"I understand what you are saying Frank and I too suffer from many afflictions. I have also experience the Lord’s touch and deliverance from many things. I still believe to let God be true and every man a liar and that all of our justification must be in the Lord."

Amen Rbanks.......... bro Frank

This question dogs any who are well aware of Jesus' healing of the sick as well as the disciples. We are also aware how this happens with surprising frequency in places where spiritual darkness rules. The Holy Spirit uses divine healing to validate the message by God's servants who work to minister to their needs there. Many times these people are far removed from medical help and death appears certain unless there is some supernatural intervention.

This is what I wonder is why we see so little supernatural healing in the western world: we have at our disposal medical assistance which can speed recovery of whatever ails you.

As we look to the future and the ominous potential for a breakdown in the availability of medical help, I wonder if perchance we will not see more divine healings occur. What if you cannot afford professional medical help, what would you do? Maybe, just maybe, this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise? Once we know that medical help is beyond our reach, God may intervene. As long as we think we can help ourselves God cannot help us.

(Oh, I am not in perfect health either. I am waiting to see how or what the LORD will have me do...)

My opinion...

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Sandra Miller

Good post ginnyrose!

I’m going to go out on a limb and I know some will misunderstand me but that is the risk I’m going to take anyway instead of playing it safe. Please read all the post in context before jumping with something out of context.

Can anybody tell me the difference from fighting in prayer against the sickness, meditating on the word of God and seeking God with all your heart with fasting and confessing your faith in Jesus as your healer than in spending all your money on doctors and also trying to find the best doctors money can buy hoping that some doctor will be able to help you or to cure you so you can get well.

I say that because I have heard Christian people criticize more the one who is depending on God instead of the doctors than in the one who is depending on the doctors instead of the Lord and when someone dies after going to all the doctors we praise God for healing him by taking him/her home but if someone dies for totally trusting in the Lord then they are a fanatic and the Lord didn’t get the glory for healing them because they refused to go to the doctor.

Do you see the difference they both died but the one who depended on the doctors we can sympathize with him/her better because we understand that they were doing all they knew to do instead of just trusting in the Lord only because we are not suppose to go overboard believing in God because he gives us common sense.

This is why I believe that the person who God uses to do miracles will be the one who is sold out and has died to this world and trusts in Jesus alone with all his heart at the risk of being called a fool and everything else. Jesus said that He who seeks to save his life will lose it and that we must completely lose our life in Christ in order to have abundant life. A man who is still afraid to die can’t do much for God but a man who is dead to every other voice but God’s voice will see the supernatural workings of God.

Before anyone jumps on board to stone me, I am not and would not tell anyone not to go to the doctor because many don’t have that kind of faith and have not been filled with the Holy Ghost to believe God to do the miraculous. I can only speak what I have seen and heard from and cannot speak or have faith for anyone else because each person must have his own faith walk with God.

I have prayed for the sick and been to the hospital to visit the sick many times and I have seen God heal people and also have seen people die with a sickness. I have seen people have tremendous faith in the Lord and others struggle believing. I would never tell someone not to go to the doctor because that is between them and the Lord but to those who believe that God may want you to suffer and not get healed why are you going to the doctor to try and get better. I believe a lot of the times that people go to the doctor because they want to get better and not suffer from sickness or why else would they even go anyway if it is not to help you.


Blessings from brother rbanks

The problem is, Brother rbanks, is that we refuse to empty ourselves of ourselves and become like little children that don't know a thing. We don't practice John 10 and KNOW The Voice of The GOOD Shepherd.
If we would just stop our own 'thinking' and look up to Him and ask what He wants us to do, minute by minute, then He'll guide us to where or what He wants us to be doing.
We could be ready for bed and The LORD say, "No, get dressed and go out your door and pray."
Do you know what I mean?
As long as we're running on our own ideas and own thinking rather than listening for Him, like the helpless flesh that we are - He won't be able to use us. We won't have our ears open to hear what He wants us to do.
That's all He's waiting for and that is THE problem with The Church in this present age and why we're autonomous failures to even our own communities. We want to do "something big" but we want the glory for it.

rbanks,

I understand what you are saying. I also am adamant about not challenging those who are quick to run to doctors - this calls for another thread, don't you think?

On the other hand, there is expense involved. How can one justify spending horrendous amount of money for treatment that promises no cure, but only prolongs the dying process? Ok, you say you have insurance, but someone is paying premiums, is that not true? The money does not grow on trees that can be readily plucked...

Consider kidney dialysis - have an idea how much this costs? Our daughter-in-law works for a center that does this. Her job is to work to find funding that will pay for this procedure...most have it done three times a week. Know how much money that takes? $3000 per treatment. So, if you need three treatments a week this will take nine thousand dollars a week! and this does not take into account the money needed to pay for meds. Or, how about a heart transplant? Got an idea how much that costs? A relative of mine said her sons' cost a million dollars...

Let us get real...we are going to die, sometime. Why prolong the process when the end is certain, cannot be avoided? Are people so scared to die they will use your insurance premiums, the gov money to postpone their meeting with the Almighty?

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Sandra Miller

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread and pray for me that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may abound to me with all wisdom and faith to seek God for himself alone and for his glory alone.

My prayer is that I will continue to seek His face to be and to do of His good will and that I will never get complacent but always be pressing toward all that Christ has apprehended me for and to be able to always fully minister under His anointing and leadership. I pray to decrease and Christ to increase. I hope to always learn Christ and be able to truly deny myself and take up my cross to be full of the Holy Spirit to be able to minister in the power of the Spirit to see God’s people set free according to the scriptures.

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,



I appreciate all on SI and I understand how difficult these days are but when I seek the Lord in the spirit through His word there is a faith that rises up within my heart that causes me to believe that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and that there is nothing God can’t do or won’t do for His people who love Him and are the called according to His purpose. May all experience His grace, love, and power.

Blessings…from brother rbanks

Well, because we're all humans. Humans are born mortal beings, consequently they get sick and recover, others get sick and die, or get healed and then grow old and eventually die.

Mortality has its drawbacks. :(

Trying to explain again, what I was getting at in the post above with a question - Where are the gifts of the Spirit that should be operating in the Church that define 'what' we are dealing with when trying to help people? - such as, "the word of wisdom" - "the word of knowledge" And "discerning of spirits".

I see a "one size fits all" remedy that's crept into the church just a bit over 30 yrs ago and these wisdom gifts that can only come from the Shepherd of the Sheep, The Only One Who knows what exactly is going wrong with a person are being neglected.

I see more pat answers and the same answers over and over from the same people consistently. This is a crime against a Holy GOD that loves all of His creation.
Imagine going to a Dr that gives the same treatment to all of his patients without finding out what is truly wrong with them? That's what I see happening out there.

I've experienced two excellent pastors in my lifetime and they had three things in common - not that the first is necesary but it doesn't hurt and is also a gift from GOD. Both were intelligent - both were compassionate and both looked to GOD to give them wisdom on how to care for each individual individually. No pat answers. No pat solutions. No pat diagnosing or judging. Just a dependency on those gifts above = His Voice.

When you see so many hurting or oppressed souls getting the same pat-answer-solutions for decades that they'll only further hurt by - it does begin to grieve you because you know that if the person would have depended on His Wisdom and not their own, their "ministry" to the hurting wouldn't hurt so many of those they give their one-size-fits all diagnosis and remedy to.

We need dependence on Him more than ever. More will be having problems of all sorts and if one doesn't stop trusting in themselves and start seeking HIS knowledge and wisdom on what the root or cause is of what's afflicting each human distinctly and how to bring healing these fellow human beings, they'll continue to bring more harm than good and continue to bring discredit to a GOD that desires to speak and work through His Church for HIS Glory.
The book of Acts is not filled with pat-answers to every problem and neither are the stories of how Jesus dealt with people, in the Gospels.
We need to desire to hear and Know His Voice when dealing with people that are suffering in 'any' way and one doesn't get that from "reading a book" or following a certain teacher - it Has to come straight from HIM alone. Each individual needs individualized help from GOD, because only HE has known them from the womb.

Too many quacks claiming to be in a ministry that are hurting far too many helpless victims and it should never be allowed but all we can do is pray that, as He's shaking all that can be shaken - that He'll shake these one-size-fit all "ministries" to their knees in humble dependence on Him for their "ministry" to the hurting. Amen!

The gifts of the Spirit never operate apart from the fruit of the Spirit and if there is no fruit, then there is no real abiding taking place. If there is no abiding, then there is no holiness. That is quite a few important things that are missing for one to be expecting miracles.

It takes faith to receive from God and all the previously mentioned things are referring to a life of faith and righteousness.

Pilgrim

Submission to GOD without the fear of men.

Art Katz was accused of not displaying the fruit because he had to tell things as he saw them - just as Jesus, His Apostles and His Prophets did in our Bibles - but we've created synthetic fruit or plastic fruit.
The fear of men and the desire for self-glorification is what keeps us from hearing His Voice or looking to hear Him for direction or ministries or preaching, and so forth.
I've watched men change what they've said from minute to minute because someone didn't agree with them. I've seen them cow-tow to obvious enemies of Christ - those who are dilibrately twisting and cursing His Word although they claim to have once followed Him. The fearful will let these types curse GOD and bow down to them out of fear alone.

I see all the great men through-out His Word have the most child-like dependence/submission to GOD and yet possess no fear of men.
They knew the difference between being polite out of fear of being rejected and being tender because GOD showed them the very heart of whom they were speaking to that needed comforting words. There's an eternity of a difference between those two minds.