Published by admin on 17 Jun 2011 at 04:20 pm
SPIRIT CONSCIOUS, NOT FLESH CONSCIOUS
Most of you know I love to teach about healing. When the Lord gave me a ministry in healing in 1993, I set right to work praying for the sick, and for eighteen years now I’ve seen many healed. Not all, mind you, but many. Early on I asked the Lord why all are not healed like they were when He ministered to the sick. He told me, He couldn’t heal everybody, and that really caused me to stumble in my faith. Now I thought He healed all the sick, without exception, but He said no. But He told me why not, and armed with that knowledge, I have set out to improve my results.
In response to my question, the Lord referred me to Mark chapter 6: He had just raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, and the people were amazed. Then we read:
Mar 6:1 And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.
Mar 6:2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
Mar 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
Mar 6:4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
Mar 6:5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Mar 6:6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
You see, I thought the entire process of healing was upon the Lord Jesus, but here we clearly see it is not. Wherever Jesus traveled, the news of all the miracles He did preceded Him, and the people were full of faith because they had heard of and seen His mighty works. But those of His own community were offended at Him, saying, We know him, he’s only the son of a carpenter, and we know his brothers and sisters. Who does he think he is, anyway? And there Jesus could do no mighty works. It wasn’t that He WOULDN’T, He COULDN’T! And He marveled at their unbelief. Not HIS unbelief, mind you, but THEIRS. And I have personally experienced the same problem. My own mother-in-law died of cancer because she didn’t think I had it in me to heal her. Yet others I did not know were healed of the very same thing, and I marveled at her unbelief. It saddened me greatly that she died needlessly, but like those of Jesus’ own community, people tend to be flesh conscious, and not Spirit conscious.
And that, my friend, is why some are healed, and some are not. It is not the flesh that heals, it is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit working in me, I couldn’t heal a hangnail. And even WITH the Holy Spirit working through me, unless those I minister to believe, I have no power to help them.
We see in Mark 6:6, that Jesus marveled because of their unbelief, and He went round about the villages TEACHING. What did He teach? He taught about the goodness of His Father, and about the Kingdom of heaven. He taught how Isaiah 66:1 was fulfilled in Him, when He said in Luke 4:18-21,
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luk 4:20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Luk 4:21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
In another place two blind men approached Jesus, asking to be given their sight. He didn’t say, Have you repented of your sins?,or, Have you paid your tithes?, or, Have you forgiven those who have sinned against you? No, instead we read in Matthew 9:27-30,
Mat 9:27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.
Mat 9:28 And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord.
Mat 9:29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.
Mat 9:30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it.
Did you see that? He asked them Believe ye that I am able to do this? He didn’t ask them if they thought He was willing to heal them! Our flesh reasons that He must first be willing to heal, then it reasons “Maybe He is willing to heal someone else, but not ME.” But the bottom line is this: unless we BELIEVE, we will not receive healing. It doesn’t matter how badly you need it or want it, or how sick you are, or how long you’ve been sick, the only thing that will get you healed is you must BELIEVE! You can’t lay the blame of God if you aren’t healed, because Jesus clearly demonstrated, He is ALWAYS willing to heal.
You see, we are far too flesh conscious. We read the Holy Bible promises concerning healing, and then we feel the pain. “Surely God must have meant something else. Maybe we are to suffer and learn a lesson. There are lots of sick people in my church, and God hasn’t healed THEM, maybe healing is not for today.” We get the doctor’s diagnosis, like I did back in 1993, that I had less than a month to live, I’ll tell you, there was no hope left in my flesh whatsoever. I was ready to go home and die. But I had asked the Lord Jesus to save me, and He told me to read Psalm 103:2-3, which says, Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; At that moment, I did something I had never done before: I simply took God at His Word. No conditions, no questions, no doubtful disputations, I simply believed His Word, in spite of what it looked like, and what I felt like.
At that moment, I became Spirit conscious, and not flesh conscious. My flesh was dying, and there was nothing any person could do to stop it. But the Holy Spirit had spoken through the Word of God, and it was settled forever: not because I believed it, but because God had spoken it. But the moment I believed, that Word of God became settled forever in ME, and it started changing the way I thought, the way I lived, and soon, the way I felt. Now, eighteen years later the Word of God is still keeping my body well and free from sickness. What if I hadn’t believed? What if I believed my flesh over my Spirit? I’d be dead right now, no doubt.
Is it hard to be Spirit conscious and not flesh conscious? Let me ask you this, could you be praising God or reading His Word, and a hornet come and sting you, would you still stay there and keep praising God? Or would you jump up and try to do something to relieve your pain? That’s only a minor irritation compared to the pain of cancer. Yet that shows you how flesh conscious a person is. Most people are ruled by their flesh. Don’t believe me? Then why do you have a job? It’s because your flesh wants to eat, and a place to live out of the weather. Why do you have a car? because your flesh doesn’t want to walk to work, it would rather ride. When you stop and think about it, most everything you do revolves around making your flesh feel comfortable. Now be honest about it! We do very little to curb the desires of the flesh.
Yet, everything that exists in all creation first came from the Spirit of God. He is a Spirit, not flesh, and if we are to know Him at all, we must do so in the spirit realm. The flesh profits nothing as far as knowing God is concerned. In fact, the flesh hinders us in our relationship with God, in that we cater so much to our fleshly desires, that we often shut God out of our lives. Most of our prayer life is spent not in worship and praise of our Father God, but in asking for this and for that, in order that our flesh might be nice and comfy. Yep, preach it Brother Jerry!
It’s only when we tell our flesh to sit down and shut up, that we can learn to be Spirit conscious. We’ve all experienced this one: when we kneel down to pray, shortly we get thirsty, or have to use the toilet, or we get an itch that we have to scratch, or we remember something we forgot to do. But SOMETHING in our flesh just demands attention, and I mean RIGHT NOW!! Of course we know by the Word of God that our Spirit and our flesh are at enmity with one another, and somehow we hope all that will pass, but it never does. Your Spirit and your flesh will battle every day of your life for as long as you live! You have to learn to become Spirit conscious, to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. You have to discipline yourself to live like the Word of God says, to cast down every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
“Discipline”, now that’s a word people don’t like to hear these days. Most of us want to do what we want to do, and that’s allowing the flesh to rule. If you let your flesh rule your life, you’ll never develop your Spirit man, and you’ll spend your days wishing you had more of God in your life, but it won’t ever happen. You’ll make every excuse why you don’t spend time with God praying and studying His Word, because your flesh will always require your attention. You’ll make every excuse for unbelief, when you know you ought to be healed. You’ll blame it on your preacher, or your circumstances, or your mother-in-law, but the truth is, you didn’t discipline yourself to believe the Word of God over what your flesh was telling you.
I’m here to tell you it isn’t always easy. But God didn’t promise “easy”. He promised many wonderful things we can have in His Word, but “easy” isn’t among them. In closing, the Lord Jesus said in Revelation 21:7-8: He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. You’ll notice those who failed, did so by catering to their flesh.
God created us to have intimate fellowship with Him every day, and we only develop that by being Spirit led, and not flesh led. He created us to “overcome”, and the first thing we must overcome is our flesh. So today, determine you will be Spirit conscious, not flesh conscious. Spirit conscious people lay hold onto God’s promises, believing and confessing His Word, paying no attention to the whining and complaining of their flesh, and doing so until they prevail!!
Darryl on 21 Jun 2011 at 10:41 am #
Thank you Pastor. Right on the mark. I have heard other preachers say, Healing always comes. But it is not always received. Jesus is always willing to heal.
Terry G. Warman on 25 Jun 2011 at 10:13 pm #
Amen Brother…….I am Healed. Satan as always,is a liar,and deceiver………Bless all you do Brother,…….Terry 😉