I read part of an interview that Lee Strobel did with a guy named Viggo Olsen.  Viggo is a brilliant surgeon who has all of these titles to add on after his name,  "M.S., M.D., Litt.D., D.H., F.A.C.S., F.I.C.S., D.T.M.&H."  Viggo and his wife were athiests, but his parents were Christians.  They'd get together and have long discussions about God, which finally made Viggo and his wife so frustrated that they decided to read throught he Bible and right down all of the scientific errors that they found in the Bible as a way to disprove it.  Ironically, it was this attempt to disprove the Bible, and therefore God, that made them realize that science, which they had put all of their trust in, lead them to a belief in God.  They ended up becoming missionaries in Bangladesh where they founded a hospital and started 120 churches. 

When recounting the years  of hardship in an undeveloped country like Bangladesh he had this to say.  "It was the greatest adventure we could ever have.  When you're in a hard place, when you're over your head again and again, when you're sinking and beyond yourself and praying your heart out-then you see God reach out, and touch your life, and resolve the situation beyond anything you could have ever hoped.  We got to experience that again and again and again.  We wouldn't have missed it for the world.  In my opinion, finding the purpose for which God made you-whatever that may be-and then fully pursuing it is simply the very best way to live."

I couldn't agree more.  Find the purpose God made you for and pursue it with everything you've got.  And just like Viggo experienced, our purpose is much greater thananything  we could ever accomplish on our own.  We have to rely full upon God for the provision of everything we need.  When doing what God has called us to do we will run out of resources, strength, opportunity, and ability.  When we realize that we are utterly incapable of the great things God has laid out for us, and plead for Him to step into the situation and glorify Himself, He is faithful.  He will always provide for us. 

If you are in a situation where you need God's miraculous provision then cry out to Him.  If you are in a situation where you don't need God's miraculous provision, then you aren't where you should be.  Find out what it is that God has called you to do.  It will be something you can't do on your own, and you will need to count on God to make it happen. 

Here is the second thing that made me really re-think God as my Healer. Pastor Lee tipped me off to this very powerful song with a very powerful story behind it. A must watch!

A couple of things in the last few weeks have really helped to remind me that God is my healer, the first of which I will share with you in this post.  My wife, Anna, went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic to work with a Dominic Russo Crusade there.  God moved there in an absolutely amazing way.  The first night of the crusades there were about 20 thousand people there, and by the last night there were about 60 thousand people there.  Thousands of people were saved, and lots of people received miraculous healings from God.


Anna was with a group of people who prayed for a man with dark, cloudy, blind eyes.  After they prayed for God to heal him his eyes were immediately clear, bright, and perfectly restored.  They also prayed for a kid who was blind and deaf, and he instantly received his sight and hearing.  They prayed for a lame person who was instantly healed and started to jump around and dance and praise God.  They prayed for a man with a huge tumor on his stomach.  They laid hands on his stomach and as they prayed his stomach shrank all the way back down to normal as the tumor was removed by God from his body.


There were tons of other miraculous healings that took place on the trip too, as well as people being set free from the bondage of sin, and placing themselves under the lordship of Jesus.  What this group of people did was what Jesus commanded his disciples to do in Matthew 10, "7As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons."  Jesus called us to follow the example that He himself set in proclaiming the Kingdom of God, and healing the sick.


I think most of us are totally onboard with preaching salvation from sin, but how comfortable are we with healing?  Why aren't we comfortable with healing?  I would guess we are a little scared of it because it is not something our culture is well acquainted with, and the reasons for this are two fold.


1.  We Rely On Ourselves

2.  We Don't Have Faith


When someone we love gets sick so many of us never even think to pray for their healing. We rely on ourselves and on our fellow man.  We will go to a doctor, a specialist, do yoga, eat fiber, drink from the backside of a glass, and just accept our death before we ever even go to the Great Physician to ask Him to heal.  And so many times when we do pray, we don't have faith in God to heal us.  But we know from scriptures that faith is a key component to healing.  How many times did Jesus say your faith has made you well, or it will be as you have believed?  And why was it that he couldn't do many miracles in his own hometown?  Because of a lack of faith.


The people in the Dominican that received so many incredible miracles had nothing to rely on but God.  They have absolutely nothing.  No money, no doctors, no options other than a miraculous healing.  And they have a great faith in God to be their healer.  You throw those two together and God moves in mighty ways on our behalf.


Is this to say that you will always be healed from everything bad?  No.  Why is that?  I have no clue.  We are all still mortal beings living in a fallen and cursed world.  But we do know that God moves mightily on our behalf to restore our health when we turn whole-heartedly to Him and have faith in Him to be our Healer.

I've been wanting to post on the topic of salvation for about the last week.  There's something about the way that the way the word is thought of or is used in our common everyday American church lingo that makes me think, "You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means."  (Inigo Montoya)


Here are some questions to ask yourself.


1.  What is salvation?

2.  What does it mean to be saved?

3.  What are we saved from?


The Sunday School answers are:


1.  Salvation is deliverance from the penalty for sin.

2.  Being saved means that you prayed a prayer asking Jesus into your heart.

3.  We're saved from Hell.


While all of these answers are true, they are not complete answers.  Yes, salvation is the deliverance from the penalty of sin, but it is much more.  We are a new creation in Christ, and we have been restored to a right relationship with God.  Yes, you pray to Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and ask him into your heart, but being saved isn’t just repeating a magical prayer, it is seating Christ on the seat of authority in your life and living under His Lordship.  And yes, we are saved from Hell, but we are also saved from the hell that we were living in as totally depraved creatures that were enemies of God before He saved us. 

I found a quote on Brian Zahnd’s page talking about this very subject that really sums up salvation pretty well.  John Wesley said,

“By salvation I mean, not barely, (according to the vulgar notion) deliverance from hell, or going to heaven, but present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to primitive health, its original purity, a recovery of divine nature, the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy and truth.”

Salvation is the restoration of humanity, and all creation to the way that God made it to be.  Jesus defeated Satan at the cross, and His Kingdom is advancing and will continue to do so until the time when He returns and restores all of creation and rules over it with all authority.  You have been saved, and by that I mean restored;  restored to a right relationship with God.  Your old sinful nature is dead, and you now have the nature of Christ in you.  You are no longer a slave to sin, but a son or daughter of the living God.  You are no longer weak and powerless, the power of the Holy Spirit is inside of you, empowering you to live as God made you to live. 

Brian Zahnd hit the nail on the head when he said that Salvation isn’t your ticket to heaven, “It is the hope for the restoration of all things in Christ.” 

This is what happens when you have a long practice on a lazy afternoon.  We were getting ready to play Redeemed when Brian started pounding out this progression on the keys.  I thought it sounded like a love cheesy love song, so I started improving some lyrics.  My motivation was "what does a girl want to hear a guy sing to her?"  This was the result. 

Enjoy it, pass it on, and let us know what you think!

uzziahband.com/schedule/Woman. mp3