SOMETIMES a person can battle with sickness for a long time until their thoughts, or what they read, convince them that there is no hope for them – that God may as well not care about their situation, because they do not matter, they are just a little fragment in a huge universe.
divineinsight BY PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
Others believe that God will be using the sickness either to teach them a lesson or as punishment for sins committed. This line of thought compels you to believe that God uses the devil’s tools to correct his children.
The scriptures, however, show that sickness is part of the devil’s three-pronged strategy to ransack people’s lives and leave them in pain, impoverished and hopeless. From what Jesus Christ says in the Bible, we learn that the devil is responsible for sickness. John 10:10, says, “the thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…”
The devil will steal from you as you pay out doctors and buy medicines to have the health problem afflicting you dealt with. He will destroy your livelihood because when you are afflicted with sickness, you will not be able to work and earn a living as well as take care of your family. Eventually, he will kill you.
In a country like Zimbabwe, the prospects are too grim to contemplate. I remember a few years ago speaking to a managing director of one of the country’s biggest health insurance funds. He told me some shocking truths. He said, for instance, that only 10% of the country’s population had health insurance. What it means is that those requiring specialist health services are likely to die from their illness.
Now, to say God uses sickness against his own children is senseless. I cannot imagine, for the life of me, God borrowing the devil’s tools to inflict pain and suffering on his children purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ!
One of the world’s greatest ever healing evangelists, Tommy Lee Osborn wrote in Divine Healing that many believers have been taught theological traditions on healing that persuaded them “to believe that sickness may be God’s blessing in disguise; that it may teach humility and patience; that it may be God’s chastisement, and that, therefore, it should not be resisted but graciously accepted and humbly endured with patience – for God’s glory.”
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
In John 10:10, however, we see that the devil is clear about his agenda and this is what he lives for – that is just how evil and cruel he is! But then, the scripture assures us that Jesus came to derail the plan of the enemy in your life. John 10:10b, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”.
John picks up the thread in his first letter to the church and explains in 1 John 3: 9 that “For this purpose the son of God was manifested, that he must destroy the works of the devil.” Jesus came to destroy sin and all its manifestations – including sickness – for these are the works of the devil.
If sickness came as a result of the first Adam, then the last Adam (Jesus) reversed it. Jesus healed virtually all the sick that were brought to Him – only on the condition that they had faith – and He’s still healing today because He is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
When Jesus sought to heal a woman “whom Satan hath bound, lo, these 18 years” (Luke 13:16), it was a leader of the synagogue (a prototype of the pastor today), who protested. I know there are pastors and believers who do not believe in the miracle-working power of the very God they preach.
From what Jesus says, however, we learn that sickness is bondage in which people are placed by the devil. And this means no believer should be sick because Christ brought us liberty on the cross.
It simply means the spirit of religion is now ruling supreme in the church and that spirit does not want you healed – it allows you to do everything else in church but not to heal the sick.
I find it tragic, really, that the people who are most opposed to miracles and healing of the sick are fellow pastors and believers. But it was Jesus Himself who instructed us to heal the sick. Supernatural healings and miracles should be the lifeblood of Christianity.
Religious spirits fight the healing of people in the Church today. They influence religious doctrines that claim healing and the miraculous ended in Bible days.
Something that disturbs me is to see people come to church sick and go back the same. Are we not hungry for God’s healing anymore?
If you study the ministry of Jesus as recorded in the gospels, you will discover that he “went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness”, (Matthew 9:35).
So while the devil will use every form of sickness to fight you and torment you, God’s will is to have you healthy and strong. Be blessed!
Phillip Chidavaenzi is the author of The Gospel of Grace-From the Old to the New Testament (2016) and Walking in the Spirit (2017). He can be contacted on [email protected]
