2008 Note: In 2002 St Toms began working through the warfare perspective.  It came as a reaction, I think, to the prevalent Calvinism that seems to have embedded itself in Pentecostal theology.

On Sunday Mike talked in huddle saying “God is not in charge”.  This really knocked me sideways for a few days. God being in charge has been a central tenet of my beliefs, funny to see it crumble. Having thought about it lots, I would probably want to qualify that statement, because ultimately God is in control, however he chose to limit himself by creating genuine free will.  However, it’s more a recognition that satan is the god of this world that we’re in (God gave the world to us and we, through becoming slaves to sin, have handed it to Satan).  Satan is not just the god of this world in the financial sense, in money markets and wars, but in a spiritual sense: We’re in the devil’s territory and he’s the king in it.

So any time we want the Kingdom of Heaven to break in, either for salvation for our friends, healing or in this circumstance or that, we’re asking for the Kingdom of Heaven to advance into another king’s territory. Is it any wonder then when it feels like a battle? Perhaps we don’t support the kingdom of heaven’s advance through praryer & acting in faith as we should, or perhaps we fail to percieve exactly where and when God’s kingdom will advance into this enemy’s territory and support it?  It is hard for us to know.  But viewing kingdom advances through a ‘war, opposition and required support’ lens, may shed some light into what is at first sight a black box that, in our experience, is just confusing.

Over the past 6 months at St Toms we’ve been processing what it means to have faith, especially for healing.  That starts with saying ‘the father wants me well’.  For a minute there we almost had the kingdom pinned down to faith alone. I kinda liked it there - it felt fuzzy, warm and within reach.

Originally it was thought that healing was an intermittent sign of the kingdom. Then it was observed that everyone who came to Christ to be healed was healed. Then Roger Sapp visited - a guy who sees 80% of people he prays for healed - he mentioned that things other than a lack of faith can get in the way of receiving healing - this is important especially the way that healing & faith have been abused countless times - I know of people that have been prayed for and when not healed they were told that they didn’t have enough faith. Then add to this that we’re in a war, etc. I wonder if we’ve distilled the problem and we’re now re-adding pollutants.

Have we come full circle merely gaining an understanding of the issues involved or are we geniunely closer to consistantly seeing the kingdom break in?

Whoever came to Jesus was healed, and as Mike said recently. I’ve stood in front of a number of people both christian and non-christian in the past couple of weeks since Roger Sapp and prayed for them and seen some healings and it’s been awesome, quite frankly, though I’ve seen many more people say “well, I felt the presence of God, but that’s it”. But I know that if it was Jesus stood in front of them, not me, that they would be healed (ignoring the minor fact that Jesus IS stood in front of them of course). So then - is your best chance at a healing meeting to find the most faith-filled person on the ministry team and be prayed for by them? And for me, this is where the real question lies: Why do some people that pray for people see healings when the people are coming to Jesus and not to the ministry team? Surely it should all be the same?  Perhaps so long as faith is involved somewhere (in the receiver or one of the prayers) then it doesn’t matter - sometimes God just overrules and you get a healed anyway.  So often though people go away broken & with a little less hope than before.

2008 Addendum: Another thing worth remembering is that faith can be demonstrated both in the moment but also (and just as importantly for us) through perseverance: continually bringing your petitions to God is an ongoing expression of faith.

Related posts
Prayer and War II: You don’t need to pursuade God!
Does God ever withhold healing?
A Gospel of Power not of words
Prayer and Warfare in Daniel 9
Cold Calling on a train