Hey Gang: I may have mentioned this story a time or two
before but it is worth repeating if I have.
It seems an elderly lady’s health suddenly took a nose dive and she was
rushed to the hospital. After examining
her, the doctor notified the family that they should come quickly for her stay
on earth was rapidly coming to an end.
Along with the
family, her pastor arrived at her bed side and as pastors do, he laid his hands
on her and prayed that she would be healed.
Amazingly, at least to the doctor, within hours she made an amazing
recovery.
However, in a
month or so, the process was repeated- including the pastor laying hands on her
and another miraculous recovery. When
the same thing happened a week or so later, she whispered to the family, “Please
do not invite the pastor.”
Katherine
Weber, a reporter for the Christian Post, recently published an article that
she titled “If Death Leads to Heaven,
Should Christians Pray to Be Healed From Sickness?” The question: “If death leads us to eternal salvation, should we pray for healing
when faced with sickness?
Professor Travis
Myers, who serves as assistant professor of church
history and mission studies at Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minnesota,
wrote, in a recent post for the evangelical website, that he and his wife were
torn about what to do when he was diagnosed with B-cell follicular
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer.
He wrote that during his
time waiting for the cancer treatment plan, he kept thinking of Philippians
1:21, 23 which says: "To live is
Christ, and to die is gain […] to depart and be with Christ [...] is far
better."
This verse,
Myers writes, made him question- if
praying for healing was the truly Christian thing to do-."By praying for
healing and longer life, would I be
capitulating somehow to the sinful flesh, or be compromising my pursuit of
God's glory? Would I be abandoning the pursuit of joy and superior satisfaction
in Christ, himself, for the sake of an idolatrous love of the world?"
Myers then added that he eventually realized his prayers for healing did not go
against the teaching of this verse.
Just as the Apostle Paul dedicated his life to serving the
Philippian Church, so Jesus can use your time on earth to serve others, Myers writes, "God has graciously put that same 'mind of Christ' in me and every believer. (Philippians 2:5).
Years ago, we went to
give our condolences to a young couple who had lost the patriarch of their
family and, as we walked into the
funeral home, we could feel the excitement – people were singing, knowing the
patriarch had gone to his heavenly reward.
Hey folks, have you ever
thanked God for the great gift He gave us when “The Lord God sent Adam and Eve out from the garden of Eden….(with
no access to the tree of life and continued
living eternally while infirmed) and
placed cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the
way to the tree of life”? (Gen. 3:22-24).
Can you say “thank You
Jesus for that gift?
Blessings,
Gramps
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