Thursday, June 30, 2011

Healing Ministry of the Local Church-Collin's corner

Hey everyone. I have thought about taking the concept of "Collin's Corner" and add it here to our normal blog. The first reason is because the "Collin's Corner" page isn't a blog format, so it would become this long page of text...it would be pretty hard to read and also find dates when things are written. So what we will do is put it into this blog format but next to the title of the blog we will add "Collin's Corner" to indicate that it's going to be a blog post with things that I am processing, reading, things of that manner. So today I wanted to share a little bit of my struggle with healing. Since I became a Christian I had wanted to be able to move in this spiritual gift of healing. We can talk about whether my motives were pure or not later;) Even to this day living in a culture that is full of idolatry and believe their idols have power,I have often prayed for God to show his power through the external miraculous signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit. This post isn't to quench this yearning, because Paul says in 1 Cor 14 to "earnestly desire" spiritual gifts. I believe God has and will continue to manifest His power through signs and wonders such as healing. In Acts we see this happening and also we see that this is a prayer that the disciples had as well (Acts 4:30). I believe this is something we should continue to pray for and seek, as Jesus demonstrated in His 3-fold ministry. There are two thoughts that I have had about this aspect of the Christian life. The first is that in 1 Corinthians spiritual gifts are given as the Holy Spirit wills. He chooses and endows people with the one He desires best. Not all will prophesy, not all will speak in tongues, etc.(1 Cor 14). Continuing with this thought, I think we usually read 1 Cor 12 & 14 through the lens of personal gift/experience, whereas Paul is addressing the church as a whole, so the church as a whole had these gifts in the church. If we look around the body of Christ today we can see all the spiritual gifts in practice. I have posted the link on this blog because I believe the author has a great point when he begins to discuss how the church has a many different types of healing ministries given by the Holy Spirit: mentally, physically, spiritually, etc. Are people being healed emotionally? Spiritually? Psychologically? These are all manifestations of the ministry of healing by the Holy Spirit. I thought this was a great thought. Ok, now my 2nd thought:

I was discussing my frustration and desire with my pastor about wanting God to move this way and he said something that really opened my eyes. He said that, "God desires us to step out in faith ,and we should pray for these signs and wonders to happen, but the greater prayer I think we should pray for is for revelation. That people would have revelation to see Christ as the Son of God." This is such a great point. It says in 2 Cor 4 that people are blinded by the God of this world from seeing JESUS as the glory of God! They aren't blinded from seeing the miracles, but they are blinded from seeing Christ as the glory of God. I want to add that the Holy Spirit uses these signs to glorify Christ as the Son of God. So living in Taiwan what if God healed my friend? He could believe, but he could also say that he just wants God to heal him again, and if God does that why does he need Jesus? What if my prayers changed from God doing signs and wonders, to GOD open their eyes to their sin, their knowledge of who Jesus is, what He requires and what He has offered everyone through the cross! A spirit of revelation to have their eyes opened to who Jesus is. In the gospels we see people who saw signs, loved Jesus as the miracle worker, but didn't love Him as the Savior. Let me know what you think about this. Blessings!