirit-filled circles is that while all people can prophesy for building up, strengthening, and comfort, only people with the designated title of “prophet” should go in further depth and speak about dates, spouses, life decisions, and other more “risky” things. The rationale there is that certain people have a special grace to prophesy those things that others don’t have as a result of their “office” as a prophet. While I definitely agree that there are real prophets and there are differences between the grace on their life and that of non-prophets, I don’t think it means that no one else can prophesy about the three areas in question.

One of the major reasons people teach that no one else should prophesy on these subjects is due to a combination of fear and wisdom. Fear says that bad things have happened before and people have made bad decisions from prophecies that were inaccurate, so we should avoid it entirely. Wisdom says that people have made bad decisions from prophecies that were in accurate so we need to pay attention to who, how, where, and when we deal with those types of prophetic words. The former is focused on how bad the problem is while the latter on how to avoid the problem, but in reality both have the potential to miss a third aspect of the situation: discernment.

If we do not teach the body how to rightly discern between God’s voice, our own mental clutter and baggage and noise, and the enemy, then no amount of rules are going to fix the problem. Hebrews 5:14 says that we learn to discern through constant use. If we are never put into challenging situations, we will never hone our discernment. As a teacher, I want people to learn and grow, so I see no value in making arbitrary rules out of fear to avoid a problem that might or might not come up. Actually, I expect that not only will we have situations that are less than optimal, but that these moments are teaching opportunities. Why should we expect people to grow if there is no challenge?

Initially when prophets came into the Charismatic scene, there were some pretty impressive displays of accurate prophetic unction, including words of knowledge of people’s names, birthdates, social security numbers, and other very detailed information about their lives that God would share with the person ministering. Then, as excesses came into the movement and God and people began to work on stewarding things better, God was having people learn how to hear his voice and there was a pulling-back on the so-called extravagant prophetic words. However, I believe it is time for the pendulum to swing back in the other direction. We need men and women of God who know how to not only hear very specific and important information, but when to share it and with whom.

Most of the time I have seen rules put into place about what may and may not be prophesied, it is in situations with highly legalistic, dysfunctional, and manipulative leadership. That isn’t to say that all leaders who make those kinds of rules are those things, but “you shall and shall not say these sorts of things from God” rules are rarely in the heart of God for a situation. Certainly, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that the spirit of a prophet is subject to his or her control, and there are times and situations to exercise wisdom and restraint, but that isn’t usually what is happening.

As I see it, there is a measure of wisdom in stewardship, but also a good deal of fear veiled as wisdom. I believe we need to expect both the person prophesying and the person receiving the word to discern the veracity of the prophecy. We also need to make sure we are teaching people how to discern prophetic words and not just avoid talking about certain subjects. If God can speak through a donkey, then He can tell what he likes to whom He likes, and it isn’t our job to place man-made rules on who may or may not prophesy certain things. In fact, the moment we lay down those rules is probably the moment God is going to put someone in our path to break those rules, and while we will call them “rebellious”, there is a good chance God put them there on purpose to break them because they are stupid rules, although usually well-intentioned stupid ones.

I have learned over time that I am pretty bad about hearing dates accurately, so I personally just avoid telling people dates. Why? Because if I prophesy according to my faith with maturity, then I won’t mislead people when I already know I’m usually wrong about dates. I also have a high personal level of responsibility toward discerning and delivering prophetic words. I test it internally and make sure I am confident it comes from God before ever delivering it, as everyone should do before speaking a prophecy to someone else.

At the end of the day, if we want to see people grow in the prophetic, we can’t avoid the difficult areas. Mind you, we also don’t want to be foolish either, so as God pushes the Church to elevate the prophetic to new heights once again, we have some work to do. If we teach people not only how to discern God’s voice as the one giving the word, but to test every word we receive on the other end, then regardless of the situation, we can avoid a lot of problems while still engaging all that God has for us and the wisdom He wants to speak to and through us.

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How Much Life Do You Want?

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My wife tells me that I flit from thing to thing and idea to idea—and she’s not entirely wrong. It’s just that in my moving from one subject to another, whether in prayer and contemplation, writing, or otherwise, I tend to circle back around to the same subjects over and over again. The subjects of life and immortality are some of these ideas that I keep coming back to, so the other day I was spending some time in prayer and discussion with the Holy Spirit while driving to work. As I did so, I began to inquire about how we can practically engage the revelation of immortality in Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 1:10-11) to live and not die.

One point I made was that we know that this is enacted in part in our thoughts and words on an ongoing basis. As Proverbs 18:32 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” The things we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts alter our reality, and we receive the results of that fruit, whether nourishing or poisonous. If we speak death over ourselves, it should be no surprise when we grow sick, old, and die. Likewise if we spend even a few minutes each day praying and decreeing life in our bodies then we can expect to live healthier, more vibrant lives. Nevertheless, this can’t be the only piece to that puzzle, as if that is all there was to it, then we’d be there already. As I pointed this out, Holy Spirit nudged me that this is indeed an important step in the process that I have been neglecting, and that is partly because in some ways it seems almost too simple to be true.

I was reminded of the story of Naaman, the commander of the King of Aram’s army. He contracted leprosy, and sought out Elisha the prophet to heal him. He got angry when Elisha didn’t even meet him in person, and sent a messenger to tell him to wash very specifically in the Jordan River. Naaman got very angry, complained that many other rivers were better, and left in a rage. His servant spoke to him and said something that showed great wisdom on his part. “Naaman’s servants went to him and said, ‘My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!’ So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.”

Sometimes we write off the simple things because they seem too simple, and I have been guilty of this. Nevertheless, while speaking life over ourselves daily is a useful and important habit to build, if that was all it took, I wouldn’t be asking the Holy Spirit how we can walk in this reality, as masses of people would have been doing this for centuries and living thousands of years at a time. So, we continued chatting briefly, as I began to ask more questions about how we can live this out and have it work for us here and now without having to wait for decades of speaking life over ourselves for this revelation of immortal, abundant life to work gradually over time.

Well, Holy Spirit asked me an interesting question, saying “Since you have been set free from death, the question really becomes ‘how much life do you want?'”

At first glance this might sound a bit strange, but the scriptures confirm that we have, indeed, already been set free from sin and death. Romans 8:1-2 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” If we think about it, that means that we have literally been set free from anything that should cause us to die. I will point out that “set free from” doesn’t mean we are incapable of dying. It simply means that we are no longer forced to.

This has puzzled me for a while, actually, as I have thought to myself that we already know that Jesus has already paid for all sin, sickness, poverty, pain, disease, and death for all time. Therefore, it seems odd that people still die. After all, if we have been set free from sin and death, shouldn’t we stop dying? I think the question “How much life do you want?” answers this.

In theory, we are not supposed to die, but if we want to die, we can. Likewise, if we want to live, we also can. God gave the children of Israel these choices in Deuteronomy 30:15, 19, which says, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. . . This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live . . .” The same choices God gave to the Israelites, He has given us in Christ Jesus. So while we shouldn’t die, we still can if we want to. The key difference between the Israelites and us is that we have received an upgraded version through a perfect sacrifice that has wiped out all of our sin, and therefore removed the right of death to destroy us. However, we still have the ability to choose death if we still want to.

Not only that, I believe both the world and the Church have been duped into believing that death is our only choice. A large part of this is attributed to what I refer to as a worldwide death-consciousness, the collective understanding of almost everyone in the world that we are all fated to die, and this collective consciousness carries an energy with it that pushes us all slowly toward death. Because we have been swindled into believing the lie, we confess the lie, live the lie, and teach the same lie to others, only further perpetuating the myth of mandatory death. The Bible tells us something far different, and Jesus said many times over that we can live forever.

Kobus Van Rensburg, a prophet and teacher and former senior leader of SpiritWord Ministries (https://spiritword.org.za/) received this same revelation many years ago, that he had a choice whether to die or live. With this revelation in hand, even during his battle with cancer, he was pronounced clinically dead on six different occasions and was resurrected each time, until finally dying more permanently on December 21, 2013. If nothing else, he demonstrated that we can choose life time and time again, and as we choose life, we can receive it in place of death. While many have mocked him for his beliefs, few can say that they defeated death after dying on six separate occasions.

All in all, I am left asking myself the same question “how much life do I want?”, and I encourage you to ask yourself the same. Do you want to enjoy and experience all God has for you without old age, pain, and health problems? I welcome you to continue with me on this journey as we pursue and apprehend the abundant, immortal life of Jesus Christ.

To read more on this and related subjects, pick up a copy of my book “The Gospel of Life and Immortality,” available on Amazon in both Kindle and in Print.

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Reimagining The Flood: Unveiling The Goodness of God

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I am in the process of writing my latest book, The Gospel of Life and Immortality, which I plan to publish later this year. While researching for the book I began doing a fairly in-depth study on Genesis 6:3 and the math associated with how long Adam’s descendants of the line of Seth lived, the most well-known being Noah. Most people know the story about how God told Noah to build an ark because He was going to wipe everyone out with a flood due to their evil, and this was one of the main Bible stories I learned as a young child. Long-term, this has had an impact on how I viewed God the Father, as He always seemed a very harsh taskmaster, while Jesus was always kind and loving.

This recent study I did caused me to go word-by-word through Genesis 6:3, studying not just the word meanings but having to retranslate the verse, and I was astounded by what I found. I had a hard time believing it at first, largely because the Bible has been translated so many times that it is hard for me to understand how so many different people have missed it, but what I found is a game-changer in how we view God and His nature as revealed in the Old Testament. I am going to share what I found, as well as a little bit of the other details of my study. It is going to get a bit nerdy and look at words in Hebrews, so bear with me as I think you will be pretty astounded by what I found too.

Genesis 6:3 says, “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years” (NIV). I began looking at this because I wanted to see why people use this verse to put an “age-cap” on how long we are allowed to live. In doing math, it simply doesn’t work as ten generations of descendants of Noah lived far longer than 120 after this verse. Thus, while that’s not what the verse means, I don’t want to focus on that, as it isn’t the point of this article. What that realization did do, however, is make me look deeper at the verse, as if the verse wasn’t sharing a limit on human longevity, then what did it mean?

Before going further, we need to remember that translation is an art, not an exact science. Translators have to do some decision-making as to the author’s intentions when putting a work into a different language, as many words, parts of speech, and even word-order of the sentence do not match up across languages. I regularly read books online that I read, one chapter at a time as they are translated. What invariably happens is that later in the novel, a translator will realize a word they have been translating one way for dozens of chapters is better translated another way. He or she discovers this based on insights the author leaves in the text, but because those insights occurred later in the book, I am able to witness how the translator’s new perspective changes how they interpret word meanings. For someone who starts reading after the entire work is completed, it will all get changed and they will never know, but for those of us who read it in-process, we can not only tell that a change was made but can also recognize the difference in emphasis the change makes. In other words, translators have tough decisions to make, so it is understandable when things are mistranslated, as it’s rarely intentional. Nevertheless, we also need to be brave enough to identify when a translation needs to be updated to better reflect what the text should say.

The Bible is no different. Translators look at scripture verses and do their best to put the author’s intended meaning into another language. Mistakes are made, and sometimes there is no “correct” way to do it, so a translator has to make an educated guess. At times, translators make mistakes, and as we learn and grow in our understanding of who God is and what He is like, we are able to spot some of those mistranslations. Sometimes, as is the case here, it significantly changes what a sentence means.

In the NIV Genesis 6:3 says “Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years’.” This verse is translated pretty congruently across many translations. In Hebrew the sentence says “Yĕhovah ‘amar ruwach `owlam diyn ‘adam gam basar shagag yowm me’ah `esriym shaneh. If you translate the thirteen words in this sentence based not just off of what one thinks it should mean based on what we have been taught, but instead based off of how the words are translated throughout the rest of scripture and following actual grammar rules, Genesis 6:3 is best translated as follows:

“God said, ‘my Spirit shall eternally plead man’s cause, but the length of time for flesh to sin and go astray is/will be 120 years of time.’ (emphasis mine)”

A BIG difference!

It is obvious that this translation significantly differs from other translations, so let’s look at why. The first three words, “Yĕhovah ‘amar ruwach, are pretty straightforward, and are generally translated correctly, saying “The Lord said, ‘My Spirit . . .’” Everything after that, however, is where it goes wrong.

First, there is no word of negation in this sentence, and certainly not in the first part where in needs to be. For those who aren’t familiar, a word of negation is something like “no” or “not”. It is a word or article that denotes the opposite or negative of something occurring. Where Genesis 6:3 is consistently translated as “my Spirit will not contend”, the “not” simply doesn’t exist in the Hebrew. The fourth word `owlam is usually translated in scripture as “everlasting, forever, perpetual, or eternal.” If there is no word for negation, then why did it get translated into “will not forever” if the “not” isn’t actually written there? Why have so many different translators inserted it there.

I think it’s pretty simple. Based on how they understand the verse they are translating, it doesn’t make any sense if God were to say “My Spirit will contend with man forever,” as logically, God is contending either for 120 years or forever, but not both. In order for the sentence to make sense to them, they added the “not” in there. The problem is that it totally changes the meaning of the sentence into something it never said to begin with.

Let’s continue to look at this sentence. The fifth word, diyn, means a series of things, including “to act as a judge, please a cause, contend, strive, and govern”. Of the five options, why did the translators choose the words contend or strive? I’m not sure, but it probably had a lot to do with their view of an angry God who was getting ready to judge the people of the world for their many sins, so they chose a translation option that fit their expectation of the sentence meaning. Remember, however, that since the first part of the sentence doesn’t include a word of negation, then continuing to translate the sentence this way makes it all break down. Why would God plan to contend or strive with us forever? That literally makes no sense. And since it doesn’t make any sense, then we need to pick one of the translation options that does make sense, especially since there are five of them. We know from scripture that God will not judge us forever because of Jesus, so that doesn’t make sense either. All we have left is for God to govern us forever, or to plead our cause forever. Of those two choices, it seems more reasonable that the sentence would say God is pleading our cause eternally. Why? God is the sovereign authority of all creation, so He doesn’t need to announce that He will govern us forever—that’s a given. This leaves the first five words of the thirteen-word sentence meaning “God said, ‘my Spirit shall eternally plead man’s cause . . .

Additionally, we have the benefit of hindsight and we know a good deal more about God’s nature as a result of Jesus coming to earth to reveal Him. The book of Hebrews shows us that God sent Jesus to plead our cause before Him eternally (Hebrews 7:25, 9:15), and that while we were enemies of God He came to die on our behalf (Romans 5:8-10), so it doesn’t make any sense that God would be judging us or fighting against us eternally anyway. We know from Scripture that Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30) and Jesus revealed the Father’s nature (John 14:9-10) which means that if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) then God is the same in the beginning pre-incarnation as He is now, pleading our cause eternally to make us righteous in Him. Said simply, Jesus’ nature shows us God’s nature, and they are still one and the same, pleading our cause for eternity. If we look at the second half of the sentence, we start with the sixth word, ‘adam, which is straightforward, meaning “man” or “mankind”. The seventh word gam means “also”, “but”, “yet”, or “though”. The eighth, basar, means “flesh”, and the ninth, shagag, means “to go astray”, “commit sin”, or “error”. The tenth word, yowm, means “day”, “time” or “period of time”. The rest of the sentence is again straightforward with me’ah `esriym literally meaning the number one-hundred twenty, and the thirteenth word shaneh meaning “years” or “years of time”.

If we put the second half of the sentence together it says “. . . but the period of time for flesh to sin and go astray is/will be 120 years.” When we pull it all together, it says what I wrote earlier: “God said, ‘my Spirit shall eternally plead man’s cause, but the length of time for flesh to sin and go astray is/will be 120 years of time.’”

When I came across this, I was shocked. I mean, really shocked. I was thinking about it the rest of that night. Why? Because translating Genesis 6:3 this way totally changes how we have to view the events of the Great Flood. Now that we have identified what the verse is really saying, it shows us that the flood didn’t happen because God was angry and fed up with humanity. In fact, it said the exact opposite! It said that in spite of our sinful ways, God would always fight for us. Furthermore, it showed us God’s mercy in giving a warning that in under 120 years there would be some calamity that would come that would put a limit on the ability for all flesh to commit sin and go astray. In fact, not only does this not say that God caused the flood, but it causes us to really have to look at the fact that Jesus revealed in John 10:10 that the thief is the one who kills and destroys.

If the enemy is the one who causes death and destruction, and the Great Flood caused an immense amount of death and destruction, then we cannot blame the flood on God anymore. By translating Genesis 6:3 properly, it only further shows us that God was not actually against us, judging us by the flood, but pleading our cause forever instead! Not only that, but God actively worked to forestall the flood on our behalf. Sin causes death, and the outworking of sowing and reaping is enough to account for how the enemy gained access through our sin to cause the Great Flood in the earth and kill all land-dwelling creatures, not God.

Hindsight shows us that the flood actually been revealed to Enoch over 800 years prior, whereby he prophesied it in the naming of his son Methuselah. We have to remember that because Enoch was a prophet, and because Old Testament prophets would give their children prophetic names at the Lord’s direction, Methuselah’s name is likewise prophetic. Author and speaker Chuck Missler has done a revealing exposition on the meanings of the names in Genesis 5, but we will look at Methuselah’s name specifically. His name comes from two root Hebrew words: muth, a root word that means “death or to die”; and from shalach, which means “to shoot forth, send forth, or set free/release.” His name is a prophetic statement that literally means “death will bring it forth” or “death will release it”. Whose death? Methuselah’s. What will it bring forth? Well, doing some math from the genealogies in Genesis 5, Methuselah died the same year that the flood covered the earth. Is it a coincidence, then, or the fulfillment of a prophetic warning that his death would cause the flood to be released? Something about the righteousness on Methuselah’s life caused the judgment of the flood to be held back, and God in his mercy ensured that Methuselah’s life was extended longer than any other recorded human alive so as to spare everyone as long as possible.

I believe we have to reimagine our view of the Great Flood. While we used to see it as one of the ways God stood in firm judgment against humanity, what it actually shows us is a Heavenly Father in His infinite mercy who is standing on our side. He warned people of the flood at least a century in advance so they could prepare for it as well. If anyone else had heeded the advice God gave to Noah, they too would have been spared, but no one did.

As I realized this, and even now, I am having to re-work some of my long-held views about God and His nature. I cannot look at the Great Flood the same way any longer, as the scriptures simply do not support the narrative I have believed for years, and which I was taught as a child. Furthermore, it calls many other things into question. If we have badly misunderstood the Flood, one of the most well-known Bible stories, how many other stories did we get wrong? What else needs a better translation that actually more clearly reveals the heart of our Heavenly Father toward us? And how does this force us to change our view of God? I believe that the more God continues to reveal Himself in the scriptures, the more He will reveal His unending goodness, far more than we have ever realized before.

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Faith and Patience Inherits The Promises

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As a nurse, I take care of a lot of sick and injured people, and that can be emotionally hard sometimes. Much more difficult, however, is having a family member who has health problems. After years of dealing with a gradually worsening health situation, with some recent interventions that looked extremely hopeful but have been much more disappointing than expected, it has been difficult to stay encouraged, especially when my loved one suffers daily.

What is possibly even more upsetting is the fact that I have prayed many, many times for her healing, and it’s not like I am a novice at healing the sick. I have prayed for many people to be healed of a range of conditions, with a decent measure of success, and there are times when it feels like it is far easier to heal a random stranger (whom I care about far less than my family, although I do care) than it is to heal my family members. There also seems to be an irritating trend among faith-healers that we seem to be able to heal many people, but with our own families, things don’t seem to work as they should. And while I don’t accept that as an immutable rule, it does appear to be a trend that I have yet to understand the full reason behind.

So, for those reading who think they have the “simple, easy solution” for this healing problem, and I “just need to do this or that”, when I am feeling discouraged about a loved one not getting healed, I’m willing to bet that 99% of the time, I have already tried whatever the faith-filled suggestion is. The present situation has been after years of prayer and fasting combined with medical interventions, and an awful lot of faith. To me, when all of this has gone into the situation and still no results, it seems pretty reasonable to be discouraged when it feels like I can do very little to solve the problem. And let’s be honest, at the end of the day, right or wrong, we all want results.

Well, after some very recent setbacks, and feeling pretty down, I spent some time crying, basically hiding from my family in part of the house so they wouldn’t see me crying and get more upset themselves. Then I connected with a close friend by phone who was, as always, super encouraging, and who was entirely unable to fix the problem too, but just continued to love and encourage me during my struggle. As all of this was happening, I was also spending time in prayer and asking the Lord to give me wisdom on how to move forward, because I know a few things pretty clearly:

1) This problem is not the will of God, because He is good and this is evil.
2) This problem was not given by God, but by the enemy.
3) Jesus already said “yes” to healing the problem 2000 years ago on the cross.
4) God already has a plan to fix the problem in the here-and-now.

As I was praying, I felt God tell me something, and remind me of something else. First, He just kept telling me what a good job I was doing. While it sounds lovely, I find it frustrating at times when He tells me that, because I can get extremely results-oriented and when I am doing everything I know to do to solve a problem and it still isn’t getting fixed, being told how great I am doing can be maddening. However, as I thought about it, Him telling me this reminded me to be less results-focused and to just continue to love well through the process, something my buddy also pointed out. Second, I was reminded that it’s not just faith that gets the job done, but patience.

In Hebrews 6:10-12 Paul wrote to the church and said, “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”

Sometimes it can be hard, very hard, to pray in faith and not see an answer. And sometimes that can go on for years, and it still feels like nothing is happening. But there has never been a single prayer prayed in the history of humanity that God has not responded to in some way, so even when it feels like nothing is happening, we have to look at things from a heavenly view and ask God what He is doing. Next, we have to be patient.

My friends know that especially when it comes to healing prayer, I’m not particularly patient. I expect results now, and if they don’t happen now, then I pray again and expect them now. And again right now, and again right now, until it happens . . . right now. And patience in healing prayer is something God has been gently teaching me about, and I am gradually learning. However, I still firmly believe that instant results should be our preference.

Even while expecting instant results, we have to be people who are invested in a long term view of things. When it comes to praying for healing, or salvation, or really, praying for anything else, do we have a long game? Anyone can be faith-filled for five minutes. Anyone can pray a powerful-sounding prayer and then dash away, onto the next thing to pray about and/or problem to solve. It takes a lot more perseverance to stick things through and week after week, month after month, year after year continue to believe God for the things He has already promised to give us. It takes another level of character to do all of this and not get angry with God or blame Him in the process.

I wish that things happened much faster in the spirit realms than they sometimes do. I am fervently looking toward the day my family is healed and whole with no pain and problems, and continue to hope, pray, and stand in faith for that outcome. Nevertheless, am I willing to stick it out with both faith and patience? The truth is that faith without patience simply will not inherit certain promises. Faith for a short time that then wavers and dies is insufficient to obtain certain things from God. Not because God is withholding from us, but because the enemy is. Not because God is being stingy, but because some results require far more than a one-time prayer to obtain.

So, as I bring this to a close, I want to challenge the reader with this: in areas of your walk with Jesus Christ that you are struggling, do you have what it takes to walk out a long game if needed? If not, what do you need to do to get the patience, perseverance, and endurance so that you can?

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. . . If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:7-8, 11

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India Missions 2018: Finishing Well

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In the first blog of three about my mission trip to India with Overseas Missions, I shared about the first three days of our trip and the kindness that God showed during that time. In the second blog I shared about the time we spent with the Tiger Widows and God’s divine provision to open the door for us to share His love with them. In this article, I am going to share about the last two days of the trip and an extra surprise ministry moment on the plane ride home.

After we left the Tiger Widows on the fifth day, we left the area and drove back to Calcutta. The next day, the second to last of the trip, we got up and went to the Dump Yard, an area of Kolkata right next to a large trash dump where many poor people live. One of the local pastors has started a children’s school, where they also have church on Sundays and are working to educate the children as well as teach them about God. They are working to raise money to build a school on the approximately 1/6th-acre plot they have, but we were able to do another medical clinic there, pray for the sick, and feed the 50-70 children there as well.

The children were a lot of fun, and the boys in particular loved getting to roughhouse with some of the team. We fed them lunch, with the team serving all of the children, and treated both adults and children alike at the medical clinic. One of the children there, about ten years old, had an open wound he had gotten a few weeks prior from a motorcycle accident. It looked fairly well tended overall, although I was surprised, as it’s the type of wound we usually see in the hospital here in the USA, not at a random volunteer clinic. We gave him supplies to last him a good week or so of daily dressing changes, and one of his friends listened to the instructions and watched us clean the wound as well to make sure he could help his buddy. It was super sweet to watch.

The most impressive moment of that day, to me, was when God healed a young man of leprosy. This guy was probably in his mid-twenties, and he told one of the other nurses that he had lost all sense of smell for the past six months. This nurse recognized the problem and suspected leprosy, so had the doctor assess the nerves in his arm to see if they showed signs of thickening, and they did. Sure enough, it was leprosy.

To explain, leprosy involves loss of sensation at nerve endings. As a result, one cannot feel pain, meaning that if one gets burned, cut, or otherwise injured, while normally people will recoil from the offending item, the leper cannot sense the pain and will continue the unsafe activity, damaging the skin. This leads long-term to missing fingers, toes, and even limbs, ears, nose, etc. All in all, it’s a terrible disease. Unbeknownst to any of us, this nurse had a discussion earlier that day with the doctor about the symptoms of leprosy, and if she hadn’t she might have missed the signs. God truly does lead and guide even things as simple as our conversations, and in this case, it led us to identify leprosy.

Why is this important? Because of what happened next. There was nothing the medical team could do for him medically, but Jesus is the best healer that exists, so a few of us gathered around him and prayed in Jesus’ name for leprosy to go and for him to be healed. They had given us these flower-necklaces earlier that day, each of which had a rose at the end. I had him smell mine to see if his sense of smell had been restored, and it had! This man had been unable to smell for six months due to an undiagnosed serious disease, and within minutes of diagnosis, we prayed and Jesus healed him, restoring his nerve function and allowing him to smell once more. I am always so impressed with the kindness and goodness of our God who reaches out and touches lives, heals diseases, and generally just cares far more about our lives than He has to, and He does it all because He loves us.

The last day we visited the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta where Mother Teresa’s tomb is. Two of the women on the team and I went to a very early morning Mass service, and were blessed to witness their celebration of 25 years of prayerful service of six of the sisters there. The peace of God that rested in that place, and specifically in the room where the tomb was located, was amazing, and the clarity with which I could hear the voice of God speaking to me while there was equally astounding. It was evident that they have spent many years cultivating the presence of God in prayer and acts of service at that place, and it was an honor to visit and share in their joy that morning. After the service, the sisters gathered outside on the balconies and in the courtyard and sang songs of praise to God and songs of congratulations to the six sisters. We went back there with the rest of the team later, and many of us spent some time in prayer there. All in all, it was a wonderful way to end our trip there. It was a fitting bookend, in some ways, as the work of the Sisters of Charity embodies what we were there to do in serving the Tiger Widows as well.

The six Sisters being honored for 25 years of service

Afterwards, because the day we went the Sisters of Charity had their citywide missions closed, we were unable to volunteer for service-work as originally planned, so we spent some time shopping for gifts for family and friends, eating lunch, etc., then packed up to get ready to fly out that evening.

The flights and layovers were fairly uneventful until the 12-hour flight over the Pacific, where a surprise awaited me. I had the thought come to me prior to that flight that someone on the plane might have a medical emergency. Well, about four hours in, one of our team members told me I needed to go to the back of the plane because there was some medical problem. An elderly man had fallen down and hit his head, and was fumbling through his bag searching for medications. The flight attendants were there, but no one really seemed to know what to do. I assessed him, and while he had no obvious signs of a head injury, he was very confused and had medication on-hand for Parkinson’s Disease. If that wasn’t bad enough, the fact is that any signs of a bleed inside his head that would be observable to me are what are called “late signs”, meaning that if any of them appeared in-flight, the man’s death due to brain injury would basically be assured. I am thankful that none of that occurred, as even if we had turned the plane around it would still have taken four hours for us to arrive at the nearest airport.

At any rate, I spent the rest of the flight keeping an eye on him, both because I was concerned about the possibility of a head bleed, and also because he was incredibly confused and at risk for falling again. In fact, if I hadn’t been watching him he probably would have fallen a few more times—and that doesn’t include the time he tried to undress himself and the many times he lost his phone and wallet . . . in his pockets. Either way, I was glad to be able to help this man out, and the airline was very nice and gave me a first-class breakfast as a thank you for keeping an eye on him. Which, considering the day we flew back was also my birthday, it was like a fun extra birthday gift from God!

Having never been on a mission trip before, I was richly rewarded by all that we did. I got to spend time with one of my closest friends, got to meet incredible people and made new friends, spent my days loving God’s destitute children in another country, as well as getting to enjoy their unique culture and all that it entails, and was greatly encouraged in my faith in many ways. I had the pleasure of getting to serve people every step of the way, and learned new things about my own heart and how God has designed me. A final thank you to everyone who helped contribute to this trip financially and in prayer, and I encourage anyone who has not yet been on an overseas mission trip to take the plunge! God bless you all, and I look forward to the next time I am able to share stories of the wonderful adventures I get to have in God!

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Partnering with God: Putting Faith Into Action

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There is a lot of debate about what faith is and how we partner with God through faith to see things come to pass. In some cases we do things out of faith that God hasn’t specifically told us to do, but there are other times where God has shared something with us, either by a knowing in our hearts, speaking to us directly, or through a prophetic word. Regardless of the method by which we receive the revelation, there are a number of ways the promise can come to pass. The confusing part is knowing which method is in store for us and how we need to respond. We are going to look at the various ways we can step out in faith to become partners with God’s promises.

Prophecy Is Usually Conditional

Most promises from God, whether received through prophecy or otherwise, are conditional. This means that it’s not “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Instead, it means that the choices we make and the things we do influence whether or not the prophecy comes to pass. An example of this is the difference between Mary and Zechariah in the Bible. Mary agreed with the word about Jesus but God had to strike Zechariah mute so he wouldn’t disagree with the prophecy about John and prevent it from coming to pass. If prophecies are conditional, then we can either help them along or prevent them from happening.

Sometimes, simply choosing to trust God is the faith-answer, but that’s usually when actual faith is applied to what God said, not simply a head nod and then going on our way and forgetting about what God said. When someone truly trusts God deeply in their heart to do what He said He will do, immense faith is released to partner with that prophetic word to cause it to come to pass. However, based on observation, I believe that kind of faith is uncommon.

Pray It Through

The first thing we can do to partner with a prophetic word is to pray into it. What I mean by this is to pray for the thing to come to pass. If God says, “I have a bigger house for you,” then start praying for a bigger house. If God says, “I have a certain ministry for you,” then start praying for that ministry and for all God wants to do in and through it. Most things in the Kingdom are birthed through prayer, so spending time praying for what God said to come to pass is wisdom, and it is the very least thing we can do, not to mention the easiest. The acronym PUSH was made by someone regarding how we are to pursue things in prayer. It means Pray Until Something Happens—and that’s what we should do to partner with the prophecy.

Do Something

A next step to take after that is to actually do something to put things into action. For example, let’s say that I got a prophetic word about writing books (I have had multiple words to that end). If I am going to partner with God to write books, then I have to do a few different things to see that promise come to pass. First, I have to decide what to write about, then I have to actually take time and write it. Then I have to edit and revise the book, develop a cover design, and publish it—and if I want the book to sell, I probably need to do some marketing too. All of these things don’t just happen on their own. It’s not like I woke up one day and found some books on my shelf with my name on the cover. No, I spent time deciding what to write, writing it, and then rewriting it to make it better. Partnering with God means actually setting time aside to do the things He has said I will do, and in the area of book writing it has involved considerable time and effort on my part. Mind you, I enjoy writing so I do enjoy the process, but the fact is that it doesn’t just happen on its own.

The point here is that if we want to see a word come to pass, we often need to do practical things in real life to make that happen. Have you received a word about having some massive healing ministry? Well, probably you need to identify what that is supposed to look like. Take some time with God in prayer and draw up a plan. Do you need to start a 501©3 nonprofit and rent out a place to start hosting meetings, or do you just need to start praying for people in the grocery store? Do you even know how to pray effectively for people for healing? Maybe you need to take some time to learn about divine healing methods and figure out how God wants you to go about praying for the sick. Maybe you need to sign up as a volunteer chaplain at your local hospital. Do you see where I am going with this? A massive healing ministry won’t happen on its own. If God wants to do something like that through you, it is going to take time and effort on your part.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the modern prophetic movement, in my opinion, is the “sit on my laurels” attitude. Everyone wants a prophetic word, and of course they do! The prophetic is amazing! It encourages you and gives insight into God’s heart for you, and can often provide wisdom in challenging situations. You can get perspective on things God wants to do with you in the future, and by revelation receive direction on how to proceed forward in life. Nevertheless, if we don’t do something to put wings to prophetic words we receive, they will rarely come to pass. It is easy to blame someone else, a ministry, an organization, etc. for not helping you in your calling, but at the end of the day it’s not really their job, it’s yours. If God opens up favor for you in an area, then that’s great. But if He doesn’t, then He is still planning on doing what He said, but it may not be the way we are expecting it to happen.

In the end, partnering with God in regards to prophetic promises is a must if we want to see them come to pass. Sometimes it is as simple as praying. Sometimes there is a small action to do. Other times there is a long series of actions to do on an ongoing basis. Whichever the answer, it is very uncommon that a prophecy will come to pass with no involvement on our part. Not impossible, mind you, but rare, uncommon, infrequent. Ultimately, the wisdom step here is to remember to engage the things God says to us. If God tells us things, and we keep our hearts open and obedient, then as we pray for those things we can trust that He will lead and guide us in His timing to step out in action. The book of John tells us that faith without works is dead, not because we are trying to earn our faith by our works, but because the natural response to putting faith in what God says is to step out in action.

If you have things God has promised you that have yet to come to pass, I encourage you to put them on a list and begin to pray about each one. Ask God what He wants you to do to partner with Him in those things, then write down the answer He gives you. As you identify the “next step” for each one, take that step and see what happens. Once you have done those steps, if you are ever unclear you can always revisit them in prayer again to get more insight on how to move forward. As you do practical things to partner with God, I believe you will begin to see more and more of God’s plans and purposes for your life take shape around you.

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Worship, Energy, and the Home Field Advantage

I was buying groceries at the store yesterday when I saw someone wearing a Raiders shirt, and that instantly got me thinking about how tons of people gather readily and happily in stadiums to cheer for their favorite sports teams on a level that almost trumps religious piety. I then began to ponder what the influence of that radical devotion is on a nonphysical level, and further considered what effect playing on the home field might have in that regard. So, today we are going to look at worship, energy, and the home field advantage.

“Worship” means to give worth to something, but tends to mean to give adoration or reverence toward a deity. However, what actually happens when someone worships someone or something? I’ll tell you: they give them energy. This concept of energy may be super vague to some, but all living beings possess a certain amount of energy or power, even animals, as blood contains power. Spirit beings also possess power even without blood—it’s simply how things work. We constantly receive a flow of power from God that we use on a daily basis (see Acts 17:28). In every interaction we have in life, we give and receive that power. When we feel energized around people, it is usually because we are on the receiving end, bolstered by their energy, whereas when we feel drained by others they are usually taking more of our energy than we are receiving.

When we engage in worship, we take that energy and send it back to God, which lets Him do whatever with it that He chooses. Albeit from an unexpected source, this article, part 2 of a 3-part series, gives what I find to be a revealing explanation of how we send our energy to Jesus when we worship Him. I should clarify that this experience is written by witches who visited a Charismatic church (who I neither know nor condone/support), so their perspective on what is happening and why is not the most accurate. For example, the “aggressive” feelings the one witch felt that was trying to “reverse the triple soul alignment” cultivation probably was God trying to realign her to Him, not actually harm her as she perceived. However, I find they do make some very interesting and highly useful observations, especially related to the part about us giving ourselves and our energy freely to Jesus (which they unsurprisingly don’t understand).

At any rate, what these women accurately identified was that when we worship God, we are sending the energy and power He has entrusted to us back to Him to transform the world as He pleases, which they didn’t understand. Nevertheless, this same dynamic happens in any worship environment—when we give adoration or reverence to someone or something, we send them a portion of our energy. Knowing this, I formulated a hypothesis about sports teams, fans cheering them on, and what is known as the “home field advantage.” What I suspect happens is that when fans get together at a sports game, they form what is essentially a corporate worship setting. With two teams, it is essentially two sets of worshippers worshipping gods who are fighting one another for supremacy, and the team who has more worship-power being fed to them is going to perform better, and ultimately win. Mind you, this could also potentially include those who are watching the game remotely as well, but those who are present presumably will have the most direct influence on the game via their collective energy. In fact, this same dynamic occurs at concerts and other places where people gather in large groups to focus their energy, emotions, and attention in one unified direction.

Another interesting component about this collective, corporate worship, also observed by the witch at Bethel in the above article, is something that happens in any similar group setting. Regardless of the situation when surrounded by people with such a pervasive corporate energy, you can find yourself getting pulled into it. It’s almost like you are standing on dry ground and all of a sudden a flash flood forms around you, and suddenly you are in the middle of a river that is trying to carry you away in its flow. It is certainly possible to resist that flow, but it takes a combination of awareness of what is going on and the ability to mount a resistance. One of the reasons I often avoid movie theaters is that I find the pervasive flow of energy is very difficult to deal with. I find watching sports uninteresting, so it is harder for me to get sucked in and the flow of energy doesn’t bother me half as much as a movie I actually want to see and enjoy but not get energetically sucked into. This principle is also behind the “mob mentality” phenomenon, where people can literally lose themselves in their emotions and make really bad choices as a group as a result. So, to close out this article, I’m going to share with you how to keep from getting pulled in when you don’t want to.

It mostly involves making a conscious choice in one’s heart to detach emotionally from the situation. A river of energy works to pull you in by first inciting your emotions, and as your emotions get engaged, you unconsciously start feeding your energy into that river as well. Thus, begin by withdrawing your emotions. Once you do that, you will want to protect yourself from the river and keep it away from you, otherwise you will have to keep fighting the emotional pull toward it. I usually do this by envisioning (also known as imagining or visualizing) a barrier of golden glory light around me, but you could also accomplish the same by picturing God as a pillar of rock underneath you that lifts you up out the energetic river, or any other visualization method that you find helps. The key to visualization is that it helps you to engage your faith and direct your own energy (which in reality is faith energy, among other things) to accomplish the desired effect. Once you do that, the sucking feeling should diminish considerably if not cease bothering you entirely. If it doesn’t stop, you may want to consider either changing your location, or if that is not possible, to ask God to send angels to assist you. Someone who is less visual than me might prefer to pray instead of visualizing, but the end result is the same. Simply pray that the corporate energy has no power over you, is unable to touch you, and it loses all ability to try to exert its influence upon you. If the desired results are not reached, continue to pray until it becomes effective.

I hope this helps shed a little light on some of the spiritual interchange that happens around us, especially in corporate gatherings, as well as equips you to deal with it when it occurs in unwanted fashion. And if nothing else, I have given you a little glimpse into the spiritual world as I encounter it! Blessings!

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Testing Your Healing

I greatly value divine healing. Jesus died to heal every single sickness, disease, pain, infirmity, and problem in our bodies, so it is important that we can live and experience that work He already purchased for us 2000 years ago. There are a variety of hindrances that can slow down the process of receiving divine healing, and ways we can work with them to accelerate our healing, which I discuss in a blog series titled Divine Healing That Works, which I eventually plan to turn into a book. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to not only know how to pray for healing, but how see results in the moment, and you can do this by testing your healing.

I should clarify before going further that healing in scripture, or at least in the New Testament, tends to refer to a gradual process of ongoing healing. Because of this, some people refer to instantaneous healings as miracles, but in either case it involves the body getting fixed, so is related to the subject of healing. In reality, most healing is gradual, but gradual may simply be over the span of five minutes, not five weeks or five years. As a result, testing our healing can be a vital part of the process of actually receiving the healing.

Many years ago I was a member of a Charismatic Church in State College, Pennsylvania, and one Sunday I came up to the front of the sanctuary for an altar call for healing, as I wore glasses and wanted my eyes healed. A good friend prayed for me multiple times, and he had me look at the clock at the back of the room to test it out. The first number of times there was no change, but as we continued to pray, persisting in prayer, my eyes began to gradually get better. While they didn’t get completely healed that day, they did continue to improve for a period of time, to the point that legally I don’t need glasses to drive anymore, when I did prior.

A key part of that healing process, however, was testing out the healing. After all, if you are expecting something to be fixed, how do you actually know it is fixed if you don’t try it out? Certainly in the case of obvious issues like a visible injury testing wouldn’t be required, but most healing cannot be identified simply by appearance, which is where testing comes in. Part of why this helps so much in apprehending divine healing is that testing it out actually engages faith. Until an injury is tested, it is essentially a theoretical healing, that much like the conundrum of Schroedinger’s cat, may or may not exist. Once you test it out, you can identify clearly whether you are or are not healed, and quite often people find they are indeed healed upon challenging the injury.

Testing accomplishes a few different things, actually. First, it helps diagnose the situation. Is the injury getting better, worse, or the same? If worse, then it’s probably a demon and I need to cast it out. If better, then God is healing them at that moment and I need to continue to pray and partner to complete the healing. If nothing changes, then we need to pray to make it change.

Second, as mentioned before, testing the issue releases faith. Multiple places in the New Testament we observe that it was when someone responded to the prayer of faith that their maladies were healed. When we test it out, we are responding in faith, and the faith manifests the healing.

Third, testing the injury distracts the person receiving prayer. This may sound strange, but it is incredibly helpful. When someone is very focused on their problem, especially if it causes them pain, it is hard to get them to stop paying attention to their pain long enough to actually let it be healed and no longer painful. When I distract them, that is oftentimes the moment when the healing manifests, and testing the injury is a fantastic way to get their focus off their pain. It sounds strange to say that testing an injury takes their mind off of it, but it’s more that it shifts what they are focusing on. Before challenging it, they are paying attention to the problem, whereas when testing it, they are now mentally looking for a solution. While it will still surprise (and often shock) people when they discover they are in fact healed, the moment of testing makes them shift their thinking. Sometimes, such as with a headache, I will have the person rate their pain from 0-10, I’ll pray, then have them turn their head side to side, and then I will ask them to rate their pain again. The turning-the-head part honestly is just to distract them long enough for the healing to manifest, and it gives them an action to do in the meantime. There is nothing special about turning your head side to side to get rid of a headache. I just do it to make them shift their thinking, and when they re-evaluate, oftentimes it is either partway or entirely better.

Testing your healing sounds silly to the natural mind, but it incorporates practical, biblically sound spiritual principles that can be used time and time again to help encourage divine healing to manifest. If you have difficulty getting results when praying for the sick, or if you want to take your healing ministry to the next level and aren’t already doing this, get people to test their healing where possible, and I honestly expect you will find that a larger percentage of people will walk away healed by the power and blood of Jesus Christ.

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According To Your Faith Let It Be Done

I was doing some inner healing with a family member recently. We had identified a particular demon, identified the boss demon in charge of that one, and I then interrogated the boss about their points of access. In this process I asked that boss about HIS boss. I didn’t get very far as he said he didn’t really know anything. Mind you, demons are liars so it can be difficult at times to know when they are telling the truth or just lying again, but in this particular moment it seemed to have answered truthfully. Thus, I asked it “Who would know?” After being evasive for a bit, it informed me of another fragment in the system we hadn’t know about before that knew who the Big One was. Progress!

After casting out the boss and his lackeys, I spoke to that part he had told us about, whose name was Penny. Penny was very pleasant, and extremely helpful. She told me that the Big One, (whose name she didn’t know either, so that’s what she called him) is a principality, a territorial spirit over the USA. More specifically, the Big One is very big, and affects many people, targeting many individuals throughout the nation and sending groups of demons against them to prevent them from walking out their purpose. Penny shared that the Big One appears like a dark fog that creates a dampening field over the nation to prevent the work of God from progressing. One particular area he dampens is the ability of miracles to function.

While that revelation in and of itself is heavy, what Penny told me next made me laugh. I asked Penny “Do you see him affecting me as well?”

“Not very much. . . largely because you don’t care and don’t believe he can.”

There is a valuable truth contained in the last thing Penny said. While yes, it is helpful to know that there are spirits specifically sent against the people of God to prevent us from performing miracles and to keep us walking out our purpose and destiny, of much greater value is knowing how to reduce such negative influence, even if you aren’t spending any time praying against the Big One and his demonic henchmen. The key Penny shared was that our faith changes any dynamic.

Seriously, think about that. This part just told me that there is a principality, a powerful ruling territorial spirit over this vast nation who attacks the people of God to prevent them from living out their purpose, but he is only able to influence me to a small degree for one simple reason:

Because I don’t believe he can touch me.

Sometimes it literally is that simple. Jesus spoke about the power and importance of faith and the converse, unbelief, on multiple occasions. In Matthew 9:29-30a Jesus was praying for two blind men and the scriptures say, “Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you’; and their sight was restored.” He was very clear that their faith was the influencing factor in that situation—the factor that decided how much healing they received. Mark 6:4-6 says, “Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.’ He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” We see this same dynamic repeated yet again, but in the negative. This time, due to a lack of faith, widespread miracles are unable to be performed and Jesus was limited to healing just a few sick people.

Imagine that Israel had a territorial spirit like the Big One trying to prevent the miraculous. Then enters Jesus—a man who knows who He is in the Father, and knows the authority and power he has been given from Heaven. While yes, the unbelief of a group of people does affect His ability to function in the supernatural at the highest levels, He is still able to heal sick people in spite of their doubt because He knows He has the faith needed to get the job done.

It can be very easy sometimes to fall back on the “it doesn’t happen in the US” crutch. But what would happen if you decided that demons didn’t have the ability or right to operate around you? What if you decided to extend your faith to believe for a devil-free, doubt-free zone around you wherever you go? What if your faith created a spiritual anti-dampening field that combats the demonic dampening fields set against us in this nation? In reality, what makes us think that every nation doesn’t have a principality assigned to do the same? We must learn to understand and activate the power of our faith to destroy the work of hell and release the virtue of heaven in our midst.

There is nothing super-special about me more than anyone else that makes me less-affected by this principality. The only difference is in how much we believe it has the right or ability to affect us. After all, if things are done to us according to our faith, then let us be people who believe what Jesus said of us in Luke 10:19:

“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”

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India Missions 2018: Finishing Well

Partnering with God: Putting Faith Into Action

Prophecy Is Usually Conditional

Pray It Through

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Worship, Energy, and the Home Field Advantage

Testing Your Healing

According To Your Faith Let It Be Done

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