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| Benny Hinn Healing Crusade |
in all seriousness, if i take someone with a terminal illness and bring them to the front of a church, and challenge anyone who thinks they have enough faith to heal them, to come and do so, is this wrong in God's eyes?
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| Jesus heals man with Palsy |
i've been doing a little street evangelism and young people are generally very angry with church. they say the church isn't what it should be. well, i've heard this for a long time now, and i don't care to cast any more stones. revival is happening in Canada, and i want in on it. i just need to know my bounds. i need to know what is promised, what isn't, what i can tell people, and how to have faith. you might just tell me to read my Bible, but i have been. i'm amazed by the book of Acts. can every christian heal people? prophecy? cast out demons? i know different people get different giftings based on their measure of faith, but what does that mean? how can you base it on your faith? does that mean that if i believe i can heal, i can therefore heal? i don't think i have the gift of healing, specifically. i've done some online tests, talked to lots of people, and i believe i am gifted in the area of teaching, and prophecy. i've heard rumor that everyone really has every gift, we just specialize in certain ones. if this is true, i should be able to do anything, and just focus on one or two or three. i've been baptized in the Holy Spirit, but i haven't spoken in tongues. i've had a few tiny prophetic experiences, nothing too bold or outrageous.
i find that people that we talked to on the streets are generally hurting people and are in need of healing, or some other miracle. i'd just like to know if i can have faith that my prayers for them will be answered.
Re: "i've heard rumor that everyone really has every gift, we just specialize in certain ones."
ReplyDeletePaul's rhetorical questions regarding the gifts i.e. "All do not have the gifts of healings, do they?" speak to this directly. Because a rhetorical question expects the answer no, Paul necesarily means that not everyone has every gift.
Paul also says faith is a gift from God, so really it's not your faith anyway which could possibly power the gift. It's God's, whom Paul says distributes gifts "to each one individually just as He wills". This seems to imply that we are neither directly or indrectly able to influence which gifts we have, or how miraculous of a manifestation they might show up in.
I think what Paul means by using gifts according to the measure of faith each one has is that one must have faith in God and not their own ability to heal/teach etc. I think he means faith in the sense that whatever is not of faith is sin. If you go to try and heal someone without really believing that God would do it He still could, but you would have sinned in the act. Thus I believe Paul calls people to use according to their ammount of faith as a matter of conscience, not as a matter of effectiveness.
nathan wrote:
ReplyDeleteI think he means faith in the sense that whatever is not of faith is sin. If you go to try and heal someone without really believing that God would do it He still could, but you would have sinned in the act.
Uh, praying and having doubt is now a sin? Wow.