Work Out From the Bible

I was speaking with a family member today. An ongoing struggle with health has invaded the household. It has at times been life threatening. I, for one, do not take health issues lightly. Satan is a formidable foe, defeated to be sure, but certainly formidable. I thought I might share at-large what I said to this family member.

Remember to work out from the Bible. Jesus said, "It is finished." (John 19:30) And Peter says in his epistle, "By His stripes we were healed." (1 Pet. 2:24) Paul tells the Romans, "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Rom. 12:2) Combining all these thoughts into one, I said, "Work out from the Bible." Too often we try to work into the Bible, and we find it quite hard to reconcile what we feel, how we hurt, to what the Bible says. That is not transforming ourselves, but trying to transform God and his Word to how we feel now.

We can't say, "I believe I will be healed." Or some such. That puts the issue into the future, and the future never comes. It is always today, never tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. But if we reach back to what has been said, what has been done, then we can move forward from that position. God says I am healed, then I am healed. Good starting position for transformation.

The Bible says, "By his stripes we were healed." If I was, then I am. If God's word is stronger than anything else, then we are proceeding from the strong, making the weak to bow down. My body may take awhile transforming to God's word, but the promise is that it will eventually.

Psychiatry believes this. It tell us we are a result of our past experiences. For instance, you constantly hear, "You'll never amount to anything." Eventually, you start believing it, and you suffer from that past designation. Well, a past experience is that Jesus bore our sins and sicknesses on the cross, and we are healed (see Isaiah 53). OK, then we begin to say what we have heard, we act out what we have heard. Guess what? Slowly, but surely, it begins to happen.

Now, you may not believe this. That is fine. But before you say it isn't true, you need to know that twice I have been healed from a life situation that the doctors insisted would result in my death. To their surprise, I have now lived more than 20 years longer from their diagnosis of the first disease, more than 15 years longer than their second diagnosis.

If you are willing to do it God's way, it will work. Don't grow weary in well-doing! God is always true to his Word.

"Thanks be unto God who always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus!" (2 Cor. 2:14)