All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others
What does sanctification look like?
So I posted a blog this morning: http://www.allaboutgod.net/profiles/blogs/what-does-sanctification-....
This brings the question we've gone around on many times here. Are we to rebuke satan against everything we endure? Are we to have faith that God does not want us sick or anything else and to stand on that and claim our healing and be healed because of our faith that God heals? Are we to ascribe all sickness and suffering as the work of the devil and that as children of God cannot touch us?
Or are we to allow sanctification to have it's perfect work in us? Sanctification which may come through trials and suffering and sickness that God allows to happen. Satan is the author of it, yet God is in control of everything and not man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Romans 11:34. I would rather stand on the belief that God wants me healed but that He wants me to shine, to be more like Christ, that He wants my INNER me healed above the outer physical me first than to stand cursing the devil and proclaiming that I'm already healed. I believe in Mark 11:24 wholeheartedly: Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And I shall. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Am I healed? In God's timing, yes I am. And I'm not meaning to start a war on what we believe in, but my point is that God meets each of us where we are. What one may have faith in, they did not acquire overnight. Perhaps they already passed their sanctification point. Perhaps they believe wrongly. Only God knows these things, not I nor anyone else. But I say my faith is strong. I have not quit in spite of it all. But I HAVE BEEN changed....and that concerns God way more than whether my body is healed.
So perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to call down fire from heaven unless and until we know what God is up to?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Seek on
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A friend at church last night prayed for my foot and we spoke of this. I told him how I was seeing all this as sanctification. He says, no you were sanctified when you were saved. But sanctification is the act or process of acquiring sanctity, of being made or becoming holy. We are made holy upon salvation, but that doesn't mean we've become holy in our actions and as you say...maturity. Maybe some don't have as much trouble with maturity that they don't need to endure these types of things?
Anyway, I told Jim I didn't mean to offend but had to ask him....he is legally deaf in one ear and wears a hearing aid. So I said if you're healed, then why do you use that? Isn't that like saying you don't believe you're healed since you've turned to a hearing aid to hear? He said he still keeps proclaiming that he's healed regardless. My thought however is, if we're to speak the truth, and we're actually experiencing physical ailments, is it truthful to say we're healed of that? Or is there more truth in saying that God wants us to be healed, but that He may have something He is using that sickness for and that everything is in HIS timing and not ours? That it's not our ability to say we're healed and be healed, but God's ability to perform miracles and heal us as He sees fit?
As Jesus prayed....if it is possible, take this cup from me. However, not my will but Yours be done.
No one wants to suffer in pain or sorrow, but God's will trumps that because He has a purpose greater than our understanding.
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Permalink Reply by Tammy on
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I would say about the healing that if God's will was to heal everyone, the grave yards would be empty. Paul would still be preaching to us & Peter to the Jews.
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Permalink Reply by RoyW on
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It would sure be nice to have Paul and Peter around to get us all straightened out.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda on
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All we have are their NT letters. I would love to be able to ask them, person to person, will you clarify this for me? I'm sure I'd be messaging them everyday. :)
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But if the graveyards were empty, they'd have a wholeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee lot more to feed than 5,000. Hope they brought plenty of fish.
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I believe the interpretation for Mark 11 is pretty easy for the prophecy student but not too many are coming up with it. The story took place the week of Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on the colt (I kind of believe it would have been on the 10th of Nisan - a Sunday that year). That was a glorious day. After His entrance into Jerusalem fulfilling the prophecies, He went to the Temple driving out all those who were attempting to profit from the Temple sacrifices and gatherings. After driving out these that were attempting to make a profit from the worshipers that were gathering, Jesus began to teach the people. He healed all the sick - the lame and the blind. It was as I previously mentioned a glorious day. That evening He left Jerusalem and went to the other side of the Mount of Olives - to Bethany where He spent the night.
The next morning He returned to Jerusalem and was hungry. He saw a fig tree and turned aside to get something to eat. When He saw that the fig tree had no fruit, He rebuked the tree and said to the tree, "May you never have fruit again." (Matthew's version) The tree withered away. The disciples were amazed at Jesus' command and the fact that the tree withered away. We then have this very famous discourse between Jesus and the disciples. He said:
Mk 11:22-24 Have faith in God.
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. KJV
This is a very interesting story. Mark points out that it was not the time for the tree to have figs. Why would Jesus put such heavy expectation on this fig tree and then destroy it when it did not meet His expectations. As I mentioned before, this was no frivolous matter. Jesus was showing and saying something to the disciples that someday they would understand. So many have taken this verse and proclaimed that if we have faith and make the right confessions we can have whatever we desire. It is true that we can have what WE desire but it has nothing to do what we might desire to have in the flesh.
Students of prophecy understand the significance of the fig tree. I am going to insert an excerpt of F.F Bruce's book The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable:
The other miracle is the cursing of the barren fig tree (Mk. xi. '2 ff.), a stumblingblock to many. They feel that it is unlike Jesus, and so someone must have misunderstood what actually happened, or turned a spoken parable into an acted miracle, or something like that. Some, on the other hand, welcome the story because it shows that Jesus was human enough to get unreasonably annoyed on occasion. It appears, however, that a closer acquaintance with fig trees would have prevented such misunderstandings. 'The time of figs was not yet,' says Mark, for it was just before Passover, about six weeks before the fully formed fig appears. The fact that Mark adds these words shows that he knew what he was talking about. When the fig leaves appear about the end of March they are accompanied by a crop of small knobs, called taqsh by the Arabs, a sort of forerunner of the real figs. These taqsh are eaten by peasants and others when hungry. They drop off before the real fig is formed. But if the leaves appear unaccompanied by taqsh, there will be no figs that year. So it was evident to our Lord, when He turned aside to see if there were any of these taqsh on the fig tree to assuage His hunger for the time being, that the absence of the taqsh meant that there would be no figs when the time for figs came. For all its fair show of foliage, it was a fruitless and hopeless tree.'
The whole incident was an acted parable. To Jesus the fig tree, fair but barren, spoke of the city of Jerusalem, where He had found much religious observance, but no response to His message from God. The withering of the tree was thus an omen of the disaster which, as He foresaw and foretold, would shortly fall upon the city. http://www.bible.ca/b-new-testament-documents-f-f-bruce-ch5.htm
This particular story comes almost to the end of chapter five of Bruce's book. Jesus was looking for the signs of fruit on the tree and the signs were not there. Knowing the tree would not produce fruit, He cursed it and it withered away.
I agree that the fig tree spoke of the city of Jerusalem. He would speak that day to the disciples about its pending destruction. For the second time in less than a millennium, Jerusalem would be devastated and the people would be scattered. The city would wither and die. The city and nation would be dead for nearly two millenniums. Jesus wished it were not true but it was. The signs were there, the city must come under judgment.
That day Jesus went on into that city and He tore apart their leaders - the Pharisee and teachers of the Law. He called them hypocrites over and over and OVER again. He called them blind and blind guides. He called them snakes and a brood of vipers. He called them white-washed tombs. He spoke extremely harshly to them. "How will you escape being condemned to hell?" He cried out.
This was God speaking. As I sit here I can feel this terrible speaking over that city. He ripped them apart up one side and down the other. He told them that the Kingdom would be RIPPED out of their hands and given to others. How often He had wept over this city but now judgment was being spoken against it just as He had done to the fig tree that morning. He said the Temple would be destroyed. Judgment had been spoken and judgment over that city would be carried out. The finality of judgment - how terrible it is for those who fall under His piercing words.
That afternoon, on the way back to Bethany, He rested with His disciples on the Mount of Olives. Can you imagine how terrified they must have been. I would have been so frightened. I just cannot imagine. I am frightened here as I set typing these words. I am shaking. "Don't be fearful, Roy, have faith in God," His sweet and gentle words come flowing over our souls.
I must stop for awhile. There is much more. We will pick up with the conversation later that day between Jesus and His probably awestruck disciples. On the morrow He would sup with them but this day they must be told about the future. He must give us understanding.
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I am thinking of 1 John 3:2 right now for some reason. I look forward to the continuation. It makes sense.
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I really can't think of anything to comment on about this story but I will tell you that your post led me to research that chapter a bit yesterday. ;-)
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I am thinking that many can take this to conclusion. Prophecy in our day is meant to confirm what Scripture says. It is not necessarily meant for us to predict. We get in trouble when we try to predict the future based on what we read in Scripture. People can come up with all kinds of scenarios. I learned as a child and young college student that at the end we would all be raptured out before the tribulation. Following that would be a seven year tribulation followed by a 1,000 year millennium. These are the kinds of things I don't believe we can predict. However, once they have happened we will all say, "O, yeah, I see that now."
Why do we have to put everything in a formula? However, once something happens, we can then recognize that God spoke this into being years, centuries or even millenniums ago. Here is an example of something being spoken into existence almost two millenniums later. Jesus said to His disciples, "When you see the fig tree bringing forth leaves."
We have seen this in our lifetime. The disciples did not remain long enough to see it. Yet, here we are nearly two thousand years later and actually seeing these events given to us in this parable actually happening. The fig tree was dead but Jesus spoke it back into existence. It is an absolute miracle so big that little can compare with it in history. You and I are seeing it happen and when we see it happening we can begin to look up.
I have a very sick grandson that is in a hospital in Denver. I will be leaving to see him this weekend and won't be able to finish but I know you are getting the picture. Jesus did not curse a fig tree because He was angry that it wasn't producing figs out of season. He gave us a clear picture of what was going to happen to the city of Jerusalem and nation of Israel. This picture that has been blurry for centuries is now coming into sharp focus.
It is absolutely true if we have faith and speak to the mountain, it shall be moved. However, saying something over and over does not make us believe it. Going a step farther - saying something we know is not true is ridiculous.
I do want to continue the fig tree story as it is a very beautiful story.
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