Appropriation

"Appropriate the Word."

I WAS ASKED to pray this morning and said what I’ve been saying for days—Until you apply it, God’s Word is ineffective. You have to put it on your lips, speak it with your tongue, and believe in God’s love for you. So many catch everything that passes them because they don’t stand firm for peace, wisdom, and health in their life. All of that sounds condemning to me in reading it, but I didn’t mean it that way. I did pray and I love people. At the same time, here’s where someone says I am “unrealistic” or that “stuff happens in daily life.” Let’s can both of those. Foot pedal. Clunk. Garbage. Those are the first strong holds you must get rid of. Get in the Word, Read the Word, Appropriate the Word. Pray for others who are struggling. Job was healed when he prayed for his friends then God blessed him abundantly. Get up every day and make your confessions of God’s Word—Today, I walk in abundance of health and enjoyment of life. Today I have more than enough favor, finances, freedom.

And while I’m on this. Let’s put mental death where it belongs, under the blood of Christ. We trust God for resurrection from death where our physical body is concerned. I have seen great miracles in healing from cancer, in healing from barrenness, in life restored to the unborn. But when it comes to forgetfulness, dementia, Alzheimer’s, autism, and many other mental diseases, we roll over and accept them. Stop it. Jesus raised the dead in mind. A father who expressed his unbelief. A leper who begged for healing if Jesus wanted to do it (Matthew 8:2). A man who’d suffered lameness for 38 years. He raised up Peter, caught up in his outbursts and declarations of doubt, sorrowful when he denied this Man he adored and confessed as Messiah. “Do you love me, Peter? Feed my sheep.” We must take a stand for those who can’t take a stand for themselves and make it a firm stance, not a wavering one. Well, since nothing happened in the last week, I guess they will just end their life this way. Or, that boy never talks so he must have [insert childhood genetic ailment]. How about saying, “No, he doesn’t,” and reminding God of His Word? Because I have news for you, He healed my brain twice. He healed my mind from what the physical injury did to it. I am whole because God is love and He is merciful. I did ask for prayer, but God moved on my behalf in ways I cannot begin to express to you. Just because He knew me, saw me, and loved me.

Let’s stop making doubt a stopping point to men’s faith. Let’s stop teaching faith as a THING and just teach how much God loves people. That’s what gives men trust in Him to believe for all He’s promised. You learn He loved you to such a extreme extent and He will do anything for you, you can run to Him for every worry and health problem and fear and find comfort. We act like we have to be strong first and then approach Him. But when we were sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). It was the sick who reached out to touch the hem of His garment, believing in His power to heal, those who were tired, weary of living like they were, and afraid it would never end.

“Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.” (Luke 4:40)

“And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.” (Luke 6:17-19)

Let’s stop criticizing people for their clothing, their skin color, their entertainment choices, their differences from us. Deliberately pull down that strong hold in you. When you hear it come out or feel it rise up, remind yourself Jesus died for them. Ask Him to show you His compassion. I promise you will never be the same. It was His compassion that caused Him to say nothing on the road to the cross. They lied about Him, made fun of Him, derided His followers, and went to a great deal of trouble to make sure all He suffered felt shameful and humiliating, as well as physically awful. Even the two thieves, hung beside Him, made fun of Him, then one had an awakening, and guess where he is now? No prayer, no confession of faith, nothing was needed but Jesus’ word to him. “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” We’re focused on the holes in people’s lives, the places where they’re “not like us,” instead of the fact they are human, also made in God’s image and after His likeness. That thief barely understood who spoke to Him, much less had all His “doctrine” in order.

Let’s decide to live well. Physically and mentally well. Spiritually well. Well in our relationships. Let’s stop using the Word of God like a dart to pin people to the cross. Go around behind it and look at the wounds on Jesus’ back. Those were for our healing. Go overhead and look at the thorns on His brow. Those are for our mental stability. The soldiers placed them there to embarrass Him. They humbled Him instead, because He laid down all He was, everything He would have chosen to do, to be obedient to the will of His Father, who had given Him this task. He had decided on it, before time, but being born in the flesh, knew only what was revealed to Him from the Spirit. How great that revelation must have been, and how great the joy when it was accomplished, and He knew all things. He hasn’t forgotten what it was like to be a man living on earth, and that is the point. He did all He did to give us all He is so that we don’t have to suffer with the things He saw the devil doing to people. We are able, through Him, with Him, to live in complete fullness of life, and then one day, when we’re satisfied, sit down in complete health, and go home.

Psalm 15, Moffatt
“In thy pavilion, O Eternal, who may be a guest, who may dwell on they sacred hill? He whose life is blameless, who does right, he whose words are from the heart—no scandal on his tongue, to hurt his fellow, no insult heaped upon his neighbour; he has contempt for rogues, an honours those who reverence the Eternal; he keeps to his oath, though he may lose by it, he takes no interest on a loan; he is not to be bribe against the innocent—he, living so, shall never be rejected.”

Image by Victoria from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com