BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Although I’m sure the people in my church meant well, I found out after I grew up they’d actually misled me. The truth is, healing never passed away at all! It couldn’t have because in Exodus 15:26 God said, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” Since God never changes (Malachi 3:6), if He was the Lord that healeth thee back when Exodus was written, He’s still the Lord that healeth thee today. God wants His people to live totally free from sickness, disease and every other part of the curse. That’s the reason Jesus came! He came to purchase our freedom. He came to redeem us from the curse, being made a curse for us, so that we can be BLESSED—spirit, soul and body (Galatians 3:13-14). He came to bear our sicknesses and diseases, so that by His stripes we can be healed (Isaiah 53:5). The devil, however, has lied to us about this. He’s tried to pull the wool over our eyes and stop us from seeing the truth. Because it’s the truth that makes us free and God’s Word is truth (John 8:32, 17:17), the only way the devil can keep us sick is by stealing the Word from us. He doesn’t have any other option. Jesus took all of the devil’s power away from him. All he has left is his lies. So he’ll do anything he can to convince us to buy them. He’ll tell us the Word means something other than what it actually says, or that it won’t work for us. He’ll try to persuade us it’s not powerful enough to overcome whatever we might be facing. If we’re going to live free, we have to determine not to listen to such hogwash. We have to decide, 'No matter what, I’m going to believe God’s Word.' Ken and I made this decision a long time ago. We resolved we would go with what is written in the Bible, regardless of what anyone else did. We determined we were going to believe and act on God’s Word whether it looked like it would be to our advantage or not. As it’s turned out, of course, going with the Word has always been to our advantage. Even things we saw in the Scripture we initially thought would cost us have paid great dividends. They’ve opened the door to the BLESSINGS of God. That’s what the Word always does. It works for your good. When you believe it and act on it, “you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success” (Joshua 1:8, "The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition"). God’s Word is our success book. He didn’t write it for His own sake. (God doesn’t need a success book. He’s already a success.) He wrote it for our sakes because the more we renew our minds to agree with His Word, the freer we’ll be. He gave us His Word so we wouldn’t have to buy the devil’s lies. Don’t Enforce Your Own Defeat “But Gloria,” you might say, “if the devil disguises his lies as religious tradition, how can I make sure I spot them?” For one thing, they teach you to enforce your own defeat. They train you to submit to the devil’s attacks. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Bible says you should do. It says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The name of Satan’s game is to keep you from resisting him. If he can do that he can stay right with you. As long as you don’t make him flee by declaring what the Word says about your healing, he can keep right on making you sick. He can attack your body as much as he wants if he can convince you healing has passed away or that God made you sick to teach you something. If you believe those kinds of lies, you won’t resist the devil! You won’t stand against him in faith when symptoms start coming on you. You’ll just go to church on Sunday and say, “Well, I guess this sickness is just the will of the Lord.” Granted, you’ll probably be a little double-minded about it. You won’t just sit at home enjoying that sickness because it came from God. No, first thing Monday morning you’ll be in the doctor’s office asking for some medicine. You’ll be trying to get well because, religious tradition notwithstanding, you know full well that sickness is not a good thing. This is a very simple truth. My children understood it when they were little more than toddlers: God is good. The devil is bad. Good things come from God and bad things come from the devil. Since sickness is bad, it has to be from the devil. God would never send sickness on His children for any reason! Forget what you’ve heard about His putting it on people to teach them something. Forget what you’ve been told about His getting glory when believers accept sickness with a good attitude. Those are false religious traditions. ***continues on pg. 30*** 28 : BVOV

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