Behold He Comes
Trish had her Roar prayer meeting here on Saturday. Before that, our second son Frank and his family came to pick up their kayak, and we had a lovely visit; the boys discovered that our blueberry bushes have ripe fruit so made an enthusiastic harvest!
I have a very bad cold so spent Trish's meeting time in our room, mostly sleeping; I partially awoke when the ladies sang "Behold He comes, riding on the clouds", what a truly great expression of our Jesus and our faith! The meeting ran two hours longer than normally. Trish has been so busy with end-of-school-year that she asked Jesus and Holy Spirit to plan and run the meeting; an hour or so after it ended she seemed to be still floating above the ground. Big things are happening in the Heavenlies ..
How wonderful it is that so many are praying all around the world, building spiritual walls (Ezekiel 22:30) and holding Satan and his demonic army (Ephesians 6:12) back from their planned destruction (John 10:10).
Cancer
My (newish) prostate cancer, (really the eradication of that cancer), has come to be a significant element of my life. I do daily exercise-physiotherapy and weekly gym-physiotherapy and actively pursue the clean-up of all my old "toxic thought patterns", (is this spiritual-physiotherapy?) and now eat much more as Trish does, that is, more wisely!
There are no noticeable symptoms from the cancer, but since I began these lifestyle changes I am noticing a rapid and significant decrease in the symptoms for a number of other things, most of which have been long-lasting.
My cold is an annoyance, (and also contrary to the flow of other health things), it saps my energy so I can do little more than sleep and read, I am down to two small meals a day which is surprising, normally nothing will keep me from my food. Colds and flu hit older people hard but my immune system is doing great, it is fighting; there is no sign of infection, so it has to deal only with my "common cold".
Consequences
Definition: 'consequence' - noun - the effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier.
Time and again, what we do, or do not do, has consequences that cannot be avoided: "If you keep doing that, there will be consequences!" How often have we heard these words when we were growing up? How often do we now say them to our children? Our siblings? Our friends?
Every culture has many "if" sayings for its young people and always has. There is great truth there, truth learned in the crucible of human experience over many generations. Pain and illness can often be avoided by "following rules". We may call this "righteous living".
Our Bibles contain both wisdom and commandments involving "if" and "consequences". I am learning some of these afresh as I contemplate this cancer. Am I thinking and living as our Abba Father designed me? Is my spiritual life predominant? Or am I letting the world's influences (some translations call these "my flesh"), bring unwanted consequences?
Am I being true to my request to God? "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple" (Psalm 27:4).
And how about Jesus' big call to us? ".. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39). We know what "all" means!
Am I: ".. taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5)? And we also know what "every" means!
I now see that,
over a long time, I have allowed my passion for justice and for God's ways to
enflame my mind and cause trauma in my emotions; the consequences have arrived
(a simplified summary):
• The inflammation of my thinking became
"toxic thought patterns"
• Stress affected my
"mind-body-connection" and adrenaline flooded my system
• Prolonged stress caused cortisol to be added
to the adrenaline
• Cortisol inhibited and killed cells in my
immune system, (it "dries up the
bones"; our bone marrow is where our immune system cells come from)
• Unhealthy cells were free to multiply in my
body
• Cancerous tumours formed ..
The Bible explains: "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Luke 12:34).
".. my peace I give you .." (John 14:27).
Peace
We can choose to accept Jesus' peace, or try and work things out for ourselves (and then stress can cause disease). One or the other. "His way" and His peace, or "my way" and the consequences!
Once I learned about "toxic thought patterns" I asked Abba Father, Holy Spirit and our Saviour Jesus to show me where I needed to forgive and repent. This is now an intense, long, ongoing work of prayer.
Positive change was quickly apparent in my spirit, my soul and my body, all three!
It may not seem very heroic but seeing reduction in illnesses in my body has really encouraged my spirit, I have a more "joyful heart" .. and that has lifted my spirit!
Even this bad cold doesn't bother me much. Normally when I catch a cold it gets worse and worse until I am so run down an infection starts, then I need two courses of antibiotics which devastate my gut flora, eventually I get well again. This time, my immune system is dealing with the cold on its own, without any ugly impact. Trish and I are managing life, our house is tidy, she is on top of her school commitments, I am up to date with our laundry, and tonight I prepared a delightful avocado pasta dish for our dinner.
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear .." (1 John 4:18).
Praise Jesus who loves us and cares for us, each one.
These small things
are what we have, these and prayer, availability and obedience. The world seems
to be in an unfathomable mess, but:
"We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:19-20).
Amen.
Favourite Scriptures
"My child, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:20-23).
"But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary strokes and blows, great plagues of long continuance, and grievous sicknesses of long duration. Moreover, He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every affliction which is not written in this book of the Law the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed" (Deuteronomy 28:15, 59-61 Blessings And Curses. Note the use of the word "all". These words were addressed to the Jewish nation).
"Guard your heart for out of it flows the issues of life" (Matthew 12:34).
"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:14).
Note 1: For many years I have been blessed to hear, see, read and discuss with others, lovely committed Christian teachers whom I find sound in Scripture, theology, science and life-experience. Amongst these are: John Yates (www.cross-connect.net.au), Derek Prince (www.derekprince.com), Francis Frangipane (www.frangipane.org), Dr Michelle Strydom (www.eagleswings.co.zw), Dr Caroline Leaf (www.drleaf.net), John G. Lake (www.jglm.org) and others, and, with deep gratitude, draw from their teaching.
Praise Jesus.
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