HomeARC ML 2546
THE FIGHT OF FAITH FOR HEALTH! DO 2546 8/89
1. (Maria: I was just reading a report about one of our Family members who confesses she has recently been fighting battles about her health. She has been frequently asking for prayer against headaches, numbness in her right hand & the right side of her face, dizziness, poor circulation & painful cramps in her foot, etc.
2. (She has high blood pressure--something like 185 over 130, & from what she indicates, that's very high. Since high blood pressure can cause strokes & heart attacks, she thinks that this numbness she experiences in her right hand & on the right side of her face could be signs of an upcoming stroke. On the same foot where she had to have one of her toes amputated several months ago, she gets tingling feelings in two of her other toes, & more recently on the bottom of her foot, to where it hurts when she walks.
3. (She says that she really wants to trust the Lord & have faith for healing, but then she feels badly about having to ask the Home for prayer almost every day. On the other hand, she said she doesn't want to have spiritual pride, & thinks that it might be good to go have a check-up. She thinks this could mean that the doctors would put her on pills to help bring her high blood pressure down--which she says can otherwise be fatal when it's up as high as hers.
4. (Her husband has read about her problems in medical books & talked to her about what the books say, & has also expressed that he feels it would be fine for her to go to the doctor about this. In some ways she doesn't want to go to the doctor unless she has to, desiring more to be healed by faith.--But with these frequently recurring problems of numbness in her hand & face, tingling in her foot & toes, headaches & dizziness, etc., she says she "doesn't want to die on us" & wants to do the right thing, even if it means going to the doctor & taking pills, if that's the Lord's Will for her & what will help save her life.
5. (She mentioned that her father died of a stroke & her mother died of multiple sclerosis, a deteriorating disease of the nervous system. She remembers nursing her mother when she was a preteen & teen, as her mother was first on crutches, then in a wheelchair, & then bedridden.
6. (She states that she has been faithful in taking daily get-outs in order to improve her circulation, her diet is as salt-free as possible, she gets good rest, plenty of fresh air, has a good sex life & loves her work for the Lord. But she's quite worried about her health & believes it's serious. She's now wondering if she should indeed go to the doctor & possibly take medication to lower her blood pressure.--Or if she should just keep praying & asking the Lord to heal her by faith.)
A BATTLE BETWEEN FEAR & FAITH!
(Dad's reply after hearing the above explanation:)
7. Her fear destroys her faith, & that's what the Devil uses! Fear is the Devil's own device & fear lets the Devil in! Just because her father had a stroke & her mother was in a wheelchair doesn't mean anything to the Lord. She just needs to trust the Lord!
8. I'm not against people going to the hospital to find out what's wrong with them, or to the doctor to find out everything the doctor knows or can do for their problem, but my experience along that line has not been very helpful. Going to the doctor about my runs & having all those tests never did a damned bit of good! I wanted to find out if he knew what was causing it so I could avoid it or remedy it, but there wasn't a thing he did to help. He didn't even know what was wrong with me, so how could he give me anything that would help it? I finally just said "Phooey!" & decided it was a waste of time & money!
9. The doctors don't know anything! They can't help you!--And that has pretty much been my opinion all my life--taught to me by my Mother, thank God!
10. (Maria: In both her case & her husband's, most of their serious sicknesses have been things that have been emergencies. For instance, she had to have her toe amputated or the infection would have spread & killed her. And her husband had to have an emergency appendectomy or it would have killed him, & their son, too.) Well, in that case they might have died. I've had appendicitis too, acute appendicitis, but I insisted on trusting the Lord & He delivered me!
11. For people who are accustomed to going to doctors it gets to be a kind of habit or a state of mind. They feel like that's their only hope, & that's the only thing that can be done about it, that "The Lord can't heal it, or He hasn't, so we've got to have it done by the hospital." Therefore they have real fear about some of these natural ailments--or unnatural ailments--because they haven't had much success in prayer for healing. They have more faith for the doctor & hospital to heal it, so they tend to lean more on that.
12. Therefore, when these things occur, for one thing, they are really frightened--which is fear--which is of the Devil! I know!--I've been through it!--But I always wound up finding that Man really couldn't help me & I always refused to let them interfere or fiddle around with my body or cut me open or anything like that. I even refused to take most of their medicines, because as Dr. Koger used to say, even if the medicine helps one thing, it'll hurt something else!
13. It's a battle between fear & faith, the Devil & the Lord! I just go ahead & figure, "Well, if the Lord wants to let it kill me, that's His business! So what? I'm just going to keep on trusting the Lord & doing His Work until I die!"--Which I've almost done several times! They just apparently don't have too much faith for healing.
[DELETED]
15. (Maria: Her husband thinks that if the doctor prescribes pills to control her blood pressure, like she has taken in the past, that she wouldn't have to be battling with fear all the time.) The fear probably causes the high blood pressure! Science says that all the time, that high blood pressure is caused by stress, strain, fear, nervousness, pressure, etc.
16. In her picture she looks worried. She's smiling, but her eyes are full of fear. It's pitiful. They're almost longing, searching, like they're saying, "Please help me!" Her eyes are not smiling, they're worried. That's probably her problem. It's like the verse, "And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."--Heb.2:15. Because of her family traits & history, she's probably had that fear that she was going to fall prey to the same things.--And that fear almost guarantees it, sad to say. (Job 3:25)
17. Oh, Lord Jesus, help her to have faith & to trust Thee, in Jesus' name! [DELETED] You can relieve her of her aches & pains & worries that apparently she hasn't had the faith for You to heal. And as far as any dangers to the Family, You can take care of that.
NUMBNESS & HEART PROBLEMS
18. I've had that numbness in the fingers of my left hand on & off for years. Sometimes it affects my whole hand, & sometimes pain has gone up my left arm. It's because of heart problems, & is sometimes caused by very tiny blood clots, etc. (Maria: Well, it's in her right hand & right side of her face, does that make a difference?) Well, if it's in her right hand & arm, it's obviously caused by poor circulation. Does she have someone massage her hand or her face?
DIET TIPS!
19. What is her diet like? Some people who are susceptible to certain diseases have to be extremely careful, omitting certain foods from their diet.
20. The advice of the doctors & scientists today is to stay away from high cholesterol diets. (Maria: You mean eggs & butter?)--Yes. They say everybody should do it! Well, I'm like the guy who said, "If I have to stay away from all that stuff & be miserable the rest of my life, I'd rather go ahead & eat it & die happy!" So it depends on how much faith you have.
REBUKING THE LIES OF THE DEVIL!
21. The Devil is trying to scare her!--Just because of a little bit of a twinge in her arm! That's all it amounts to. He tries to do that to me almost every day. I have heart pains when I'm out on get-out. I have things that happen & I know it's just the Devil trying to scare me, but I just say, "Lord Jesus, rebuke him & help me! I live on Your strength. I live on Your health, Your safety! If You want me to die now, OK.--But Lord, I don't think You do, so I just rebuke the Devil!"
22. I think this comes under the same category as that attack of paralysis my Mother had after her healing, just when she was going to get up & give her testimony. Suddenly her legs were paralysed, & it wasn't her imagination either, they were paralysed & the Devil was attacking her to try to prevent her from giving her testimony! So she asked the Lord for a Scripture, like she always did, & the Lord said, "Lying vanities!"--Jon.2:8. In other words, it was a lie of the Devil!
23. Now why can't this dear girl just rebuke it & say, "It's a lie of the Devil, Lord! I'm Your child & I'm doing Your Work & sacrificing everything for others! This is an attack of the Devil, a lie of the Devil!"--And just don't believe it!
24. God doesn't give a damn about her family history & all that blah! She is not subject to her family history! She is now a child of God, "A new creature in Christ Jesus!--Old things are passed away, all things are become new," including that!--2Cor.5:17. She can't let the Devil lie to her like that & scare her like that! She's just got to claim some verses & rebuke the Devil's lies!
GRANDFATHER'S PARALYSIS!--And Grandmother's Lessons!
25. I've had pains in my head that I thought were going to kill me!--Which are supposedly a sign of an impending stroke, of which my Father died! So am I going to fear strokes just because my Father had a stroke & suffered paralysis for about three years before he died of it?
26. Well, I don't think that's too bad: He didn't die till he was 86! Under present World conditions & all the rest, we're all bound to die some time unless the Lord comes first. It's part of the curse on sin. So I think if anybody manages to live till 86, even the Bible recognises that they're doing pretty good! (See Psa.90:10.)--In spite of a stroke & paralysis, etc.
27. I think the Lord used my Father's paralysis to teach my Mother something! My Father had suffered with her & taken care of her for five years; she only had to take care of him for three years!--Plus she had the help of my son, Ho, who was 12 years of age, & he was a great blessing to his Grandfather.--Sort of like Techi is to me!
28. So Mother was learning things through my Father's illness. She was learning how sacrificial he had been, & how much love & patience it took for him to take care of her all those years.--Now she had to go through it herself & take care of him!
29. I think she learned to appreciate him more through that. She had often been quite critical of him & impatient with him, but I think that experience really helped to humble her & prepare her for her own death a few years later.
DON'T ABUSE YOUR BODY!--Eat Right, Sleep Right, Exercise Right!
30. This girl doesn't have to worry about her God-damned family history! To Hell with it! Forget it! (Maria: Or even the toe she had amputated.) My God, no! (Maria: She doesn't have to worry that that's a precursor to other things. It doesn't necessarily mean she's going to lose her other toes, because the Lord can overcome that!)--Right!
31. But she has apparently abused her body somehow in the past, even since she has been a Christian. She probably hasn't watched her diet like she should, & she probably hasn't gotten enough exercise.
32. I rebuked Dawn (Lois) for this when she was having all those appendicitis attacks! I really told her off about exercise & diet, etc., & she never failed to take care of herself after that, she realised her life depended on it! (See FN Encyclopedia, pg.130.)
33. People need to realise that eating the wrong things is abusing their body just as much as anything else! They've gotten the idea that only things like smoking, drinking, drugs & that sort of thing is abusing their body, but there are plenty of Christians who abuse their body just as much, if not worse, by what they eat, & what they fail to do in the way of exercise!
34. You & I get out & exercise every day, vigorously, strenuously, whether we like it or not, & whether we think we have time for it or not! We have to if we're going to stay alive! You can't put it off & say, "Well, I don't have time today." If you don't have time today you'll never have time for it, because every day stands alone! Today is the day you should get vigorous exercise, some time today! Today is the day you should eat the right foods! Tonight is the night you should get enough sleep!
35. I wonder how many of our people are giving themselves the excuse, "I've got to get this done now, I don't have time to take a walk! I don't have time to exercise today, this is urgent!" There is nothing more urgent than your health if you're going to stay alive to continue to do God's Work! And you have got to get exercise, & you have got to eat right, just as much as you have got to get enough sleep!
36. Look at it this way: Eating the right food & getting enough exercise & getting enough rest is serving God! It's a part of your Work for the Lord! It's God's Work to let God work in you.
YOU'VE GOT TO FIGHT!
37. Now if some people have natural weaknesses for certain things, then they're going to have to really work on them! You know how I've worked on mine. Thank God the Lord has helped me to succeed. You have to fight it! You have to attack it! You've got to go to work on it & not get down in the dumps worrying about dying! Fight! Get up & fight! Fight the Devil! Fight his lies! Fight his symptoms & all that baloney! It doesn't mean a thing to God! God can do it! But you've got to have the faith that God is going to do it & live like it! Trust the Lord!--And go ahead & fight until you die!
38. No soldier is going to be a good fighter unless he is fearless of death! You've got to get up & fight--& fight & die if you have to! How are you going to be a good fighter if you're always afraid of dying? What kind of a soldier is afraid to fight because he might get hurt or die? Good soldiers have to be fearless of death!
39. I have to fight every day just to stay alive! I have to refuse to believe the Devil's lies & symptoms with which he tries to attack me almost every day of my life! I just say, "Lord, You know, it's Your business! It's Your job to take care of me! It's up to You, Lord! I'm going to go right ahead & do Your Work & be faithful & work hard & exercise hard, eat well, rest well, in spite of all the Devil's lies & temptations & everything else!"
40. Some people give the excuse, "Well, maybe I'm not worthy of healing." Well, I'm not worthy!--Nobody is worthy! Nobody deserves healing! Nobody can work for it. Nobody is worthy of it. Don't think you're going to be healed just because you're a Christian & serving the Lord. You've got to trust God for it every minute of every day, & fight for it! Rebuke the Devil & trust the Lord!
41. I'm having to fight for it right now, because to have to get stirred up about a thing like this right when I'm eating is one of the toughest things on me! It tires my heart & makes me gasp for breath, but I'm going to fight & do it because it has to be done, & because somebody needs it! But I think that's about enough said. I think I'd better not go ahead so that I do die, because some other people need me besides her!--And maybe the Lord gave this little rebuke that it might help a lot of other people as well!
42. Trusting the Lord & having the faith for healing is not just lying down & doing nothing & saying, "Well, I'm just going to trust the Lord to do it all." You've got to fight for it! You've got to cooperate! You've got to have faith! You've got to rebuke the Devil & all his lies & refuse to believe it!
DAD'S APPENDICITIS TESTIMONY!
43. At least if you're going to die, die fighting & trusting the Lord! When I had that horrible attack of appendicitis in Anaheim, California & was rolling on the floor in pain & agony, my Mother got a little fearful & worried & phoned the hospital. Well, it just so happened that she got the head of the hospital on the phone, this old German doctor, because it was late at night & he happened to be the only one who was there at his office. She said, "I have a son who is subject to appendicitis & he's having a terrible attack. He's in real pain & he's rolling on the floor in agony! Is there anything I can do for him?"
44. He said, "We can send the attendants & the ambulance right away & bring him here for an operation." She said, "Well, this boy is kind of a fanatic about trusting God for healing & he doesn't want to do that." "Well," he said, "for God's sake, Madam! If this boy has faith enough to trust God, for God's sake let him trust God!--And don't send for us & the ambulance, because the first thing they'll do is give him a shot to knock him out & relieve the pain & bring him here for an operation to cut him open!"
45. And she really felt ashamed that this doctor, head of the Anaheim Hospital, was preaching to her what she had been preaching for years!: "Trust the Lord! Let him trust God!" And I guess God was really testing me with the choice, because she came back with that answer, & that's when I said, "If God can't heal me, nobody can heal me! And if He can, He can do it without any help from the doctors or hospitals!"--And I was almost instantly healed, the pain left! It was just an attack of the Devil!
46. That was when I was about 20 years old, & I have never since in all my life had such a severe attack of appendicitis! I've had a little pain down there once in awhile off & on, especially if I ate too much or ate the wrong things, or if I was greedy or gluttonous. My Father used to say, "Science says that the appendix is a vestigial organ, sort of a leftover from some organ you needed way back in Evolution somewhere! But it's really there to punish the gluttonous & the greedy & those who stuff themselves too much!" And I agree with that, because I found out that that's just the way it acts! It's a little organ to punish people who are too gluttonous & greedy & eat too much!--Or who disobey the Lord somehow, like I abused my body.
47. My whole family had appendectomies!--Every one of them, from my Grandfather on down to my brother & sister! I'm the only one who didn't! Well, I fought with appendicitis for years, but that night in Anaheim the Lord healed me almost completely, & I've only had a touch since then, as you know. It's still there to remind me, but I have never suffered such an attack since. It's still there doing its little duty, but it's not killing me, thank the Lord!
48. So maybe these little symptoms or signs she is having are little reminders that she needs to watch her activities & her diet & her rest & her faith & quit fearing just because it's her family tendency! All my family had appendicitis & had their appendixes removed--I'm the only one who didn't, thank the Lord!
49. But if I hadn't rebuked the Devil & trusted the Lord that night, the same thing would have happened to me! It was a real test of faith, a real battle with Satan, no doubt to test me for the future, & to be able to give this testimony to others.
50. (Maria: We also received a testimony from Paul P. about the time he was being rushed into the operating room with an almost ruptured appendix. He was on the stretcher and screaming in pain! But the whole Home was praying for him, & all of a sudden the pain stopped! Seven doctors examined him & they all said, "There's nothing wrong with your appendix now!"--And they let him go!) The Lord instantly healed him, praise the Lord! Well, I know God is all-Powerful and He's going to have His way no matter what!
FAITH COMES FROM THE WORD!
51. But a lot of it is up to us, & our part of it is that we need to know the Word! She should be just immersing herself in healing verses & stories of healing, because "Faith cometh by hearing the Word!"--Rom.10:17. If she doesn't know how to have faith & her faith is weak & she has all this fear of dying & fear of her family's troubles & blah blah blah, she needs to get faith! She needs to really memorise! She ought to go to work on memorising healing Scriptures & reading healing testimonies & listening to the "Memory Book Song Tape on Healing," & reading the MO Letters on healing & listening to the "Faith & Healing" tape.
52. When I'm so sick I think I'm dying, that's what you read to me!--The Scripture that gives me the faith to rebuke the Devil & trust the Lord!--And I'm always delivered! Goodness, if we can trust the Lord for more years of life, we surely have to trust Him for healing! Praise the Lord!
EAT WHAT'S SET BEFORE YOU!
53. (Maria: One question I wanted to ask is about one of our leaders, Leah, who was on thyroid pills all her life. [EDITED: "She threw them away, by the way, & is really fighting due to the talk you gave about them."] She doesn't eat with the rest of the Family because she feels she has to have a special diet to keep from gaining weight because of her overactive thyroid. Evidently she can't eat much starch--bread, rice or potatoes.) That's fine!
54. (Maria: But see, Leah feels she has to have a special diet, because the Family there eats a lot of potatoes, rice & bread. The thing is, there are a lot of people in the Family who, if they could, would also go on special diets for one reason or another. But in our Homes, a lot of the food is provisioned & they don't usually have all the foods that would be required for special diets.)
55. They just have to eat by faith! (Maria: Yes, otherwise we might have half the Family going on different diets!) As much as they can, they should try to eat the things that are best for them & avoid the things that are not, but as Paul says, "Eat what's set before you, giving thanks. For every creature of God is good & nothing to be refused, if it be received with a word of thanksgiving and prayer."--1Cor.10:27; 1Tim.4:4,5.
56. (Maria: You can't have a cook in your Home who is so busy making 6 or 7 different sets of meals for this child who has an allergy, & this person who has heart trouble, & this person who has thyroid problems, or pretty soon it gets to be...) A hospital! (Maria: Yes, with everybody requiring something different!)
57. They've just got to go ahead & eat by faith! This is what Paul told his disciples. The question came up the other day about someone who was given a lot of pork through provisioning, & asked if they should eat it. I said, "Of course! Whatever the Lord provides, you eat!" I've even eaten shellfish & things like that which are forbidden in the Mosaic Law, because it was given to me.
58. The one time I refused it & said it was against my religion was the time with the Swedish artist, Per, in Tenerife. (Former husband of Brigitta who is in South America.) He was fond of me & our doctrine & the Family, so he invited us out to his home for dinner. But he was serving prawns, & oh, I just couldn't stand the smell of them, for one thing! I'll never forget the time I had to clean a whole washtub full of shrimp in the Army, & ugh, I wouldn't even eat them!
59. So I apologised to Per, saying, "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me if I don't eat this meat, but in my religion it is forbidden. It is unclean, according to the Bible." He'd been so thrilled & excited about fixing this wonderful dinner of these horrible creatures for us, & I, of all people, the one he admired the most, refused to eat it!
60. His face fell & he never said another word to me the whole dinner, & he never came around any more at all. I lost a friend by refusing to sacrificially eat that dirty unclean meat just for his sake. It offended him! And Paul very particularly says that you're not to offend your brother by what you eat, or by even what you don't eat, & I offended that poor brother that night!--Rom.14:20,21.
61. I lost his friendship! He was embarrassed by my not eating his prawns! You can just walk past some of those seafood restaurants & the stench is so horrible you can hardly stand it! And when I'm eating in a restaurant that serves that kind of food, it practically spoils my meal to have somebody in the same room order such a dish! When they bring it in, it stinks so much it nearly turns my stomach!
62. Well, that night with him I should have made the sacrifice & "eaten what was set before me, giving thanks & asking no questions for conscience sake. For every creature of God is good & nothing to be refused, if it be received with a word of thanksgiving & prayer."--1Cor.10:27; 1Tim.4:4,5. In other words, you can purify it by prayer, in spite of the unclean nature of it according to the Old Testament. We're not bound by the Mosaic Law any more. By faith & by prayer we can overcome those things.
63. Of course, if I can avoid eating it, I don't eat it, if I have any choice. But if you have no choice & you're a guest, then you should pray over it--"kosherise" it by prayer--& eat it! I've had to do that many many times, especially in evangelistic work as guests in church members' homes, etc. But when I go to restaurants where I have a choice, I try to stick to what is natural & what are clean meats according to God's Word.
64. Some of our people in Japan were invited out to dinner by a prominent friend, & she suggested a certain seafood restaurant. They said they'd be delighted, but if possible could they order something that isn't seafood, because the Bible rules prohibit its consumption (except clean fish).
65. They say this is what the Japanese are most proud of & fond of, they think it's a great treat to give you all that dirty seafood! (Maria: But it's not so embarrassing to them if you explain beforehand, & that way you're teaching them. So I would say for our own people that would be the way to do it. If you can do it without embarrassing them, then shouldn't you go ahead & teach them & try to help them to do the right thing?)--Yes, of course!
PRAYER FOR FAITH!
66. Lord, give these dear ones faith, in Jesus' name, to not sit around fearfully fearing all the time, just being afraid of what's going to happen, but to learn faith & healing verses, & take a stand of faith & fight until they win the victory!--In Jesus' name, I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't!--Every day! PTL! God bless you & help you to keep "fighting the good fight of faith!"--1Tim.6:12. Hallelujah!
Reaction to "The Fight of Faith for Health!"
Dearest Dad & Mama,
GBY! ILY! And I can't thank you enough for taking your time & strength to deal with my problems & help me to see the Light. Your solutions are so wonderful, TYJ! You pinpointed so many areas of my life that need work on. I've been reading the Letter over several times these past few days, & each time something else stands out. I'm sure there are many more things that I still need to learn from it, but I wanted to write you right away to let you know what I have been learning so far. I see what a weakness I have & pray that as I fill up with the Word that He will help me to resist the Enemy & refuse to believe his lies. (Amen! GBY!)
Well, the Lord has been letting me be tested these last two days since receiving your Letter. As I testified in the letter I sent to you before receiving your Letter, since I went on the attack & began claiming some verses & holding on to the Word, the Lord had miraculously healed me & I had not had the dizzy feeling for 3 weeks. It was like you said in "Faith & Healing," I got sort of an instant shot of faith from the verses & things I read at that time, which was the Lord's mercy & a gift from Him. But I didn't "continue in the Word"--I hadn't been continuing on the attack & memorising, etc., which is what I really really need to do. Then yesterday I had a headache, & even the dizzy feeling again, & I was desperately trying to hold on to some verses & rebuke the Enemy, but I was having quite a battle. And this battle really showed me how weak in faith I am because I'm weak in the Word. I see I need to not just depend on "instant shots" of the Word when I'm in trouble, but I need to have a much better & more regular "Word diet." I can't afford not to immerse myself in the Word, memorising & reading & letting the Lord re-wire me. (Amen!)
I am so thankful for your counsel to "Fight the Devil! Fight his lies! Fight his symptoms & all that baloney!" I have had the attitude you mentioned of just lying down & saying, "I'm just going to trust the Lord to do it all"--not really fighting & claiming verses & resisting the Enemy with the Word, but just sort of hoping the Lord would do something.
Even now as I'm writing this I'm having to rebuke the Devil & fight his symptoms & lies, as the dizziness has been trying to overcome me since I got up this morning. Like you said, "I have to refuse to believe the Devil's lies & symptoms with which he tries to attack me almost every day of my life!" Thank you so much for sharing your battles with me. I'm so so sorry that it had to become a battle for you to share it with me when you were eating--I'm sorry that I've gotten to such a state that you had to do it, but I am so very very thankful that you were willing to give me this counsel, even at the risk of your health & life. I pray it will help others too & I'm sure it will, because I know it is helping me. (As I continued writing this letter, fighting & claiming the Word, the dizziness went away, TYJ!)
It seems that when I had my toe amputated, the main lesson I learned was that I should have been taking Get-Out, which TTL, He has helped me to do regularly since then. But now He's pinpointing the real areas that I need work on, the deeper lessons. Many years ago you commented about a video of us that I looked afraid, & asked what I was afraid of. Unfortunately I sort of brushed it off, because I really didn't know what I was afraid of. Since then, however, I had prayer against a spirit of fear, especially since I started having high blood pressure, which, as you said, is usually caused by fear. When you commented on it again now, I was thinking & praying about what the fear was of, but I still didn't really understand it. But then the Lord encouraged me with the thought that, no matter what the fear is, or where it stems from, the Lord can overcome it with the Word--& that if I fill up with the Word & faith, there will be no room for fear. TYL! So even if I don't fully understand the problem, I know the solution. (--GBY!)
Then, when I was re-reading your Letter, I saw how many times you had pointed out the fear of falling prey to the same sickness as my mother, & I started to think about what my attitude to that had been. What I have always sort of thought about it was, "Well, as long as I obey the Lord & serve the Lord, He won't let that happen to me."--Not necessarily a fear of exactly the same disease, but of being bedridden & helpless. So I would sort of hold on to that self-righteously, that I was serving the Lord, so He wouldn't let me get that way. But that line of thinking doesn't hold up to testing very well. When I would hear testimonies of other Family members having cancer & other things, my faith built on that shaky foundation was, of course, shaken. I thought, "If they were serving the Lord & it happened to them, maybe it could happen to me ... maybe my 'righteousness' of serving the Lord isn't enough to keep me in good health." Which of course is true. And you pointed it out so clearly when you said, "Don't think you're going to be healed just because you're a Christian & serving the Lord. You've got to trust God for it every minute of every day, & fight for it! Rebuke the Devil & trust the Lord!" (--AMEN!)
So I think that is the basis of my fears about health, which I didn't really realise until I was writing this right now.--I had a shaky foundation because it was built on my own goodness & righteousness, & it just wasn't standing up under the tests. And then when I started having these strange symptoms, like you said, "When these things occur, for one thing, they are really frightened--which is fear--which is of the Devil!" I am so thankful for how you defined the problem so clearly--"It's a battle between fear & faith, the Devil & the Lord!"--as well as the solution: "She can't let the Devil lie to her like that & scare her like that! She's just got to claim verses & rebuke the Devil's lies!" (--Amen!)
Another lesson I am learning is along the lines of "Nobody deserves healing! Nobody can work for it."--When I was feeling sick yesterday, I was reading the Word & quoting verses--in general trying very hard to be healed. I could feel myself getting more & more uptight about it.--Like in "Letting Go & Letting God" where you talked about your Mother nearly killing herself trying to have faith. Then a brother here shared a quote with me that he had recently read from "God's Pictures" along the line of letting Jesus do it, trusting the Lord--"If he [EDITED: "the Devil"] does manage to scratch you, let the Blood of Jesus flow to cleanse the wound & purify your spiritual body from the venom, washed in the pure Water of the Word!" Only Jesus can do it, TYL. So that's helping me to not fight in my own strength, but to trust the Lord.
Actually when I just looked in "The Fight of Faith for Health" Letter, the rest of the quote about "Nobody can work for it" says, "You've got to trust God for it every minute. ... Rebuke the Devil & trust the Lord!" Each time I read this Letter, different parts of it come to life & teach me more. You mentioned a lot of times to trust God, but I'm just now seeing that it doesn't just mean thinking "I must be trusting the Lord because I'm praying or reading the Word," but to really put myself in the Lord's arms & know His Love & His care. I guess that's what faith is, & I'm sure it will come more as I read the Word. TYJ!
Thank you so much for getting me back up on the attack & fighting. I've got a lot to learn, & I pray that as I soak in the Word that He will fill me with the faith & trust I need. Thank you for being such a sample of fighting for all of us, & sharing the battles that you go through. It really helps to "think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you" (1Pet.4:12,13), & reminds me to pray for you more too. (--Tx!)
Thank you for being such loving & wonderful Shepherds. I pray I can learn all the lessons He has for me to become a yielded & useful vessel. Thank you again so much for helping me. I love & pray for you always. (--GBY!)
Love forever, Your Daughter
(--Tx!--ILY!--D.)
P.S. There are some terrific verses in 1Pet.4 & 5, which I just saw when I looked up the "fiery trial" verse, about resisting the Devil: "Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren which are in the world."--1Pet.5:9. And trusting God: "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."--1Pet.5:10. And in 1Pet.4:19: "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the Will of God commit the keeping of their souls unto Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." PTL! It's all in His hands! TY! ILY! (Amen! GBAKY!)
(--Just this past week Mama caught a bad cold & I did too!--The Devil told me, "Well, this is it!--It'll go to pneumonia like it did in the Army & you'll die!" Ha! Boy, he sure lies & preys on old fears if he can't find a new one!--Ha!--So I said, "You're a liar!--They're praying for me, so I'm gonna get up & fight!"--And I got this verse, "As they went they were healed!"--Luk.17:14b. Mama said, "Where are you going, as sick as you are!"--I said, "I'm wenting!"--And went out & went to work on some handyman projects with the boys!--And I'm almost well! Hallelujah!)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
