Yes, God Can!

The older I get the more I realize that as people become more experienced with time, they allow their personal experiences to dictate what God can and cannot do in their lives. The measure of God's power has become their own experience. "If I haven't experienced it, God's not able to do it."

The problem with this line of thinking is two fold:

1. God works in different ways in different situations. To expect that your experience would be the exact same as everyone else's experience is problematic. You cannot make all of your life experiences standard for everyone.

2. I might not have done my part in responding to God's desire to work in my life. For example, in order to receive the forgiveness of sins, we must, in faith, turn from our sins and place our trust in the Lordship of Jesus. This arises out of a godly sorrow over our sins against God. If you do not have faith, you will not experience justification.

As a pastor, I have had to navigate, both personally and pastorally, the issue of physical healing. Why does God not answer the prayer of healing sometimes and other times eradicate disease from the body? 

There are a number of pastors today that ascribe to the "faith healing" philosophy that God must heal if we truly have faith. the problem here is that faith is a tool in an attempt to control God. But faith is not about dictating to our Lord. Others opt to bypass the difficulty of grappling with these hard questions and simply concede that God is subject to His own creation and does not have power to intervene in the natural law that He has set in motion. But that is not faith in God, that's deism.

Faith in God as healer is not dictating results but refusing to allow circumstances to dictate what I perceive to be true. Real faith is centered on Jesus, not on peripheral actions we expect of Jesus. Disregarding God's ability to heal is a move away from faith in the leading of the Holy Spirit and the revelation He has given to us through the Biblical record. 

Faith is not a one-time act of trust. Faith is a lifestyle of loving obedience in ongoing recognition that God, the Creator, knows what is best for us.

Faith is the heart of what is questioned in every attack of the enemy via temptation or trial. If Satan can lure you away from your loving obedience, it is because he convinced you that God is not trustworthy. If Satan can put you through enough difficulty to prevent you from acting in faith, it is because he has pressured you into disregarding the directives of Heaven.

Faith is the victory. I do not understand everything that goes on in the world. I do not even like everything that goes on in the world. I sometimes question how long God will allow evil to run amuck in this world, but faith gives my soul the assurance that Christ will return and overcome evil in every form.

As I still my heart before God in my time with Him and in the Bible, I am again and again reminded that he can do abundantly more than I could ask or imagine... and I can imagine a lot! May I walk by faith and not by sight. 

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Check out these other articles:

Once You Are Saved, Are You Always Saved?

The Demise of the Church Has Been Overstated

Some Cautions for the Church of the Nazarene (Part 1)

Signs of a Good Church