Jehovah Rapha

 

Jehovah Rapha is one of the names of God that we find in the Old Testament. It means God the healer.

Healing is something that God has promised us. He says that by His stripes we are healed. Sometimes it is easy to have faith, and other times we struggle with it. One thing I do know is God loves to heal His children.

When you see people being healed it gets easier to have faith and really pray for each other with conviction. I guess seeing really is believing.

We have a group of people in our church who meet for prayer every Wednesday night. Our group is growing. Tonight there were 18 of us.

There is a man in our group who has had an extremely bad back for many years. He had been wearing a back brace for months, and  had been scheduled for a very serious back surgery where they were to go in through his back and fuse part of his spine. Then the next day they would go in through the front and complete the fusion. We really started praying for him every week asking God to heal him or take him safely through the surgeries. Then he went to a men’s retreat at a campground. One night they were praying and suddenly he felt the pain go away.  He took off the back brace, ran up on the platform, grabbed the microphone, told everyone he had been healed and dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.

He hasn’t worn the back brace since then, and his back is fine.

Tonight we were at our meeting and an 85 year old lady who has been having severe back pain for months was there. She told us, once again, how bad her back was hurting. The pain was constant, 24 hours a day. We gathered around her and laid hands on her and prayed very hard. Suddenly she started rocking back and forth and saying the pain was gone. She got up, started walking all around, bending over, and telling us she was healed.

If you or someone you know needs healing just come before God about it. The Bible tells us we have not because we ask not. It also says to come boldly before the throne.

God says when we praise Him we form an atmosphere of praise around us where He can work. Does He need us to create an atmosphere so He can work. No. Of course not. But that is the way He prefers to work. He loves to partner together with us.

So, what are  you waiting for? You have access to the best partner you could ever possibly have. Don’t let that slip away.

Think about it.

Not My Will

 If you are like me you probably pray for things that aren’t what you really need. They are just what you really want. There is a huge difference between “need” and “want”. Sadly, I have spent a lot of time in my life learning that difference.

How many times have I prayed for God to give me something, or make a certain thing happen a certain way. When I didn’t get the answer to my prayer that I wanted, I just made it happen myself. Big mistake.

When I answer my own prayer I generally find out why God didn’t answer it like I wanted Him to. Then I get to spend time apologizing to God and praying for Him to fix it. I am slowly learning that is backwards, and the long way around to get to God’s will.

Have you ever heard the expression “measure twice, cut once”? That refers to making sure you are doing things the correct way so you don’t have to back up and do it again.

Unfortunately, in my life, reverse seems to be the gear I use the most. Hmmmmm. I wonder why.

The things I do in my life seem like such good ideas at the time. In the end, I always realize the only really good ideas I have are the ones I get from God.

Isaiah 55:9 says,
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

As children we are taught to listen to our elders. That is because they have been around longer, and know a lot more. So why don’t we apply that to our relationship with God? After all, He has been around a little bit longer than we have, and I think He knows a little bit more. The Bible tells us that all wisdom comes from God.

I can be a slow learner when it comes to running my life. I am gradually learning more and more that the best way I can pray to God is to admit that He knows my situation and need better than I do. I have to just give it to Him and ask for His will, not mine. God included that in the example He gave to us about how to pray. That is the Lord’s Prayer. Although I am not a proponent of repeating written prayers because I believe our prayers should come directly from our own heart to His, but I do recommend the Lord’s Prayer. After all, it was given to us directly from Him, but I believe that although it is a good place for our day and our prayers to start, it should not end there.

When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, He told God “Not My will, but Thine be done.” If Jesus needed to submit Himself to God’s will, how much more do we need to do that.

I am going to start making it a practice to end my prayers not only saying “in Jesus’ name,” but also saying “not my will but Thine be done”.

Once again I am including the link to a song. It is an old song, but many of the old songs are very deep and beautiful. This is one of them.

The name of the song is Not My Will. Please listen to it, enjoy it, and think about it.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxTNsfJNnZdHKmjTdnZHGKwjfp?projector=1

If you enjoyed this, please feel free to leave a comment. They are greatly appreciated. Also, please pass this on to your friends. Thank you.

Janice

Face Down - Good or Bad

 

Have you ever fallen on your spiritual face? Of course you have. We all have. Actually, falling on your face is not always a bad thing.

When you have fallen on your face has it been because you messed up again? If so, did you learn from it? Unfortunately, as human beings, God sometimes has to let us fall on our face in order to get our attention. If we respond properly, when God picks us up and stands us back on our feet we will try not to fall again for the same reason.

When I worked for Coca Cola the boss used to say it was okay to make a mistake, just don’t keep making the same mistake over and over again.

That is the way God is. He doesn’t mind picking us up off our face, but He doesn’t want to have to do it over and over again for the same sin. Not because He is tired of picking us up, but because He sees us just treading water when we could be moving forward in our relationship with Him.

Personally, I have had many spiritual bloody noses, and black eyes from falling in my walk with God. I can tell you, it hurts. But, you probably already know that.

The Bible tells us about King David falling so many times. When he fell he didn’t just stub his toe. When he fell, he really crashed and burned. When God picked him up he immediately fell on his face again. However, that time it would be in tears for what he had done.

Yet, God described David as a man after His own heart. That was because when David fell he would turn back to God. He didn’t just apologize to God. He would sorrowfully repent. There is a world of difference between apologizing and repenting. God sees right through superficial apologies. You cannot fool Him. He looks at our heart.

Falling on our face in front of God is totally different than falling on our face before God. Falling on our face in front of God needs to cause us to fall on our face before God. So you see, falling on our face is not always a bad thing.

My dad was an incredible man of God. He studied his Bible and prayed all the time. He used to talk about when the Philistines took the ark of the covenant into the temple of Dagon, who was their false god. They placed the ark by the statue of Dagon. In the morning they found that the statue of Dagon had fallen on it’s face before the ark. They stood it back up, but the next morning they found it on it’s face before the ark again, and this time it’s head and hands were broken off.

Dad used to say, “I would rather serve a God who can pick me up off my face, than to serve a god who I have to pick up off his face.”

So, if you land on you face in front of God, be sure you also land on your face before God.

Think about it.