One of the
worship choruses we sing at our church goes as follows:
There’s
a storm out on the ocean,
And
it’s movin’ this ol’ way.
If
your soul’s not anchored in Jesus,
You
will surely drift away.
Drift
away Lord, drift away.
Drift
away Lord, drift away.
If
your soul’s not anchored in Jesus,
You
will surely drift away.
Christians
view “storms” as hard or troubled times (such as illness, disease, finance
insolvency, etc.). There are two “schools
of thought” out there in the Christian world.
On one hand Christians tend to say that when you become a believer the
Lord wants to bless you with healing and financial success. On the other hand Christians tend to say that
when you go through illness and struggling debt that it is God’s will so that
He can teach you something. I believe
both points of view are wrong. In all my
reading in the scripture I have never found where God said He would guarantee
to a believer riches and health (completely free from all diseases and illness),
nor have I ever read that God puts illness on us or removes even the barest
minimum of finances to meet our daily needs just to teach us a lesson. What I have found in my reading is that if we
trust in, lean on, rely on, and roll our every care upon Him that He will take
care of us (Prov. 3:5; Ps. 22:4, 33:21, 86:2; Heb. 6:12; Romans 10:11). In fact Prov. 11:28 AMP states, “He who leans on and trusts in and is confident in his riches will fall, But the righteous [who
trust in God’s provision] will flourish like a green leaf.” It does
not say that now that I am a believer that I will flourish like a green leaf;
it says that the righteous who trust in God’s provision will flourish
like a green leaf. The key element here
is trusting in God’s provision.
There
is another key element that has to be enacted when it comes to disease and
illness. God did not say that when you
became a Christian that you would never get sick. He promised the Israelites in Exodus 15:26
that IF they listened to and paid attention to His voice, doing what was
right in His sight, and kept all His precepts and statutes foremost in their
thoughts, that He would not put on them any of the diseases which He put on the
Egyptians, “For I AM the Lord Who heals
you.” We read in Mark 1:34, 3:10;
Luke 4:40, 6:18; Matthew 4:24, 9:35 how Jesus healed everyone brought to him
with illness, disease, and demon possession, but let me ask you this: what happened to those who were ill and demon
possessed that did not come to Him? So
again, the key (or means) is in God Himself. I love how Matthew 6:32-33 is expressed in The
Living Bible, “So don’t
worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the heathen?
For they take pride in all these things and are deeply concerned about them.
But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will
give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he
wants you to.”
Now, in light of what I have just
shared with you please consider the following question: Can
obeying Jesus lead you right into a storm?
God never promised us that we would quit going through storms after we
accepted Him as our Savior. In fact in John
16:33 Jesus makes it clear that tough times will come while we are in this
world but He also makes it clear that IN HIM we will have peace and that
He has overcome this world, or as the J. B. Phillips translation puts it, “The time is coming, indeed,
it has already come, when you will be scattered, every one of you going home
and leaving me alone. Yet I am not really alone for the Father is with me. I
have told you all this so that you may find your peace in me. You will find
trouble in the world—but, never lose heart, I have conquered the world!”
I
believe that we will have storms in our lives while we live on this earth. They may be storms of illness, disease, financial
insolvency, loss of possessions or rights, etc. but we can come out through them
on the other side victorious as long as we remain focused on, trusting in, and
relying on Him. Not only can obeying
Jesus lead me into a storm, but it can lead me right through and out the other
side.
Gal.
2:20 AMP
“I have been crucified
with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I
who live, but Christ lives in me. The life
I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave Himself up for me.”
