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Chapter 3 The Children's Bread (Healing is the children's bread. It's our normal diet.) The Lord Jesus Christ walked this Earth in our day in a business suit and healed the multitudes, even as He did in His robe and sandels long ago.This was to show the Bride that He is truly the same "Yesterday, Today, and Forever." Since He never changes we can know that His will is to heal His sick children in this day. We are aware that healing for the body is only an outward manifestation of a greater miracle that He comes to perform in our soul. Nevertheless, when our SOUL is healed then His whole healing for the body becomes the CHILDREN'S BREAD. "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayst prosper and be in health, EVEN AS THY SOUL PROSPERETH." (III John 1:2) According to this verse, we prosper in all things, including HEALTH, to the same degree that our soul prospers in the WORD. The soul must feed on the overall teaching of scripture that shows God's great desire to heal His obedient children. There is a story in Mat.15:22-28 that thrills and builds faith. A woman of Cannan came and cried unto Jesus, greatly desiring Him to have mercy on her daughter. The woman was a Gentile and the Lord had not yet ministered to any but the "Lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Verse 24) When this desperate woman confronted Jesus "He answered her not a word." When addressed by a Gentile as "Son of David" she had no claim upon Him. But when whe addressed Him as "Her Lord" she immediately had His attention and her daughter was healed. And so is it today that when we have made Him "Our Lord" and our lives are laid on the altar at His precious feet, we have His attention. It is then that Healing becomes "The Children"s Bread." How desperately some of God's children need this "BREAD OF HEALING" today. We have read the scripture that says, "When you pray BELIEVE that you have your answer, and you shall have it." (Mark 11:25) We have heard the Prophet say over and over "If you would ONLY BELIEVE. We believed his report when he told us that an angel spoke to him and promised that no disease could stand before him if he could get the people to BELIEVE. But therein lies theproblem. We confess that He would heal usif we could only believe, but how to believe remains a mystery to most of us. I do think that one reason why most peope hesitate to testify that they are believing is their failure to see the difference between trusting in THEMSELVES and trusting GOD. Once again we see that these two things are as different as night from day, and that we are never called upon to have confidence in SELF, then new hope will flood our souls . when the Lord opens our understanding to Phil.3:3 it is like cool water to a man dying of thirst in the burning desert. Phil. 3:3, "For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Jesus Christ, and HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH." To be relieved rrom the impossible task of trying to perfect the flesh before we are in line to receive God's promises is no small revelation. To understand that we can have FULL CONFIDENCE in ourselves is a key to unlocking the door to all His promises. Our problem has been that we let the failures of OUR FLESH stop us from believing in the ONE who had no failures in HIS FLESH. Our faith must be in what He has already done for us while He was here in the "Likeness of sinful flesh." He condemned sin that is in our flesh by keeping the law perfectly, while living in flesh like ours. Rom. 8:3, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, (OUR FLESH) God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Our faith must be in what He has already done. All is ours NOW through His finished work. Healing is ours, bought and paid for and offered us as a GIFT. A gift cannot be earned, it can only be recieved with thankfulness and humilty. Now it is perfectly legal in God's mind for us to repent as we have need, and having recieved His forgiveness, to have full confidence in Him, even while our own fleshly failures are apparent. He fully accepts our confidence in HIMSELF. Real faith is always toward God and never toward self. It is when He has led us down a pathway that is meant to destroy our confidence in Self, that we are able to transfer our self confidence up to Him.believing must be directed toward a PERFECT PERSON and away from our own imperfect selves. Once we have a revelation of the imperfection of our outer flesh man, than in desperation we are made to cast ourselves upon Christ. We must see who it is that is to be believed in. This revelation will scatter the fog that has clouded our minds concerning this thing of believing. How simple and easy God wants it to be for a Born Again person to rest his case about healing on the faithfulness of his God, and that alone. How hard we have made it by bringing SELF into the picture, with our inherited failures! In Jer. 2:5 the Lord asks a simple but revealing question. "Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your Fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? (By trusting in themselves) Notice here that the Lord is attempting to remove our unbelief by reminding us that the only excuse for it would be if we found sin in Him. Little Bride we understand that the sin in ourselves was removed by the Cross! If Grace has destroyed our sins, as we daily repent, and we know that there is no sin in our God, then He asks "Why are you so far away from trusting Me?" All would be well if we truly believed both of these facts! Bible faith is a revelation of the PERFECTION OF GOD coupled with the revelation of the HELPLESSNESS OF SELF. All our failures have been controlled by our loving Father, and geared to produce this helplessness in us. Our THORNS IN THE FLESH are given to keep us from being exalted in our SELF-CONFIDENCE. (II Cor. 12: 7) We, even as Paul, have prayed earnesly that our THORNS be taken away. But thanks be to God the Bride is recieving the same answer as he. "My grace is sufficent for thee, for My strength is made perfect through the weakness of your flesh. It is time for the Bride to discover what our father Abraham found as pertaining to his flesh. Rom. 4:1-5, "What shall we say then that Abraham our Father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Let me tell you plainly what he found before we read the other verses. He found that he could not live a life perfect enought to please his God in his outer flesh man. The Bride is now making this discovery. Verse 2, "For if Abraham were JUSTIFIED by works (Of his Flesh) he hath whereof to glory, but not before God." Can we see it? Abraham gave up trying to please God by his own works of the flesh. He had a revealtion, it cannot be done! With all that is in us we strive to live above sin, God requires this of us. But after having done our best, "All our righteousness is as filthy rags." (Isa.64:6) And so we must not "Frustrate the Grace of God for if righteousness come by keeping the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Gal. 2:21) |
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