Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

And now, Lord, pay attention to their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your message with great courage, while you extend your hand to heal, and to bring about miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
Acts 4:29-30 (emphasis added)

Jesus had already tagged preaching and healing together (Luke 9:2). Here the early church is seeing it exactly the same way. Preaching the Word and healing are hand in hand. If you are preaching the pure Word of Adonai you can EXPECT healings to happen. Don’t be surprised. The Word is healing to our bodies, after all (Proverbs 3:8). When was it that the church stopped believing that healing accompanied the preaching and teaching of the Word?
There are those that believe miracles passed away with the death of the apostles and the sealing of the New Testament. But then what about Augustine of Hippo? He was a sceptic of miracles until he witnessed them. He recorded in City of God:

‘For when I saw, in our own times, frequent signs of the presence of divine powers similar to those which had been given of old, I desired that narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of these things. It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius, and though many of the miracles which have been wrought by it have not, as I have the most certain means of knowing, been recorded, those which have been published amount to almost seventy at the hour at which I write. But at Calama, where these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more.’

Almost seventy healings that were known, but not widely talked about. What about Tertullian, the scholar and early christian writer? In Ad Scapulam (an open letter to Scapula, Proconsul of Africa) he writes:
‘The clerk of one of them who was liable to be thrown upon the ground by an evil spirit, was set free from his affliction; as was also the relative of another, and the little boy of a third. How many men of rank (to say nothing of common people) have been delivered from devils, and healed of diseases!’
Casting out evil spirits. Healings. Consider that Augustine lived 354AD to 450AD. That is a LONG time after the apostles known in the early church (all 83 that met that criteria in the scriptures). Tertullian lived 155AD to 220AD. These men (and others) living hundreds of years AFTER Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit were seeing evidence of that same Holy Spirit performing signs and wonders. The Holy Spirit and the gifts He imparts did NOT end at ANY time. What DID change?

The church stopped talking about it. They stopped spreading the news of it. They stopped EXPECTING it and did not train new converts to EXPECT it. If we do not EXPECT, we do not look for. If we do not LOOK FOR, we do not put faith towards. We CANNOT put faith towards what we do not BELIEVE. We cannot BELIEVE what we have not been TAUGHT TO EXPECT. It is a carefully crafted and intensely curated circle of doubt and fear. It is a demonic doctrine that healing, signs, miracles, and wonders have STOPPED. Only an enemy of Yahweh could have started it. Unfortunately a lot of good-hearted believers who love Adonai and proclaim Jesus have bought into it. It is truly sad. But Jesus warned us of it. “Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this”” (Mark 7:13).
I think a BETTER tradition to hand down is the tradition of the WORD. Straight up Word. Believing what it says. Not making EVERYTHING a parable or a symbol or an example to make you think. There are MANY times that what the Word says it means. Verbatim. I think the default position of EVERY believer should be to believe that the Word means EXACTLY what it says EXACTLY as it says it. It is SO MUCH better to think ‘oh, that was a parable’ than it is to think ‘what? you mean that’s real?’

The early church understood their position in Jesus because they simply believed what He said to them. They asked Him to speak the Word through them by PERFORMING MIRACLES. To separate the miraculous from the Word is a foolish thing to do. Why limit what Adonai can do through you? Why limit the victory that you can walk in? Does this mean always smooth sailing? No! But victory has little to do with position and pleasantry as the world sees these things. Jesus preached, taught, mentored, was betrayed, tortured, killed, and buried. That seems like good start and bad end. But the ‘bad end’ WAS the victory. From the world’s point of view He was being tortured. From the Father’s point of view He was conquering.

There is no way for us to see things from the Father’s point of view without help. He gave us the Helper (Holy Spirit) so that we can achieve that. Do we only have PART of the Holy Spirit? Are we only allowed to touch PART of the gift? Can we only hold SOME of the anointing? No. Far from it. The Old Covenant is not what we have. We have a better Covenant (Hebrews 8:6). But under the Old Covenant, Moses walked and talked with Yahweh with such intent and devotion that his face SHONE from the experience. Literal shining. He had to wear a veil so he wouldn’t freak people out. Think hard on this. Is there ANYONE today whose face glows after their devotional time? Yet we’re in the BETTER covenant, right? That means it is POSSIBLE that we can get so close to Adonai that our face SHINES from the experience.

We need to get back to that. We need to get back to talking about the miraculous that we see, not shooting it all down. We need to get back to believing what Jesus said and sticking to it. We need to start expecting again. We need to pray with all our hearts that we can preach the word WITH HEALINGS and signs and wonders to follow. And then EXPECT IT. FAITH IT. Don’t let go until the people we preach to SEE IT.

We need to stop thinking of Moses as a superman and Jesus only as the Son of God made flesh. Moses was a man EXACTLY like us with LESS ANOINTING. We can do as he did, devote like he did, and experience the relationship he did. Jesus was FULLY MAN and has given us HIS SPIRIT. Spiritually, we can be the same as He is because we have HIS spirit. We can do what Jesus did and experience what Jesus did and be used like Jesus was. If we miss it, we can repent and repair our thinking and behaviour. But imagine – picture it every day – that you remain in Jesus, study the Word, meditate on it, and see yourself devoting yourself to Yahweh like Jesus did. “I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).

Jesus doesn’t lie. Healing accompanies the Word. Every. Time. Pray it accompanies your preaching and teaching of the Word as well. Let Him move. Don’t hold back. Start talking. And talk the WORD.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Numbers 24:17

“‘I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not close at hand. A star will march forth out of Jacob, and a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab, and the heads of all the sons of Sheth.” Balaam (the one speaking) saw Messiah coming, but ‘not now’ and ‘not close at hand’. He was seeing a prophetic vision of the future when a Sceptre and a Star would rise and come upon this world. “Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father” (John 1:14). “But when the appropriate time had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” (Galatians 4:4). Messiah came at the right time. Far off from Balaam’s time, and not close. But Jesus came. Jesus became flesh and lived among us, the Star and Sceptre of Israel. Jesus came forth out of Jacob. Jesus IS Messiah.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b