"DANGER OFTEN LURKS, WHERE DESTINY BECKONS"

Spirit and Body or Body and Spirit?

“He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.

 Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.” [Isaiah 53:3-5, AMPLIFIED]

It is extremely difficult to live in a physical world and see through spiritual eyes—even to see ourselves, spiritually. The temptation is always to apply spiritual rewards to physical and earthly situations. It’s human. What we see, feel and experience in a physical sense typically is what we are most familiar with, so we tend to attach spiritual truths even to the physical. Of course, spirit remains with spirit and physical with physical—that’s how it is in God’s Kingdom; they do not mix (“Flesh and blood give birth to flesh and blood, but the Spirit gives birth to things that are spiritual.” [John 3:6, God’s Word Translation]). His promises to us which are for our physical man can’t be applied spiritually (in truth). The promises He made to us for the spirit man must not be applied to the physical or earthy realm, either.

It is hard. It’s the reason Jesus used parables. Parables allegorically brought the point home to those who eyes had been “veiled” and whose hearts had been “hardened” by idolatry and all manner of wickedness. Parables worked. The hearers recognized themselves (see Matthew 21:45). There came a time when Jesus didn’t speak in parables—He didn’t speak to everyone in parables (see John 16:25-29). The veil was rent at the cross, but His disciples got a glimpse of the King even before the cross. Still, it took the cross and Pentecost to empower them and provide the authority necessary to act upon what was revealed to them by the Christ. Having revelatory knowledge is one thing, but if we are still unable to recognize the need to stay awake and pray at Gethsemane, or surrender control of our bodies to the Spirit when the enemy comes to us in the garden, (and so we react in wrath), or fear engulfs us to the point that we deny the Christ thrice then the revelation hasn’t done us all of the good it can, yet. Many people heard; but that is only the beginning. Jesus taught that in the Parable of the Sower. There are other variables that decide the outcome—hearing is only step one. And, that’s good because we often hear very selectively.

Isaiah 53:5 is one of the many passages of Scripture that we read “selectively”. It’s a verse where God is speaking to us of the spiritual things we reap as a result of the suffering of Jesus, at Calvary.

·         He was wounded—FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS.

·         He was bruised—FOR OUR GUILT AND INIQUITIES.

·         He was chastised—FOR OUR PEACE AND WELL-BEING.

·         The stripes (that wounded Him for our transgressions)—HEALED US AND MADE US WHOLE.  

None of this relates to us physically. Do I believe that God heals physical bodies? Yes! Not for the primary reasons that most of us do, but I believe that He heals (physically) sometimes and with purpose. God is consistent, if nothing else. Calvary was for our spiritual reconciliation back to God. This healing was for our sin-sickness, not our physical illnesses. This is probably the most oft used verse to support the premise that God heals our bodies, and it is the wrong one. Isaiah saw the Christ, prophetically on the cross at Calvary pouring out Himself for mankind, not for our physical healing, but for our spiritual healing and regeneration. He “saw” the precious fount flowing for our dreadful sin that would once and for all remit every sin—healing our souls, forever. Isaiah saw the day of no more animal sacrifices for sin; because the Son came and gave Himself once and there was no longer a need for any other sacrifice, simply the choice to have Him reign.

Does God heal our physical bodies??? Yes, but it really isn’t about us. When God heals, it is always about the big picture—miracles are about the big picture. Remember when Jesus healed the man who was born blind? In John 9, Jesus was asked why this man had been born blind—had he sinned, or was it because of the sin of his parents. (We tend to think that when something bad happens to someone, they must have done something to bring that horrible thing upon themselves! Job’s friends thought that, too—God proved their theory wrong, and Jesus said to His disciples that it is wrong, too). Jesus’ answer was, it has nothing to do with sin; this is just an opportunity for God to show how great and powerful He is. He does that. He does it for a distinct reason, too. John 20:31 says this, “But these are written (recorded) in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ (the Anointed One), the Son of God, and that through believing and cleaving to and trusting and relying upon Him you may have life through (in) His name [through Who He is].” (Amplified Bible)  

Miracles (of healing, or otherwise) are not primarily about the one being healed. It’s great for them to reap that awesome benefit when it happens, but it is really about unbelievers who need to see the power of God at work, so that their (saving) faith is raised to a level that they cannot deny His reality. When that happens, they have a decision to make. However, we have become the miracle-seeker’s, always searching for signs and wonders. If we already believe, there is no reason for us to be searching for that which we have already accepted and know, because “For in [this] hope we were saved. But hope [the object of] which is seen is not hope. For how can one hope for what he already sees?”    [Romans 8:24, Amplified Bible]  We already know the power and ability of God to save, heal and deliver. Why are we chasing signs and wonders? They should be happening through us, in full view of unbelievers, but not necessarily for us—or about us.

We must get beyond this self-soothing gospel and choose the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our watered-down version has created a bunch of wimps, who can’t serve God unless they have everything that is comfortable and pleasing to the flesh. We don’t even consider serving God when “…the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls.”

 But to proclaim like the prophet, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation!  The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility] is far beyond most of us, today. [Habakkuk 3:17-19, Amplified Bible]

This (smooth, easy, have-whatever-I-desire) gospel is not the Gospel presented in the Word of God. What God has promised us is not a bed of roses or an earthly kingdom of our own choosing. His promises to us are that He will be with us—in everything. He told us that we will have trouble, suffer persecution, “take up our cross” and that there will even be suffering “according to the will of the Lord”. Our version of the Gospel leaves all of this out, and guarantees us the comforts of this world—that God has not promised us. He assures us that our NEEDS will be met. He vowed to give us the SPIRITUAL desires of our hearts, as we delight in Him. God purposely doesn’t guarantee those carnal (or tangible, earthy) things because they are distractions to His heavenly, eternal purposes in us. Remember, Jesus telling the rich young ruler to sell all that he had and give to the poor and come and follow Him. That was a hard saying for the young man. Commandments he could handle—he was used to those. And we are the same way. We are willing to live by rules and regulations, and all manner of legalities, but don’t touch our stuff. Our stuff is most sacred to us—our things are our idols. Our idols have put us in a very (eternally) precarious position, too. If it was simply placing them before God, as did Israel, time after time—that would be horrific enough; but our “idols”—or the substance that we cling to (selfishly) belongs to the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ emphatically taught—not in a parable—that we must provide for “the least of these” or face eternal damnation. Our choice to keep back “our” substance and live in super-comfort while others exist without their basic needs sets us up for eternal perdition; and our refusal to change or even acknowledge the error of our ways is no different from Israel and Judah. We have become “backslidden whores” who trample the poor under our feet, while heaping riches upon those who have no need.

Israel had the Law of Moses to make them aware of the danger of their ways and refused to repent over and over. We have more than an awareness, we have the power to change, and yet we continue to walk in our own way.

This world is not the place for us to set up house. We are pilgrims and nomads—tent-dwellers on this earth, now. If we want to enjoy the New Heaven and the New Earth, we will have to cease trying to create our own, here and now. It is His Kingdom come, not ours. God’s Kingdom looks very different from ours—His is spiritual and includes everyone. Ours is carnal, and selfish. His Kingdom has an everlasting reward for work done on earth. Our kingdom enjoys the pleasures of this world now—for a season, but then what shall it profit us if we gain this whole world—and lose our souls, in the process???

God’s gifts to us must be re-elevated in our hearts and minds to the spiritual realm—He offers us so much more than the tangible things that will pass away—even the things of the body, because after all even these earthly bodies have a time stamp. He has a better one full of glory, renewed and perfected awaiting us in eternity. I can handle this temporary stuff—as long as I’ve got King Jesus.

He’s more the Enough.