The world becomes so real to us because we are in a body with five
senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. It is the five senses
that makes the physical realm real to us. Everything a person learns
from birth is through the five senses. However, if one of these senses
becomes impaired then learning is also impaired. There is another realm,
the spiritual realm, that most have heard of and many believe to be,
but have not come to a place where the spiritual realm is above and more
real than the physical realm. The main reason for this to be so, is
that living in the physical realm does not require faith, whereas, the
spiritual realm can only be perceived and made real through faith. But there is also another side to understanding that the spiritual realm is more real than the physical realm.
Jesus met a Pharisee named Nicodemus who said, “Rabbi, we know that You
are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do
unless God is with him.” (John 3:2) The following statement that
Jesus makes must have shocked and astonished this respected religious
and educated man. Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) Next, Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
(John 3:4) Although Nicodemus was a religious leader and educated as
such, we see that he could not understand spiritual things because he
was trying to understand Jesus' statement through his senses, or
by-way-of the physical realm. Jesus tells Nicodemus a truth that reveals
the reality of a realm beyond what Nicodemus could comprehend, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again." (John 3:5-7)
Jesus clearly shows us that no one can perceive the reality of the
totality of the spiritual realm unless one is born from above. I say
totality because people who delve into occult practices can perceive
things in the spiritual realm, but it is limited to only the demonic
side. To be born again by the Holy Spirit opens ones eyes (spiritual
eyes) to the entire spiritual realm, both light and darkness. The
Apostle Paul tells us, "But the natural man (sense oriented) does
not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
(1 Corinthians 2:14) For this reason, many blame God for all the
problems that occur throughout the world. For many believers, God's Word
does not seem real to them. Yes, they say, God's Word is truth and
infallible, but their senses have blocked them from the reality of the
spiritual realm providing them only with a mental assent towards God's
Word.
For instance, you may have a pain in your body and you say, "By His
stripes I am healed" and yet in your mind you hear another voice saying,
"but the pain is still there." You find yourself continually making two
confessions. One with words from your mouth confessing God's Word and
the other with the intellect. With that said, I would like to share the
following story that gives us a better perspective of this. Two men
were waiting at a bus stop one day and as they talked they discovered
that they were both believers, which led into the following
conversation...
I have prayed and prayed, and have received no benefit. I have had
others pray for me and the disease grows worse. Can you do anything for
me? Yes, I believe I can. Did you ever realize that healing belongs to you, that you need not pray for it? I never heard anything like that. It is true. Let me prove it to you. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:4, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted." Tell me, what does Isaiah say God did with our diseases? I don't know that I fully understand. "Surely He (that is Christ) has borne our sicknesses, and carried our
pains; yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted." Do you
understand now?
Yes, I do. Isaiah goes on to say, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief" (made Him sick). Do you understand that it pleased the Father to bruise Him? That He made Him (Jesus) sick with our diseases. Yes, but what does that mean to me? It means that these pains and afflictions you are suffering were laid on
Jesus. Jesus actually bore them just as He bore your sins. Isaiah also
tells us, "He was wounded for your transgressions, he was bruised for
your iniquities; the chastisement of your peace was upon him; and with
his stripes you are healed." God actually laid your iniquities upon
Jesus. Because He did this, you do not have to bear them. In the same
way, God laid our sickness and pains on Jesus so that we do not have to
bear them either. I never saw it like that before. You mean God actually laid my sickness upon Jesus, and made Him sick with my diseases? Yes, that is what the Word of God declares. The Father made Jesus sick
with our diseases that we might be perfectly well in Christ. Healing
is a gift, and it is yours now. Therefore, Satan has no right to put on
you what God put on Jesus.
Like many other believers, as it was with the one man in the above
story, the fact that healing belongs to every believer is almost to wonderful to believe, simply, because, as the one man said to the
other, "I never heard anything like that." Jesus said, "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:36) If
He has set us free from sin, then sin has no dominion over us. If He
has set us free from disease, it also has no dominion over us. If He has
set us free from Satan, Satan has no dominion over us either. According
to God's Word, we are free. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Galatians 5:1) Refuse to allow Satan to have anything to do with this body in which we live. "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)
Our body belongs to God. We are
simply the overseers living in it. You are to see that Satan does not
trespass on God's property. You may ask, "How am I to keep him from it?"
Jesus said, "In my name you will cast out demons." (Mark 16:17)
Jesus has given all believers the right to use His Name. If believers
can cast out demons in His Name, then we also can cast out the sickness
that a demon has brought. Jesus said, "Behold,
I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over
all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19) Though He was speaking to the seventy (seventy two in some versions) it still applies to all believers, "And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no
means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will
recover." (Mark 16:17-18)
Notice that Jesus tells us, "...these signs will follow those who believe..." The only condition that is required and spoken by Jesus to do these things, is to anyone who believes! The Name of Jesus can
stop disease from reigning over us. There is no disease that has ever
come to man which His Name cannot destroy. Oh how the church has lost
its faith
in the integrity of God's Word for such things as healing, deliverance,
provision, etc. How unfortunate regeneration has been limited to simply
the born again experience. How most believers put their faith in what
man can do, than what the Most High God has accomplished through the
Lord Jesus Christ. It seems like far to many believers have forgotten, "For we do not wrestle
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)
But for those who read this, let us rejoice and thank the Lord as He
raises up a generation that will live by faith and be ushers of possibly
the greatest move of God ever to come upon the earth.
Spiritual things are as real as material things, but for many they go unrealized. The Apostle Paul tells us, "For we walk by faith, not by sight." (the senses) (2 Corinthians 5:7) We are not only to walk by faith,
but we are to talk by faith. When we learn to walk and talk by faith,
the dominion of darkness is broken. But as long as we walk by reason
and follow the suggestions of the senses we are going to live and walk
in the realm where the works of the kingdom of darkness will hold sway
over our lives. But if we will learn through the Word of God and the
moving of the Holy Spirit to walk and talk faith, we will be victorious.
The Apostle John gives us the key, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith." (1
John 5:4) This verse should be known and confessed by every believer.
It should be a part of our conscious knowledge that can used day by day.
Why? "...we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." (Romans 8:37) PTL!!!
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