Everyone Jesus Healed Got Sick Again and Died

All Flesh Is Grass

I have a lifelong disability.  Part of what I like about living a virtual life on the Web is how my disability rarely comes into play in my social interactions – people know me, joke with me, have fun and share ideas with me, and the vast majority never have to stop to think about the girl with the disability.  I don’t share information about it.  Almost no one has asked.  It is, in effect, a non-issue in this digital world.

Not so in my real world, this physical realm of work and love and churches and social life.  My disability is readily apparent.  And it’s no problem, no huge issue, really, not from my point of view.  But it becomes an issue for others on certain occasions.  Those occasions are when I meet up with someone who’s decided I need to be healed, and that they’re just the Christian intercessor to do it.

I used to allow laying-on-of-hands sessions, those staples of Pentecostal prayer circles.  I mean, if someone wants me healed, they must have my best interests at heart, right?  But as time went on, I began to sense that those who prayed over me were irritated when denied the instant gratification of a miracle on demand.  They weren’t irritated with God; His ways are always right.  They weren’t irritated with themselves; they knew they were praying in exactly the right way.  And that left one last person in the irritation equation.  Me.  I was what irritated them.

Apparently (according to many of my intercessors), I was holding back on the faith required to allow God to perform His wonders.  Or (according to others) there was some sin in my life that blocked the Spirit from doing a healing work.  Or (according to one, but he was quite adamant and therefore gets his own line here) the demon of my particular disability was just too strong in me, and I required a whole church to pray over me for a whole night.

Here’s a thought: Maybe “none of the above” is the answer to the Cosmic-ain't-healed-yet conundrum.  Perhaps my disability has yet to be healed because it gives glory to God.  Perhaps it is a wonderful, glorious, blessed thing that He must increase, even as I decrease.

Wondering About The Title?

This blog’s title, “Everyone Jesus Healed Got Sick Again and Died” may have struck you as controversial at first.  But it isn’t.  Think about it: No one healed by Jesus during His physical time on Earth remains alive today.  All of them have died.  Not one is still walking around in Jerusalem, wondering why they don’t get to shuffle off this mortal coil.  His physical healings were temporary.

If you feel slightly annoyed that I just referred to the physical healings done by Jesus as temporary, you might need to ask yourself why that bothers you.  Especially since you know it’s true.  All bodies die; it’s appointed.

Allow me to say something else controversial: No physical healing, neither in the time of Jesus nor in our own times, is a miracle that’s actually about the physical healing.  I repeat: miracles of healing are not about the healing.

Then what are they about?  The Word of God gives us pretty clear guidance on that.  They are about God’s sovereignity, and His freedom to do as He pleases with the works of His creation (Psalm 115:3).  They are about the manifestation of God’s power, and not about one’s physical or spiritual state (John 9:3).  They are signs and wonders demonstrating the Savior’s role on Earth … and once the point has been made, those healed will continue to age, become infirm, and pass away.  It’s appointed unto all men.

Consider: While miracles of healing show forth the wonders of God, so do blessings of non-healing.  The same God who can, with less than the merest whisper of a thought, heal thousands as He wills, can also be glorified through the demeanor of the ones who bear suffering without healing in the world.  In his moving chapter on how we suffer in the flesh, Peter concludes, "So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good" (1 Pet. 4:19).  Paul, too, speaks of being reminded that God’s power is made perfect in weakness when he writes of his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:6). and when he mentions that he prayed three entire times to be relieved of that thorn.  That kind of faith puts me to shame – after three times, he knew the Lord’s answer; I surpassed three dozen sessions of heartfelt begging long before my 18^th birthday.

Praying for Healing

Are we to pray for the healing of others?  Of course!  Prayers of that sort are particularly appropriate for the church elders among us (James 5:14).  In fact, we’re all commissioned to pray without ceasing for myriad things, physical, emotional, spiritual, situational.

But when we find someone who knows their disability is according to the will of God, do we strive to correct him?  Do we contradict her?  Do we counsel that God wants to heal all, and that the disabled need to grow more in faith to come to a healing insisted on by intercessors of the New Covenant?

You know my answer to that.  You know Peter’s.  You know Paul’s.  When you tell a physically challenged brother or sister that it is their lack of faith or their possession by demons that keeps them from becoming “whole” … well, frankly, you run the risk of causing one of those little ones to stumble in the despair you create.  Better for you that a millstone be tied around your neck, and that you be cast into the sea.  You’re forgetting the real meaning of physical healing – the glory of God.  You’re forgetting that sometimes sufferings and deficiencies glorify God as well.  You’re forgetting Peter’s admonition that just as Christ suffered in the flesh, we “should be of like mind” (1 Pet. 4:1).  You’re forgetting Paul’s declaration that “I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9)

My disability – mine, the disability of Cosmic Parx – gives glory to God.  I proclaim His handiwork even from the midst of what others would call a dramatic physical handicap.  Some have disagreed with my acceptance of this state of affairs and say to me (directly, to my face) that I’ve fallen short of God’s physical healing ideals.  But I can only rest on one credo: His grace is sufficient unto me.

I’ll get my best healing at the resurrection.

Maran Atha,

Cosmic

Wolves Dressed as Sheep: 5 More Points on Finding False Pastors

Since my last blog post (which was, in fact, the first half of this blog post … you can go back one to read it if you’re jumping into the middle of this), I’ve run into a couple of Christians discussing the Bishop Eddie Long sex-scandal situation.  One gentleman I met was surprisingly passionate on the topic.  He insisted Christians need to forgive Long for “making a mistake,” and he further insisted that failure to do so would cast doubts on the legitimacy of the faith of the one not handing out the forgiveness.  

For the record, I’m not forgiving Bishop Eddie Long.  Not yet, anyway.  I have a very practical reason for withholding forgiveness: Long says he’s entirely innocent of all charges.  If I forgave him for something he says he hasn’t done, I’m declaring him guilty of all allegations.  I’m presuming sin where none was confessed, and arrogantly handing out forgiveness that wasn’t asked for.

Even if Long is guilty of the alleged misdeeds, I’m pretty certain it isn’t my forgiveness he should be asking for.  I don’t know the man.  I just know his Lord, and I know to Whom Long would really need to turn.  But my readings of Jude and 2 Peter leave me wondering about something rather disturbing: If Long is a false teacher and false prophet, is there really forgiveness still available to him?  Or is he, as Jude wrote, “twice dead … of old written of beforehand unto condemnation”?

I hope not.  And I also hope that these tips for finding the false pastors among us will help us uncover them before they harm the faithful.

6. The Fakes sabotage their own congregations.  Jude refers to false teachers as “they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts.”  Hidden rocks, I imagine, refer to hazards that lie just below the surface of an otherwise calm sea.  All seems peaceful.  All looks well.  Then, disaster hits without warning, and those in seafaring vessels striking the hidden rocks find themselves in danger of being lost.  In the same way, false pastors turn out to be the congregation’s worst danger.  Maybe you’ve heard the term “cult of personality”—a movement built on the dynamic character of a single leader.  Churches built on the personality of the preacher seem to run the greatest risk of falling victim to hidden rocks.  Should the day come when that preacher is exposed as a fraud, there’s little chance the congregation will survive the pastor’s fall.  If you’re in a situation like that … if you can’t imagine how your congregation would survive if the pastor were suddenly taken from his position of authority … then you need at least to consider the possibility that too much is built upon the wrong foundation.  There is only one Rock; false pastors with their hidden rocks are too often occasions of deception.

7. The Fakes seem substantial, until you look closer.  Please don’t misunderstand what I said in the last point.  Just because a pastor has a strong personality doesn’t mean there’s anything false about him.  The Word of God is filled with holy men who have powerful personalities.  Elijah comes to mind – a man whose stories I love, but whom I strongly suspect I would dislike in person, if I’m being honest with myself.  Samson is another; he was a powerful leader, but I’d have broken up with him long before the haircut.  The point is, Elijah and Samson were not just men of personality, they were men of substance.  False pastors can’t say the same about themselves.  Jude calls them “wild waves of the sea” and “wandering stars.”  A wild wave is cool to look at, but disappointingly fleeting.  A wandering star is sufficiently bright, but follows no path, a lost entity with no destination.  So we have a few things to ask ourselves when deciding the legitimacy of our pastors.  Do they have consistency, constancy?  Are they given to wandering away from their own big plans?  Are they more about drama than they are about consistent growth?  Do they talk big, but crumble when the going gets tough?  Are they substantial … or are they just impressive for a time?

8. The Fakes are obsessed with enemies.  In my job as a school teacher, I do a yearly unit on rhetoric and persuasion.  One thing I teach my students about social movements is the tendency of an upstart group or a new cult to identify and obsess over a common enemy.  Defining your enemy isn't a bad strategy, really.  A shared enemy gives a group cohesion through fear, while focusing diverse individuals on a target to combat as a team.  But a false pastor takes this social tendency to new levels.  “These are murmurers, complainers,” Jude writes about them, “and their mouth speaketh great swelling words.”  False pastors are adept at whipping congregations into an angry frenzy over anything that might (and consider these words carefully) threaten the standing and position of the false pastor.  There are plenty of causes in society worth working up some ire over – but, oddly, the false pastor seems always to bring the focus back to himself.  How he is threatened.  How he is attacked.  How he is underappreciated.  How he is not being loved as much as he loves.

9. The Fakes are players.  Every true pastor has trusted helpers, primary among them his wife, followed by deacons, then by brothers and sisters long in the faith who have earned trust over time.  False pastors operate a cheap parody of this structure.  Their inner circle is often composed of those who have fallen for the flattery and seduction that comes easily to the lips of a charismatic pretender.  In the congregation of a false pastor, titles and church positions are a kind of currency, the coin of the faker’s realm.  In fact, the false pastor will use titles to make friends and win hearts, saying, “You’re on my staff now!  Isn’t that great?  See how much I trust you!  [See how much authority I have, handing out titles.  See how much I need you to approve of me.  See how many people I’ve assigned to my staff, and how powerful that must mean I am.]”  This approach contrasts sharply with how God wants positions assigned within a church.  Leaders and staff are never newcomers in the healthier congregations we see in Scripture.  Paul is adamant that many qualifications be met in the assignment of positions … after all, those being assigned are direct servants to the neediest of the Kingdom.  A false pastor isn’t in the same game, though.  His assignments of titles and positions are about his own empire building.  If he could, he would make every member of the congregation a staffer reporting directly to him.  Not a Body of Christ, but a sea of sycophants.

10. The Fakes are damned.  I stared at this final point for a long time before typing here.  I don't like this point.  I think it’s because I’m an optimist, and because I don’t adhere to ideas about pre-designated salvation or damnation.  But what I’m struggling with is my own shrinking before the power in God’s Word.  Jude makes it clear: false pastors “were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation.”  They are “twice dead,” words reminiscent of Hebrews 6 and its admonition that those who have crucified the Son of Man anew are unable to return again unto repentance. The words of 2 Peter are just as direct: the damnation of false pastors and false teachers is from “of old,” as if predestined.  They are those “whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.”  Peter, like Jude, sees false pastors as twice dead: “For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”

But I’m an optimist, which I hope isn’t just another word for “sucker.” Jude ends with a handful of words that make me think even false pastors have hope of redemption.  “And some [of them,] save,” Jude writes, “snatching them out of the fire.”  Is Jude talking about deceived  members of the congregation?  Or is he talking about the false pastors themselves?  The context isn’t clear, so I cling to hope.

A hope that these words do more than warn believers of the dangers of false pastors among us.

A hope that a few false pastors themselves might take notice of the words.

A hope that, God willing, someone be snatched from the fire.

Marana Tha and Maran Atha,

Cosmic