Your Desire for Health & God's Will

Hunger after His Kingdom (6)

There cannot be a more basic need or desire than this – good health. And surely, there cannot be a greater blessing this side of eternity. For one simple reason: without good health we cannot enjoy any other blessing, no matter how much we are blessed. What good is it to have all the money in the world if you cannot eat what you like because of ill health? Or you need to lie on the sick bed perpetually? You simply cannot live life, not to say enjoy it. Sickness brings pain and suffering. It drains resources and eliminates peace from our lives. Most times, it is not only the sick who suffer, their loved ones also suffer along with them. Do you think it is God’s will for us to be sick?

Your answer to the above question is crucial; it determines whether you would be a candidate to experience divine healing and divine health. It may even be a life and death matter. Not long ago I heard of a testimony. Jane (not her real name) found herself given the death sentence by the doctor. Jane had cancer. The stomach was bloated as if she was pregnant. The doctor said there’s nothing more he could do. You can go home, he said. But she could not accept it. This cannot be my destiny, she said. Jane believed Jesus would not let her die like that; it’s His will that she be healed. So she refused to accept the report of the doctor and sought the Lord, and the Lord alone. Jane prayed, and she asked others to pray for her. She didn’t go for any further treatment. In a few months she was completely healed, completely well. Free of cancer. It has been more than a year now that Jane has lived in this divine health. What would happen if she had thought that it could be God’s will that she be sick? Many are defeated right at this point. Not Jane. You see, what we believe is truly important.

There are too many out there who are not sure of God’s will regarding this matter. Even church ministers. But Scripture is very clear about it. In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus taught us how to pray. He has this to say praying about God’s Kingdom:

Your Kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven. (Matt 6:10, NKJV)

Jesus had been telling the crowd that they must seek God’s Kingdom, because in it they would find their needs met and their desires fulfilled. Pray earnestly “Your Kingdom Come”, He said. It is obvious that in His Kingdom He rules. God has full dominion – that is to say His will takes precedence. How does His will look like? Jesus gives us a specific answer: on earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, everything is in the most perfect state possible, full of God’s glory and beauty. There can be nothing broken and nothing lacking. Perfect peace and joy permeate all. When the Kingdom comes on us, only what’s allowed in heaven is allowed here; what’s not allowed in heaven is not allowed here. That is God’s will as spelt out by Jesus. Now, do you think sickness can be allowed in heaven?  

Therefore, you need have no doubt as to what is God’s will for you in this matter. It is just as you’ve desired.

Your Wealth Is Not in Your Income

Hunger after His Kingdom (5)

But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you …Matt 6:33, NKJV

“It’s all very good what you said about seeking His Kingdom and finding the wealth we desire in it. But can you be more specific and tell us what to do?”

In my last post I talked about our desire for wealth and finding its fulfillment in the Kingdom of God. I won’t be surprised if you were to ask the above question, as many have. We are used to being told what to do and what not to do. We find security in this, believing that when we have done what we are supposed to do we shall receive what we desire.  Even when the subject matter is the Kingdom of God, we still think in such terms.

But that is the Old Testament way: to work for God’s favor. The New Testament way is to know that we have God’s favor, then we work from that premise. If we cannot work (that is, all our works are futile that can do us no good) to achieve salvation, can we work to have His Kingdom? Certainly not. It is God’s favor to give us His Kingdom, and He is pleased to do so. So all that is left for us to do is to treasure, choose and seek this favor instead of trying to earn His rewards.

Let me tell you that this is by no means easy. There is a strong gravitation towards the other direction – to do something to earn God’s favor. It will be a big mistake to underestimate our tendency to do something in our quest for His Kingdom. We like to do something and to know that we can do something.  Like I say, we are so used to living like that. We need to have tangible steps to take to have the Kingdom. This is one reason why Jesus used such a strong word as “seek” for something that is readily accessible to the believer. You need to overcome your natural tendency to do something to possess His Kingdom. To put it bluntly, the kind of idea that says that you should serve God fervently and He will reward you with blessings is not “seeking His Kingdom”. It is not what Matt 6:33 means. This is at best Law and works, but His Kingdom is one of Grace and favor.

Abraham was a case in point. God promised him that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky. But after decades of waiting he didn’t even have a son because his wife Sarah was barren. So he tried to help God out by sleeping with the maid of his wife. He thought the child that resulted from this union would inherit God’s promise. He thought that by his own effort he could possess God’s Kingdom. But God said no. Abraham had to wait until he was a hundred years old and Sarah over ninety before she conceived and gave birth to Isaac – the one to inherit God’s promise. The Bible says that Abraham’s body was then as good as dead, so there’s no question it was God’s intervention that brought about a miracle. God is able to bring His Kingdom upon us without our help.

It’s plain and clear now that to “seek” His Kingdom is not so much our doing something as it is a changing of our mind. It is not about what we do, but how we think. Let’s take our desire for wealth for example. I believe the way of thinking that is in line with Kingdom principle is this: do not look to our income to supply what we need and desire. Instead, look to God. If God choose to use our income to supply what we want, that is fine. But if not, He must be free to use whatever means He likes. He is very creative and we cannot limit Him. Once we think like this we will not limit the source of our wealth to our income. (Remember, we said that wealth is not defined by the amount of money that we have, but the state of being whereby we have all our need met and more.) We will not rely on our income and work hard to maintain or increase it to obtain what we want. In fact we will find that we become open to opportunities and we are free to enjoy our work without having the pressure to squeeze everything out of it. We will be looking to God alone to supply what we want. We will find our wealth in His Kingdom.

He will supply. His name is Jehovah Jireh – God our Provider.

Photo Credit: Salvatore Vuono on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Your Desire for Wealth

 

 Hunger after His Kingdom (4)

Through the apostle John, God said, “I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”(3 John 2, KJV) God wants you to prosper – that is, in wealth. In the above verse, the first “prosper” must refer to material wealth, or at the very least includes material wealth, because the soul is taken care of in the last “prosper”.  There is no ambiguity here, you can be certain of it. If you desire wealth, you are simply after something that God desires you to have.

Wealth is not defined by the amount of money we have. Simply put, it is the state of being whereby we have all our material need satisfied and more. The “more” is important; without excess we cannot be said to be wealthy.  In the Scriptures, when God dispensed of material blessing, He always gave more than enough. When Jesus fed the five thousand, there were twelve baskets full of leftover. When He blessed Peter and Co. the fishermen with a miraculous catch, there were so many fish they needed another boat to help trawl them in without the weight of the catch sinking their boat. You see, God has so much in surplus that when He gives He doesn’t give just enough. It’s not His idea that we have just enough. He wants us to have more than enough. Much More.

So, firstly, God desires us to be wealthy. Secondly, to be wealthy means to have more than enough. Bear in mind these two points, and we are in a good position to understand and receive what the Lord wants to tell us about our desire for wealth in His great Sermon.

The very first group of people that Jesus addressed in His great Sermon are those who desire to be wealthy. Blessed are the poor …(Matt 5:3, Lk 6:20). In fact at the outset of His public ministry Jesus proclaimed that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to the poor (Lk 4:18). “Gospel” means good news. Why is it that the coming of His Kingdom is good news to the poor, except that they will be made wealthy when the Kingdom has come on them? Is it good news to you when you need money someone come and tell you it’s okay because you will be rich when you get to heaven? Of course not. You would probably slap him and ask, “Do you want me to die now?” Jesus has better sense than that. So when Jesus said “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3, Lk 6:20) he means when the Kingdom comes on them in the here and now they will find in it the wealth they desire. The wealth that we desire, just like any other need, is found in the Kingdom.  

But you cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matt 6:24). Mammon is not money. It is the economic system of this world, the Babylonian system. You can almost say that it is a person, a spirit. God’s Kingdom is different from this world. If we desire something in His Kingdom, we cannot get it from this world. The world’s system of getting wealth by toiling and worrying is not God’s way. When we are determined to do it the world’s way, we are joining ourselves to Mammon and automatically severe ourselves from God’s Kingdom. When we invest in the Babylonian system of this world to accumulate wealth for ourselves we are laying for ourselves treasures on earth (Matt 6:19). Clearly the system doesn’t work as we can see from the frequency of financial crisis, famine and strife everywhere. In this system, moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal (Matt 6:19).  

If we want true wealth, wealth that doesn’t diminish whatever the condition of the world economy, we must join ourselves to the Kingdom of God. It is a superior kingdom and recession-proof. “How to have the Kingdom?” you asked. You can only receive His Kingdom; you cannot obtain or achieve. A prerequisite in the economy of this Kingdom is that we recognize God as our Father. A father always provides for his children. It is far more important to learn how to receive than how to achieve. Our Father God is such that He even takes care of the lilies in the field and the birds in the air, how much more will He take care of us. Do not worry or toil, it will do you no good (Matt 6:25-30). All you need to do is to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matt 6:33, NKJV). Yes, all that pertain to be wealthy, to have more than enough.

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. (Luke 12:32, NKJV)

Photo Credit: tungphoto on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com 

C. S. Lewis on Grace

Years ago a group of British thinkers on comparative religion furiously debated whether one belief set Christianity apart from other world religions. C. S. Lewis wandered in late, took a seat and asked, “What’s the rumpus about?” They told him they were trying to determine Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Without hesitation he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

I read of the above somewhere and jotted it down; I cannot recall where.  Known as the greatest defender of the Christian faith in the last century, C. S. Lewis wrote many books including The Chronicles of Narnia that have been made into movies and TV series. I love his books, particularly The Screwtape Letters. It takes the form of letters from a senior devil to a junior devil. It’s fun to read.

To Lewis, there’s no question what is it about Christianity that sets it apart from the rest. It’s Grace- God’s favour to undeserving mankind.

What do you think?

By the way, what do you think of the photo?

Your Desire for Righteousness

Hunger after His Kingdom (3)

A note on the series Hunger after His Kingdom.

The present series Hunger after His Kingdom evolves from my sermon of the same title, which I delivered early this year. My objective is to make you hungry for more – more of His Kingdom. The reason is simple: all that you need and desire are found in His Kingdom.    

I am aware that many of us are not used to understanding the Kingdom of God this way. More likely than not we think of giving to and for His Kingdom instead of receiving from it. I am not trying to be different for the sake of being different. But the more I study on the subject of the Kingdom, particularly the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), the more I find evidence for the fact that Jesus wants to give us the Kingdom for our sakes, rather than asking us to give of ourselves for the sake of the Kingdom.

To think of it, isn’t this most logical? How preposterous is it to think that we can do something to add to His Kingdom. Does God Almighty need anything from us to make Him complete? Simple questions like these put us in the right perspective about His Kingdom. It’s about your need, my friend, and not the need of the Kingdom.

Righteousness.

Righteousness is your foremost need and desire, whether you recognize it or not. Else Jesus would not spend so much time talking about it in His great Sermon. More than half of Matthew 5 talks about righteousness, and in Matthew 6:33 Jesus said to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Righteousness simply means the ability to stand before the throne of God without any sense of guilt or inferiority, (which Man used to be able to do before sin came into the world through Adam), knowing that you are accepted. Why is righteousness our foremost desire? Because Man is created to have fellowship with God and to enjoy Him forever. How can one stand before God and enjoy Him if he thinks that he is not accepted?

Jesus sure understands this. He said: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matt 5:6, NKJV) He knows that we hunger and thirst for righteousness, He knows that we desire to be able to come before Him knowing that we are fully accepted. And He promises that our hunger and thirst shall be filled. 

After Adam’s fall, religion came into play. All religions have one goal ultimately: to find acceptance before God. They perform good deeds. They offer sacrifices. They do penance. They give money. They refrain from killing. They kill. They fast. They serve in church. They do social work. And the list goes on. All these they do hoping that they may find God’s acceptance. They hunger and they thirst for it and pursue it with great zeal and fervency. But no amount of their self-effort could make them succeed. The reason is simple. In the quest to become righteous through their own effort, they are saying that they can be like God – perfect, for this is the requirement set forth by Jesus if they want to attain righteousness by their own effort: be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matt 5:48, NKJV). Can anyone succeed? (See my earlier blog posts – The Three Kinds of Righteousness series March 2 to March 30 – for more discussion.)

How then are we to be righteous? We have already established that Jesus promises all our needs and desires are to find fulfillment in His Kingdom. There is no difference with regard to the desire for righteousness. So He said about this hunger and thirst: they shall be filled. They shall be filled when His Kingdom comes upon us, for it comes equipped with a Savior and His blood, powerful enough to reconcile us to God once and for all. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor 5:21, NKJV) This is His righteousness that He gives us. And it’s free.

Doubt not and fear not, in Christ you are righteous.