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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Blind
Faith? As I have heard over the
last fifty years, I've heard it again in the midst of our present Covid
controversies. Those who
promote hyper-faith thinking say that if you ask Jesus to heal an
illness; claim your healing and live out its reality.
You are healed, despite any appearance of no healing.
Such an appearance is a left-over symptom, a false reality.
It would, then, be a lack of faith to take doctor-prescribed
meds, as one diabetic lady who refuses her meds recently asserted. I've heard it before.
As far back as 1970 hyper-faith folk have scolded me for my
apparent faulty faith that prevents Jesus from healing my legally blind
eyes. They say I just need
to claim my healing and live as if I can see.
It's called living by faith and not by sight.
How do I do that? Should
I cross a busy street corner by faith, by claiming the light is green
and seeing where my faith takes me?
Should I ask a hyper-faith person to close his eyes and cross
with me? I maintain that if Jesus
heals you, there are no lingering symptoms.
You are either healed or not healed.
Telling your mind you're healed when you're not is a humanistic
attempt at mental gymnastics. That's
not Biblical faith. Our English word
"faith," and its linguistic cousin "believe," is
translated from the Greek word "pistis" in the New Testament.
Pistis means trust. If
you have genuine faith or trust in Jesus, you have handed your will, your life,
over to His will, whatever His will may be.
Faith is not an aggressive claim, claim, claim.
It's a restful, trusting assurance in Jesus' will for your life.
Faith is not a leap into
a nonsensical world where you don't know where your leap will land you.
I've seen where that leap leads.
My By-polar friend followed the advice of a hyper-faith preacher
and threw away his meds. Believing
he was superman, because that's what his no-meds, By-polar brain told
him, he leapt off the tallest bridge in town. Miraculously he survived
his leap of faith but was severely injured in the process.
Look at what John 20:29
says. "Then Jesus told
him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed;
blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have believed.'" I
admit I'm taking this verse a step beyond its original intent.
You can debate me over that.
Jesus said that the one who trusts Him without physically seeing
Him is a blessed believer. That's
me on two counts. I not only
trust Jesus with my life without physically seeing Him, I trust Him
despite Him not healing my legally blind eyes.
Acts 7 records Stephen with such a faith.
He trusted Jesus with his life, a life that an angry, murderous,
religious mob robbed from him.
Mark
16:20 sets forth a Biblical principle.
There, we note the disciples preaching while Jesus worked with
them confirming their message. The
principle is this. As a
Christian, I am to be engaged in a collaborative relationship with Jesus
where He and I have our specific sphere of responsibilities in my life.
I do my part and Jesus does His part by making up for my lack.
I chose to do my part by taking the doctor-prescribed meds
before, during, and after the surgeon's knife sliced me open and removed
my severely cancerous prostate, and through it all, I trusted Jesus.
I did what I could do and trusted Jesus for the rest, and I'm
alive and well today.
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