Miracles and Obligations
Wayne and Brad finally have a chance to catch up on some of the wonderful email they've been sent in recent weeks. It's always fun to see the insights people are having on their own God journeys and to interact with some of their questions. Wayne and Brad find themselves in a discussion about miracles and healings, Redding and IHOP, and whether or not getting people to adopt the "right" technique is helpful to them growing in these areas. They also re-visit their discussion on the soft legalism of practical Christianity.
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Love this line: “Why can’t we just help people know how to live linside the love of God and love people around them, and trust that out of that, whatever miracles want to unfold, whatever God has in mind to do, God’s going to do through lives that live that way.”
Thanks for another wonderful podcast, my brothers!
Why does you latest podcast on Miracles and Obligations finish after 3 minutes of playing is there something wrong with it. I enjoy these podcasts immensely but am sorry I can’t here the whole broadcast.
In Hiis Unfailing Love,
Andrew Koornstra
Brad and Wayne,
Great observations and insight. Especially liked your nimble balance relative to IHOP. Sorry to hear that the Silks are smothered in covering. ;o)
Tom
Thanks alot for this,Friends 🙂 I myself have wondered about healing for quite a while 🙂 Thanks ya’ll for sharing your opinions! I always love the reminder too,in all your pod casts of the importance of the relationship. Religion SO misses that!! Love the line,”Follow Jesus,let Him be your Shepard…” I <3 how just following our Lover can transform us! Thanks guys 🙂
My oldest daughter had a great insight about the sheep and the shepherd. Pastors have been referred to as Shepherds. She said, “but they are more like the Border Collies”. The Collies run around and around the sheep “trying” to keep them in line and inside a predetermined perimeter. And these collies are not beyond nipping and biting to keep the sheep in the circle.
This hit me over the head hard. What a true insight. Wow.
Andrew,
It plays fine. Is there something wrong with your computer and/or iPod? It’s working fine for me!
Thank you for these pod-cast’s! I always look forward to them each week. Wayne, I have been reading your articles and listening to transitions among other sermons. I can’t say enough how I appreciate your heart for Jesus. I hear the rest in your soul and it is a familiar place that I know deep in mine.
Thank you both…
by the way… I’m with Brad on the “Avatar” movie… 🙂 lol .. God has even used the movie “Napolean Dynamite” to speak to my heart… I’m totally serious… and laughing at the same time…
love the Joy!
Are miracles by definition rare? Or are they a normal part of life (Christian life?) Talking about the simulated leg lengthening or the placebo healing IS casting dispersion on faith. Do we make a show out of it too much or an event.? yes probably. But if I hadn’t been exposed to that side of the body of christ I would have always thought that that kind of praying is just for the anointed!! What I think is rare are the number of times outside of “the house of God” that we generic run of the mill ordinary “Christians” are confronted by people who need a miracle (a touch from God) and we take the time to love that person enough to spend time helping them to ask God to touch their life. When we spend the time to get some common ground they might be open to you asking for permission to pray for them there and then or not. What is more common are the times we act like the Levite or the Priest who crossed the road to avoid being defiled or ceremonially unclean and hope some Samaritan will come along and clean up the mentally challenged homeless grifter who is trying to get some change from you .
Amen,Mike!
Useful topic guys. I too have seen a few actual healings myself so I know they happen. But I think your main theme holds true “live life loved and love”. I am thinking that every miracle is truly the product of our Father’s love for us. If we don’t ‘get’ that, it’s just going to be a sideshow that ultimately doesn’t increase people’s faith very much.
I was at a church retreat when the leader read John 14:12 (greater things than these…) and thrust the near accusation “Why don’t we see greater things in this church then?” It was the typical shame based assertion that was meant to tell all of us that the reason we didn’t see resurrections and healings was because we simply didn’t believe enough. As I stood there however, I thought – Here I am in a room of 75 people who have nearly all been spiritually raised from the dead. Many of us could not see our way through our own circumstances and now we nearly all have the eyes of faith to guide us, we could not walk through our circumstances but now we walk more confidently through our many troubles by faith, we were lepers because of our detestable choices and actions but now we are healed and accepted in the community of faith. When a person is physically raised from the dead, he dies again. When a person is raised from the dead spiritually, he lives forever. This is truly a greater thing.
Sharing this helpful realization with the pastor several weeks later however, got me a “go to jail – do not pass Go, do not collect $200 card”. When I realized I was already in jail, I paid my fifty bucks and landed here in the God Journey and it’s been both liberating and scary ever since.
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, yet so many are condemned over the matter of miracles and healings. While I usually appreciate the main focus of the God Journey on the love and acceptance of God, I could not stomach this last podcast. I am grateful that both men acknowledged that the power of God does work and people do get healed. However, that acknowledgment was undermined by the typical attitude that God does not always want people healed or its just ok if we do not experience healing. I agree that it is ok to use medications and medical procedures if we do not not experience healing. I use medicines as needed, too. So I am not pointing the finger at either of them or anyone else. What grieves me is the undermining of the Word of God by dismissing what God has already done for us as declared in the Bible. Healing is a finished fact. It was accomplished on the cross. We were healed by the stripes upon His back. All healing is in the resurrected Christ. When we do not experience healing it is because of other factors. Our faith and unbelief being only one of those other factors.
Yet so many feel condemnation when the matter of faith is admitted. Condemnation does not come from God. It comes from Satan, ourselves and others. There is no reason to feel condemned if one does not experience a healing. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in that which he allows. But let us not diminish the Truth of His Word by skirting what He says with excuses and rationalizations: we are all healed already in Christ Jesus. If I take medications I do not deny that truth. Rather I accept that I did not want to battle the unbelief. Why? Because I know God does not condemn me nor rejects me when I do not use the fullness of His gift.
Thanks Mike and Alex, and hello Brad and Wayne, as I listened ( first time ever today ) to you lovely guys from the other side of the world I must admit a breath of fresh air –at first. I have been ill (seriously ) for some 20+ years and have done & prayed etc etc etc. My faith in my God who heals is not in what I do but in who I am and as I learn to truly trust this one truth, my body is finally responding to that love of the first commandment. It excites me to hear of others receiving freedom from this bondage of sickness ‘cos that is what it is. Mostly I love the concept that as we go, if we are truly connected to the vine,we can stop for the one , ie my neighbour the football star now alcoholic and rare cancer in his leg with a marriage on the rocks — I believe God can heal him ( and me! ) and I persue knowing my neighbour with a love that is not my own — his Dad was brutal and his scars are so deep on the inside and he is unaware that a heavenly Father would not mistreat him. Sadly I have not had this experience of being so loved inside or outside the church — and I kow many who are outside now. I learned these truths about accepting Fathers love from the ones who used to be your buddies, Brad. To me it is also and — why cant my brothers inside the sheep pen and those outside of it get the meassage, we are all right if our hearts are connected to a Daddy who loves His family and would that none should perish — so guys, love one another, dont cast aspersions on thte religious folk, some are little boys who have as yet not walked in their Daddy’s love in fullness and they need the love of us the seeming mature sheep who are content whether inside the pen or outside it. In short, get our hearts healed up and love EVERYONE! God has brought me to the place where I love, truly love, what Father is doing all over the world and in my little village, but I will always expect more of everything, until we experience the fullness of Christ. I am not taking sides, Daddy’s family is too precious to Him.
With love and in Him.
Marg
Golden calf junkie…. nice.
I think healing has been really marred and blurred by religion. I feel pain just thinking about God’s genuine healing (or perhaps The Heart behind it) …it’s been so mocked, imitated, falsified, and pursued for so many reasons. It’s a really sad and angering thing.
I would say that I haven’t seen any physical miracles myself but then that also seems to bring me a little spiritual pain, so perhaps I have somehow somewhere.
-Jeremy
I am grateful for you guys, and for what revelation of Father’s love that I’ve received through your podcast. But I have to say that I am continually saddenned by the fact that my wife just can’t handle the mocking that’s sometimes being said toward another part of the body of Christ. I have learned to see that every part of the body has it’s own purpose, and I have been learning even different revelation could be received and translated, even though they may come from the same Father.
What really saddenned me is the fact that you guys made fun and rationalized that all miracles happened just in the building. I am not sure if you guys just never heard this, but there has been healing breaking out on the streets and even in the disneyland. There are lots of youtube videos about this. The best part is that the healing flowed out from unknown nameless people. Some of them are just teenagers that are acting out His faith in God’s love and His will to heal.
I have lost my own father to cancer, after praying and contending for healing, but I’ve learned that that experience should not change my belief that He is still the God who heals. As well as a Father who loves me.
But one thing I have learned and with love, I want to ask you guys, especially Wayne, please, please, don’t make fun of the other groups. I love your ministry, as well as the other ministries. yes there have been ministries that manipulating and trying to gain their own reputation, but I have followed Mike Bickle, from IHOP, as well as Bill Johnson from Bethel (Redding), and they have always put an importance of not speaking bad of other ministries, especially if you have never been in the inner circle. So please for the sake of unity of the different parts of His Body, also for the sake of my wife and the others who can’t stand the mocking and “the saying that the supernatural is just another form of manipulation”, please don’t speak badly about other ministries.
With all that, sorry to ramble, I have been blessed with your ministry and I will continually tune in and enjoy your conversation. By the way, have you guys check out the movie, Finger of God??
Blessings!!!
I stumbled on the book ” So you don’t want to go to Church anymore” in Walmart on Easter night. The title was exactly how I was feeling not to mention my husband and I just ran into Chuck the Cross Carrier in Sonora Ca of all places. My point is, I’ve been searching for GOD at all types of different Church services and I did’nt get it..I would leave even more confused and empty, those feelings are not of the Lord!! I found my self in 2008 driving 5hours to Bethel in Reding.All I can say is I remained open to the experience but had many questions for the Lord. I went back again in 2010 in hopes for a different experience but of course I was even more uncertain if this was the Presence of GOD. To think that way raised concern. I realized I made up every excuse for that particular service..Did I mention my daughter was horrified!! When will I get it !! I knew the Lord was here all along in my home,my car,my job,my evening walks,my children, my husband but yet I was caught up in a quick fix.I wanted something magical to happen to me as if I were an 8 yr old girl believing in flying faries. At one point I called my self a visitor of churches,everyweekend I’d hope the Lord was sending me to the place I was to be. Finally, after many prayers doors began to close. I would seek bible school, bible studies,any thing to do with the Lord and the doors would close, (meaning something would come up and I couldn’t participate) Oh I get it I thought..The Lord wants me to study him for myself,to get closer to him,to know him..I listened as he spoke.God Bless you all on this journey..
Hi guys, this is “McDozer” again (no, not my real name, just a permanent testimony to my humor, which is the reason I think you guys are so cool). I guess it might be a little late to be commenting on this post (been trying to catch up with all the older ones from the past 7 years or so), and was happy to find your approval on my take on “golden calf junkies” (I ought to know about’em, having been one countless times).
However, Brad, Wayne cheated you in that he didn’t read all of my comment on “Avatar,” since I actually agreed with you on it, not him. So, you didn’t get “bulldozed by McDozer” in this case, but only once again by Wayne’s particular sense of humor…
I keep enjoying your stuff. Never before was foolishness so enjoyable and edifying.
(In spite of the fact that you’re still depriving us of the privilege of being able to see your beautiful countenances to go along with all the fun…)
Keep on rockin’,
Dave (aka McDozer)
My favorite quote was when Brad said, “The biggest deception is give me the truth of this author, and I can make it work without Him.”