Bible Study

HEALING IS THE CHILDREN’S BREAD

| Radical About Jesus

If you prefer to access this message on video, you will find the link below the article.

photo courtwsy of Imtiyaz Ouraishi @ pixabay.com


In the natural realm, we are going through a period of time in our world when some items that we need for everyday life are running low – or are unable to be delivered in a timely manner. I’ve had the experience – and I’ve listened to many other people complaining about the experience – of going to the local grocery store and finding shelves almost empty of staples like bread and milk and eggs. And sometimes even a trip to one or two other stores doesn’t glean us any of those supplies either. It’s frustrating – even aggravating – to need something and have no way of obtaining it.

But today I’d like to talk to you about a supply chain that never runs out – doesn’t even run low. I’d like to focus on God’s supply of some things we need and His storehouse that always has well-stocked shelves. I’d like to focus particularly on the bread that He supplies for His children.

When Jesus was here on the earth, He made a pretty amazing statement. When referring to deliverance and healing of the body, He said that those provisions were the “children’s bread.” We find His words in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 15 and in Mark, chapter 7. Jesus was speaking to a Syrophoenician woman who, although she was not a Jew and had no covenant with God, was, nevertheless, asking for deliverance and healing for her daughter. And the point Jesus made to her was that He had not been sent to those with no covenant with God, But He had been sent to fulfill the covenant God had made with those who loved Him and had relationship with Him. Now, Jesus did respond to that Syrophoenician woman’s faith and delivered her daughter anyway, but His point in that conversation was that anyone in covenant with God had a predetermined right to a supply of that healing and deliverance, simply because it was a part of God’s covenant provision – as surely as bread was part of their food provision.

It’s significant that He spoke about those provisions as something as basic as bread. It’s a staple for the human diet. It’s not something we consider an appetizer, a dessert, or a between-meal treat. No, bread, according to the Word of God, is one of the primary foods that He promises to provide and bless. One example of that provision is found in Exodus 23:25, where He says “I will bless your bread and your water.”

So God sees bread as one of the most necessary items in our food supply. And He chose to identify His healing and deliverance as a commodity that is a fundamental staple in our lives as surely as bread is a physical staple in providing our nourishment and satisfying our hunger.

Beloved, are you battling sickness or physical infirmities right now? Are you in need of deliverance from some kind of stronghold in your life? Then you can come to the storehouse for your supply of the “bread” God has prepared for you.

There’s plenty of it. And we’re not talking crumbs here. If you have made Jesus your Lord, you are God’s child, and God’s bread belongs to you. If you haven’t made Jesus your Lord yer, you can remedy that fact right now. Simply tell Jesus that you choose to believe that He is the Son of God and that He took your sin and died to pay for all that sin. Tell Him you want Him to become your Lord and take control of your life from this moment forward. That’s all it takes. Once that’s done, you, too, have become a child of God, and His bread is yours.

And God’s supply isn’t running low. There are shelves and shelves of bread available every day. Come and get yours. Take a whole loaf. You aren’t limited to a slice or two. You can have a whole loaf at once, with a new slice for every different thing that’s wrong. Are you dealing with an eye problem and a pain in your foot, as well as a head cold? Are you dealing with cancer and diabetes and arthritis all at the same time? Are your mental faculties waning, causing you to lose memory or have trouble reasoning? Is there a problem with one of your organs because you have had an addiction to alcohol or nicotine, so that you need deliverance as well as healing?

No problem. It doesn’t matter how many afflictions you’re dealing with. There’s a slice for every problem. If you need two or three slices for one kind of sickness, and then two or three more for another issue, there’s still no problem. If your current loaf runs low, there’s plenty more where it came from.

And we don’t even have to stop at getting bread. The Lord loves us so much that He wants to provide a complete menu for us, meeting our every need. He tells us in Psalm 23, verse 5, that He prepares a whole table for us right in the presence of our enemies. Now we don’t have to keep our eyes on the enemy forces that have come out against us, watching all the time to make sure they are not going to get the upper hand. When we put ourselves into the right relationship with the Lord – by becoming one with Jesus Christ – we can rest in that relationship and it’s promised protection. We can sit back and enjoy all the wonderful provisions the Lord has for us even when our enemy is present and wanting to get us down.

Let’s think for a minute about the kind of table the Lord prepares for us. What kinds of provision do you think you’ll find on your table? Will there be bowls of cancer? Or platters of infectious diseases? Will there be loaves of sorrow or pitchers of pain? Why, no, beloved child of God. The Word of God says that Jesus took all of those things for us. Galatians 3:13 tells us clearly that He took the whole curse of the law for us so that we could be free from it.

And that curse includes every kind of sickness and disease man will ever know. You can find the details of that curse in Deuteronomy 28. It lists a lot of individual sicknesses and infirmities by name, but then verse 61 adds the fact that every single kind of sickness and disease that has not already been named is also included in the curse. We are redeemed from it – from every bit of it – so our table will have none of those hurtful, life-threatening things on it.

Instead, we will find bowls of joy and strength, platters of comfort, pitchers of balm, trays of mercies to cover every need, and baskets filled to overflowing with our bread of deliverance and healing.

So if you are in need of any kind of deliverance or healing in your body – or in your mind or emotions – come take a seat at the table the Lord has set for you. Come boldly and joyously. Dip from the bowls and platters and baskets again and again. Take all you need, all you want. Partake until you are fully satisfied and rejoice in the knowledge that your Father is a faithful provider and will never fail to keep an abundant supply for you at His table. The invitation is for all time, so you can come back again and again and feast on the “bread” of healing and deliverance that His love – and the finished work of Jess – have provided for you.

HEALING SCHOOL VIDEO PLAYLIST

| Radical About Jesus
As many of our followers know, we hold Healing Schools throughout the Southern Illinois area several times a year — under normal conditions. Unfortunately, with all the covid restrictions and lockdowns, we have not been able to schedule a normal Healing School for about a year and a half. However, Sandra Conner also teaches the same material at a local college, and the past two terms, she offered that class online.
 
The course, as it’s prepared for the college campus, is not allowed to include personal prayer with students, but all of the material is presented in the same manner as the regular healing schools. Those classes have now been made available for public viewing, and the link below will take you to a playlist of 23 lessons from the course “Biblical Pathways to Health & Wholeness.”
 
The course included study sheets with some extra material for students who took the original class. Anyone watching the video lessons from the playlist currently is also eligible to receive the study sheets. If you would like to have copies of that material, the ministry will gladly e-mail you free copies. Contact Sandra at the ministry email address:
radicalaboutjesus@gmail.com

Follow this link to the video playlist:

Drawing From God’s Well — Podcast Experiment

| Radical About Jesus

I’m working on creating a ministry podcast channel. We have a lot of interaction with our YouTube channel, but many people still want to be able to listen to the messages while they are driving or cleaning house or carrying out some other chores that don’t allow them to look at a screen while listening. So this post is step one in getting the new project underway. The podcast episode below is the first in a series of messages titled Know The Word; Experience The Power. This first episode — “Drawing From God’s Well” — is one of my personal favorites, so I’ve used it as my tester.  If things go according to plan, we’ll be uploading a number of episodes soon, both here on the website and on several other podcast platforms across the Internet. 

If you have time to listen, let me know — in the comment section below — if you have any thoughts or advice concerning making this venture a success.

DRAWING FROM GOD’S WELL

True North

| Radical About Jesus

COMPASS -- Efraim Stochter -- PX

In routine life on Planet Earth, there’s one rather ordinary looking piece of equipment that is used by thousands of people every day. It’s called a compass. Hikers, hunters, military personnel, navigators on ships and planes, and even  12-year-old boy scouts and girl scouts out on field trips use a compass as a normal part of their activities. Most of us have used one at some point in time, or at least played with one just to see how it works. Its job: to make geographical directions clear so that we can find our way safely and expeditiously from one point on this earth to another.

But that compass will not help us — it will, in fact, lead us the wrong way and get us into trouble — it is fails to point its arrow accurately to the North. It it’s off just a tiny bit, it can cause us to go miles in the wrong direction and totally miss our destination. That compass must point its arrow to TRUE NORTH, or it does us no good at all.

Now for individual journeys from one geographical place to another, any average compass in good working order is good enough. But what about our life-long journey — our time from birth to death — when we make our way along the road of life with all its twists and turns and possible detours? What provides our source of accurate directions for that journey?  Well, there’s only One who knows for sure how to navigate that life path successfully and wind up at the right places at the right times — as well as how to wind up in the right place at the end of the journey — and that person is our Creator — the One who made us to live this life in the first place.

We hear people today talk about how different people have different “moral compasses”  — to each his own — everyone lives by his own standards. But the truth is that all moral compasses that don’t point to Jesus Christ are extremely faulty and will lead the followers into trouble — and eventually into destruction.

Jesus Christ is the only TRUE NORTH. If our life compass focuses on Him, we will be able to stay on course — with joyful results. It if does not point to Him, we’re lost — in more ways than one.

I hear people say things like this: “Well, there are people who do good an live right in this world who aren’t Christians.” And i agree that I know some people who love their families and who try to live by rules that are, for the most part, kind. But the fact is that the only reason those people act as positively as they do is that they’ve been taught the basic rules of God’s Word.

Now they may not recognize those words as coming from the Bible. And they may not have learned them in a church. But they were influenced by others — even by the laws of the land — to understand a lot about what’s right and wrong. Every law of the land in any nation that protects people and guides them to act in ways that avoid hurting someone else came originally from the plans for living right laid out in God’s original law.

The truth is that the only foundation any society — indeed any human being from Adam and Eve down — has for determining what’s right and wrong is God’s Word. That’s why God gave the original ten commandments: so man would know what was good and what was evil. And all the civilized nations in the word have laws that follow those ten commandments. No human being came up with those ideas on his own. His Creator taught him right and wrong.

Why did the Creator need to teach man? Because the only good there is in the universe is in God Himself and what proceeds out of Him.

Let me say that again: There is no good in this world except what proceeds out of God. Man is born sinful — selfish, self-centered, and out for himself alone. Prove it you say? Look at any little baby. He wants his needs met, and when they’re not met, he cries — and cries — and cries — until Mom and Dad stop whatever else they are doing and give baby whatever it is he wants.  And as a child grows, he knows to focus on his own needs and wants without being taught. His wants come first.

Most parents — if they are responsible in their child rearing — begin teaching their children about kindness and consideration for others at an early age. But those things have to be taught. They never come naturally to any human being. Goodness, kindness, and generosity are learned behavior — coming either from instruction or environmental influence. There is no inherent good in any human being when left on his own.

The Word of God says it simply and succinctly when it says, “There is none good but God.” (Luke 18:19) and “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10 and “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).  There is no inherent good in any human being when left on his own.  He must receive his goodness from God.

Now, living on this earth in the right environment may help some people soak up understanding of some of that goodness. And they may exert some effort to make it active in their lives. Anyone who gets out in the rain gets wet. Anyone who gets out in the sun gets warm. But those conditions are superficial and temporary. So, in the same manner, anyone who is reared and nurtured in an environment of good, loving ways will, no doubt, soak up some of that attitude and that philosophy of life — and its accompanying behavior.

But as with the sun and the rain, those things are superficial and temporary. They will carry that person only so far and for only so long. He will ultimately fail in his morality and goodness. I have lived 72 years on this earth and been actively involved with thousands of people from all over the world, and I have yet to see an exception to this rule. Nor do I know any other people who have come across an exception. No human being other than Jesus Christ has ever lived without failing in morality and goodness. Until we receive Jesus Christ and put Him in control, everyone of us fails to live up to the goodness of God — the goodness required to be fit to live with Him for eternity.

The only good we know and do apart from Jesus is what we acquired by osmosis because God’s goodness managed to penetrate our soul a little. But without our spirit being born again by the entrance of Jesus Christ, that “goodness” is nothing but a garment we wear. What’s inside will eventually come to the forefront. And, yes, I realize I am repeating myself here, but with good reason. My experience with humanity has taught me that very few people can capture and hold onto a new concept the first time they hear it. And, for many people reading this article, the concept I’m sharing is new indeed. So explaining the same truth again — and in slightly different terms — is a safeguard and an insurance that more people will grasp this truth and let it help them move forward to what they need.

The exciting part of this truth is that once Jesus is allowed to come in and take control, His own righteousness is transferred into our being. At that point, we aren’t just trying to be good and do good because of some training that will eventually fail us. No. Jesus gives us His own inherent goodness and holiness. It becomes who we are because He has become the controller of who we are. We are one with Him.

And since He alone is TRUTH (John 1:17; John 14:6), He provides the infallible compass for our life from that point through all eternity. Do our souls and bodies sometimes fail to measure up? Yes, but Jesus, our unerring compass, lovingly points us back to the right direction, and the wrong steps we took gets corrected so that we don’t ever get completely off course again.

Jesus Christ is our TRUE NORTH. If you haven’t yet made Him the compass of your life, right now is the best time to do it. No matter how far off course you are at present, if you’ll turn your life over to Him, you will immediately see where “True North” is, and you’ll never have to worry about being lost again on this journey through life. Not only that, you’re guaranteed to wind up at the destination you were always intended to reach — in this life on earth and for eternity.

photo credit: Efraim Stochter (MW) @ pixabay.com

 

What’s Stronger Than Corona Virus???

| Radical About Jesus

MEDICAL BAG - with crossWhat’s stronger than Corona Virus?

The Word of God
The Blood of Jesus
The Name of Jesus
Our Redemption From the Curse (which includes all sickness of every conceivable kind.)
_____________
The Word tells us in Galatians Chapter 3 that we who belong to Jesus Christ are redeemed from all sickness and disease (the curse of the broken law).
The Word tell us that we are healed by the striped of Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 53:4-5 & 1 Peter 2:24)
The Word tells us that we are protected from all sickness and disease in God’s “secret place” (Psalm 91)
The Word tell us that we have power and authority over ALL the power of the enemy. (Luke 10:19).

So let’s do a better job of acting like we really do believe our Father’s Word. We who truly believe what the Word of God says need to be binding ourselves into strong agreement in prayer, taking authority over the Corona Virus and commanding it to stop it’s progression in our nation. Yes, it’s true that everyone who lives here is not a believer, but we as believers — who live in a nation ordained by God for His own purposes — have the spiritual authority to bind that disease from our land and keep everyone here safe from it — even those who don’t believe. The medical community has already admitted that they cannot overcome this thing. But we, the church of Jesus Christ, can. SO LET’S DO IT!!!

Divine Woodcutters — Guest Post by Ted Pavloff

| Radical About Jesus

The following message is one my dad taught and shared on his own website several years ago. He’s gone on to be with the Lord now, but I decided to share this message here to encourage some of my readers as well.

DIVINE WOODCUTTERS

“But I would that you should understand brethren, that the things that happened to me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel: so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, in all other places ….” Phil. 1: 12-13.

I suppose that hardly a day passes that we Christians don’t complain about something. We fuss about being handicapped in one way or another: that we are hedged in and are undergoing irritating and uncomfortable testing; or that we are tempted to the edge of our strength. Consequently, we grumble and are unable to do what we would like to do for the Lord.

The above Scripture text is one of many revelations into the ministry life of the Apostle Paul that proved the mettle of this man. His life as an apostle had been anything but easy. He was continually extinguishing brush fires of false teaching and practices in the churches he founded. He had problems with individual believers who were making a mockery of the Blood of Jesus. Add to that the repeated attacks of the unbelievers, Jew and Gentile, and you see a man who had plenty to complain about — but never did!

Are you contributing to, or hindering the advance of the Gospel? In the Scripture above Paul is writing to his beloved Philippians while a prisoner in Rome, and he is assuring them that his present circumstances are contributing to, rather than hindering, the advance of the gospel. What a remarkable statement

DIVINE WOODCUTTERS PHOTOThe key word in this Scripture is the word “furtherance.” I discovered that it was translated from a Greek word used in the first century to describe a company of woodcutters, who proceeded ahead of an army, and cut a road through a forest so they could advance. Paul is literally saying that his circumstances at the moment, were simply “divine woodcutters” cutting a path through the opposition so the Gospel might advance. Incredible! In prison, liberty gone, totally handicapped, chained to a Roman guard. But Paul says it is all God’s woodcutters making a road for the Good News!

You see, something was happening that the Roman government never anticipated: the Gospel of Jesus Christ was being preached from the pulpit of the Roman Empire. Detachments from the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s elite unit of 10,000 palace guards) were the soldiers assigned to guard the Apostle 24 hours a day. As each detachment came on duty, Paul saturated them with the Good News, and they would in turn carry the message back to the palace barracks. Gradually the entire unit and the palace staff were soaked with the Good News.

And there were even more “Divine Woodcutters.” Brethren in Rome, jealous of Paul, were preaching the Message more energetically, simply out of envy. Other brothers friendly to Paul, out of love, began preaching with added enthusiasm. Paul’s response? “It makes no difference to me the why’s behind it; the woodcutters are at work, the gospel is getting out, and I’m glad.”

The Apostle’s message here refers to experiences that eventually come to the life of every Christian. All of us may not spend time in a prison or experience anything as drastic as Paul. But there are times when the walls seem to close in upon us, and barriers appear out of nowhere — things like difficult personal circumstances or physical problems. All such roadblocks, even though they are the work of the enemy, or even our own failure to heed God’s Word, can be turned into “Divine Woodcutters” contributing to the advancement of the Gospel … Through you!

Listen, Beloved, we do not glory in hardships and problems; but in the midst of them, we can become closer to Jesus and more dependent upon the Holy Spirit. When we do that, we ultimately overcome all of them and grow more efficient in proclaiming the Word.

Paul accomplished some of his greatest work when limitations upon him were the strongest. Listen to him as he speaks in Second Corinthians 12:9, paraphrased: “My weakness is no big deal anymore. I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power instead of showing off my own power and abilities. Since I know my whole life is all for Christ’s glory, I just get happy about it, and about all the persecutions, insult, hardships, and difficulties … for when I am weak then I am strong and the less I have the more I depend on Him!”