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WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN FOR?
THE HEALING STREAM
The next time some famous healing evangelist comes to your town
go and see what's happening. You may not enjoy the singing ... you
may be unimpressed by the preaching ... the altar call may seem
forced and the healing line may appear overdone. But look at the
sea of faces gathered there; there may be thousands of them. Ask
yourself, "What brought them here? Why did they come on their
crutches and in their wheelchairs with their aches and pains and
worries and fears?"
The magic word of course is healing ... they want to be healed or
they want to see other people healed.
The healing evangelist knows, and we know, that most of the people
who go limping up the ramp for the laying-on-of-hands are going
to go limping down again. Many of those who praise the Lord that
their head-ache is gone will find, when the excitement is over,
that the pain is still there. Yet the healing evangelist, and the
vast crowds that follow him, and the fantastic sums of money that
flow into his elaborate organi-zation, are living proof of the deep
hunger in the hearts of all men for the healing of Christ.
People are still looking for the Christ "who went about doing
good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was
with him." People are looking for men who have God with them
and who manifest God's goodness by healing the sick. And they have
a perfect right to look for this healing Christ ... and to feel
cheated when they are offered an emaciated substitute Christ who
never does anything but hang in a picture frame and look piously
upward while studio lights play softly upon his freshly shampooed
tresses.
The Christ who came from the wilderness into Galilee preaching the
kingdom of God manifested the kingdom by healing the sick. And the
Christ who went forth in the bodies of the disciples on the Day
of Pentecost manifested the kingdom of God by healing the sick.
Wherever Jesus Christ really lives there is a stream which flows
out and heals all who touch it.
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
There is a river, the streams whereof
shall make glad the City of God.
Perhaps in the age to come this river of life will be a visible,
physical thing ... we may be able to reach down and touch it or
drink it or bathe in its waters. But right now the river of life
which flows through the world is not like the Mississippi or the
Danube. This river is nothing other than a stream of human beings....
people. The river that is meant to flow out from beneath the altar
of your church (see Ezekiel 47), and heal the world around it, is
the stream of people that will pass through its doors at the end
of the service. You and your brothers and sisters are the healing
river, for we can each be instru-ments if the Holy Spirit who indwells
and flows forth from those whom he has filled.
God may be pleased to use famous healing evangelists from time to
time to answer the heart-cries of some poor thirsting souls who
have never been shown the healing side of Christ. But the real healers
are not the chaps who blast away at the devil in front of microphones
and video cameras and glaring lights. The real healers are the disciples
who leave the gathered fellowship on Sunday morning filled with
the Holy Spirit and quietly and confidently go back into the world
with power to forgive sins in Jesus’ name.
Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be unto you. As the Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." And when he had said this,
he breathed on them and said unto them, "Receive ye the Holy
Spirit. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and
whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained."
This is where the healing stream begins… in this blessed twentieth
chapter of John where Jesus appeared to the disciples alive from
the dead and told them four things:
1. Peace be unto you. (Your sins are forgiven, you have peace with
God.)
2. As the Father hath sent me even so send I you.
3. Receive ye the Holy Spirit.
4. Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever
sins ye retain they are retained.
These four things are Jesus' "sending forth" message to
his disciples today. With these four statements Jesus transforms
them into "a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the
City of God."
Peace be unto you. Perhaps in the pressure of daily living you often
lose the peace of God ... your mind becomes tense and uneasy...
you get so worked up about your problems that you forget where you
are going. Then Sunday comes and you gather with fellow believers
... you pray for his peace to return to you.
At last the Lord begins to speak. As always his first word is, "Peace."
He says it with authority as if he were addressing the stormy Galilee....
"Peace, be still!" And even as he speaks the words peace
descends upon you ... peace you do not have in yourself ... God's
peace... holy peace.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world
giveth
give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid....
Your sins are forgiven.... God holds nothing against you ... you
are safe. And as that peace begins to sink in you, yourself are
healed. Your mind and spirit are healed and many times your body.
But now that you have this peace, what are you going to do with
it? Are you going to sit down and bask in it? Are you going to lie
down and sleep with it? Or wrap it in a napkin and tuck it in a
drawer for safe-keeping? Not God's peace. There is only one way
to keep it.... spread it ... give it to others. "Blessed are
the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."
Hence Jesus' second word to you. As the Father hath sent me even
so send I you. You are the healing stream. "Behold, I send
you forth," says the Lord Jesus.
What makes your church a church? Certainly not the bells in the
tower or the organ or the preacher or the choir or the altar or
the candles. It becomes a church when the people carry the healing
of Jesus Christ to their brothers and sisters in the world…
when they live like men and women who have been sent to heal the
brokenhearted and deliver the captives... when they flow out of
the building Sunday-by-Sunday as a river of healing water.
Perhaps you are saying that you don't feel like a healer. You feel
that your own life is too full of wounds and stains to bring healing
to someone else. Then listen to Jesus' third word to you. Receive
ye the Holy Spirit. There's the power. Not your wisdom or your love
or your anything.... God's. The healing water is the Spirit of God
and you are the channel.
But you have to receive the Holy Spirit. If someone were to walk
up to you today and tell you to purchase the Empire State Building
you'd shake your head. But if he held out a check for three billion
dollars and said, "Here, buy it with this," that would
be quite different. Of course, you still couldn't buy the Empire
State Building unless you reached out and received the check. Even
so the Holy Spirit of God has to be received ... taken. "Have
ye received the Holy Spirit since ye be-lieved?" said Paul
to the men at Ephesus.
I can remember my reaction the first time someone asked me whether
I had ever received the Holy Spirit."... I was insulted. What
do you mean, receive the Holy Spirit? Don't I have the Holy Spirit?
"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,"
wrote Paul. How could I believe in Christ if I didn't have the Holy
Spirit? And yet, receiving the Holy Spirit is not a once-and-done
thing, as we discover as we read the fourth chapter of Acts.
Whenever Jesus sends us forth to heal, he breathes over us again
just as he breathed over the disciples and says, "Receive the
Holy Spirit." Then it is up to us to open our hearts and breathe
in what our Lord has breathed upon us, letting the Spirit possess
us wholly ... he must be allowed to have full control.
Now you emerge from your church filled with the Holy Spirit. What
do you do with this gift? How do you bring healing to the world?
Very simple...you heal by making real to those wounded souls out
there that God has forgiven their sins. What healing there is in
knowing this forgive-ness!
Now, in what ways can you make this forgiveness real?
1. You can forgive sins in the Lord
Jesus’ name through intercession.
When people are sinning against you, pray for them that they may
be forgiven. When men put our Lord on the cross, his first words
were, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
When they began to stone Stephen to death, he cried, "Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge." There is a healing which
flows every time you pray for the forgiveness of those who are wronging
you.
You have many opportunities to impart forgiveness through intercession.
There are people who hurt you, neglect you, take advantage of you
... pray their forgiveness and you become their healer under God.
2. You can forgive sins in Jesus’
name by pointing to his cross. When someone
comes to you all tangled up in guilt, driving himself to death on
the treadmill of dead works, you can point to the cross and say,
"Look... see what Jesus has already done for you ...trust him
that the price has already been paid."
Most people, even church-going people, still don't realize that
they've been forgiven. They don't understand what the cross means
or how to enter into the forgiveness purchased for them there. So
they are driving themselves… or running away from themselves
... or trying to hide from God. What healings will occur when you
tell those troubled souls that they are now forgiven if they will
only accept the gift. Their sins are now covered ... the war is
over ... Christ has conquered.
3. And after they have told you their
burdens, and you have prayed with them, you can forgive sins (hold
on to your seat) by saying directly to this person as if you were
the priest in the confessional.... "In the name of Jesus Christ,
your sins are forgiven."
There are times when it is impossible to explain the facts of the
gospel to a person when you have to stand up in the name of Jesus
and speak with no "ifs" or "buts" directly to
that troubled conscience, "Be clean! You are forgiven!"
When some tormented brother comes to you and confesses a sea of
filth and ugliness it is best not to say very much ... it is best
just to listen. When he's finished don't give him a lot of advice
... pray with him and at the end of your prayer, in the name of
Christ, declare him absolved of all the sins he confessed.... and
he will be healed.
"Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and
whose-soever sins ye retain they are retained." This does not
mean that we are to go strutting through the world arbitrarily marking
this man for heaven and that man for hell. God have mercy on all
who play the role of judge, which belongs only to God. The Lord
Jesus simply commands us to impart the forgiveness of the cross
to all who will accept it, leaving those who insist on retaining
their sins to the mercy of God. Jesus gives us authority as his
disciples to impart his blood-bought forgiveness to any man or woman
who will receive it. If a man or woman is confronted with God's
grace and rejects it with their eyes open then their sins are retained…
but this is their choice and never ours.
Our task is to make forgiveness real to those around us...not just
to mouth the words of the gospel. The world is sick of hearing Christian
Pharisees telling them that "Jesus died for your sins,"
while resentment is written all over their own faces.
If I'm going to heal others by imparting the forgiveness of Christ
I've got to practice forgiveness down to the tip of my toes. It
won't do to repress the grudge or squelch the bitterness or grit
my teeth as my enemy passes by. I must forgive.
You will make the forgiveness of the cross real to men and women
around you by incarnating that forgiveness yourself ... by being
a living embodiment of it… by letting Christ in you move you
to practice forgiveness utterly in your daily life toward the very
people who hurt you and neglect you and take advantage of you.
Now the healing stream will begin to flow. The Lord himself will
work with you confirming your words and following it with signs.
Through you and all who follow him, Jesus will continue what he
began so long ago... "to preach the gospel to the poor ...
to heal the brokenhearted ... to preach deliverance to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind ... to set at liberty them that
are bruised..." This is Vital Christianity.
Remember that soon... sooner than you can imagine ... your day in
the Vineyard will be over. A new day will dawn. The kingdom of God
which once lived invisibly in your heart will then burst forth in
indescribable glory and you will be, at last, at your journey's
end ... heaven… where
…eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him.
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