Feb 12
15
Divine Interruption?
Brad Cullen
Just (last night) I opened an e-mail from the capital city in Ethiopia …here is an excerpt: “But now with two of my friends we are discussing of starting a prayer group just to have a fellowship with Dad, to be in His presence and experience God. I was reading the retreat guide you wrote in 2003, which I think is not a complete one. It is nice if you send me one.”
Sensing my brother might need something other than what I had written back in 2003 I responded, “How about I ask our Daddy what I should send you, okay?”
He wrote back agreeing.
Here is what I have been given for him and feel compelled to copy to Ryan and ask him if this should not be posted immediately:
Hi, my brother, after several hours this is what I feel compelled to write generally for others as well as the three of you. I hope it will be helpful. You mentioned health issues – while this is intended to get at the root of what I consider is the greater need of us all, which is the ongoing presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT in every area of our lives, it may seem to be a word on “healing.” Please do not limit it to that. Healing and getting rid of the causes of health issues is quite often the result, but because of some other things you mentioned I feel the need to make the foregoing emphasis.
Just becuase you have been invited in, doesn't mean it's easy to pass through.
The challenge for many people is that they haven’t yet learned how to access our SPIRIT-PARENT SOURCE.
The immediate response from some might be, “Oh, this is going to be another one of those things about prayer” – not at all. In fact, quite often (not always) when people come to me or call me and they believe their need is to be healed from some malady or another and ask me if I will pray for them, it will go something like this:
“I have asthma and so-and-so told me you have a gift for healing asthma. Will you pray for me?”
“I don’t pray to get rid of asthma,” is my somewhat stock answer. Sometimes I am given to understand that I need to ask what they mean by “prayer” because often that is the root of their problem!
“What’s going on?” I often first query them to get their perspective of the cause, when was the onset, what they’ve been doing about it, how severe are the attacks, how long they’ve had it and if they believe they can be healed “supernaturally.”
Depending upon the answers I get from them, and the answer I get from our SPIRIT-PARENT, I’ll know what to do, but it won’t be to pray in the usual sense of that word. IT ALSO MAY BE TO DO NOTHING!
I had an exchange with someone recently who had been healed of diabetes just a few weeks before. “Would you pray for my shoulder, it hurts all the time? The pain is killing me!”
“Oh, I see,” I said to him, “You want to make pronouncements with your mouth like that and then come to me to pray for the opposite result than what you are praying for.”
You can be on your knees praying and still get it wrong.
“Wait a minute, I’ve been praying for God to heal it, what are you talking about?”
“In general terms, the word translated from the original language as ‘prayer’ means speaking toward God, that is, into the spirit realm or ‘kingdom of heaven.’ When you say that your shoulder is killing you, believe it or not, you are giving permission for the cause of the pain to hang around.
By the way,” I said softly, touching him on the top of his left shoulder, which he had indicated was the ‘killing culprit,’ “the pain is gone.”
“Wow, what did you do? The pain is completely gone!”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, “It really is your faith that took care of it.”
Our present circumstances (and pain) almost always have their roots in some experience we had in the past. Therefore, dealing with the present circumstance (including taking pills or treatment to dull the pain) will not result in a lasting cure. -Anon-
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My all time favorite narrative surrounding something Jesus said and did is in Matthew 17: 15-21.
…and here’s why:
First of all, it demonstrates our erroneous thinking when it comes to looking for a cure. A man came to Jesus to get his son healed from epileptic-like seizures. Jesus did not heal the boy. He got rid of the cause and, “poof,” no more seizures.
Secondly, his disciples understood the principle, but couldn’t get rid of the cause. Jesus was quite irritated with them because they couldn’t do it. In other words both he and they expected them to be able to do it. He said words to the effect, “How long do I have to put up with you faithless perverts?”
When they were able to get him off by himself they asked him, “How come we couldn’t do it?”
His answer was simple, “Because you don’t believe enough;” and he went on to say that nothing would be impossible if we do believe enough.
He also provided instructions as to how to get to the point of believing enough.
He had to have faith that his true love would live.
We really can get to the point of believing enough so that we can get rid of causes and thereby people are made whole. We can also get to the point of believing enough to heal.
The key resides in our believing enough. If you don’t believe everything in the foregoing three paragraphs, it is for one very simple reason – you don’t believe the content.
Read it again, and please remember I didn’t say these things, it is an accurate translation, from the original language, of the writer of the Gospel, Matthew, of what he claims he is a quote of Jesus.
For some people, at this point, they want to argue whether this is literal …my retort is, IT DOESN’T MATTER!
I just felt a compelling urge to also interject something here. Daddy, is this necessary?
I get a definitive and confirming “yes.”
Whether I believe that everything in whatever English version of the Christian Bible anyone else believes is the “best” translation is irrelevant. Further irrelevance is whether the Bible is literal. What blows my mind is that those who claim every word in the Bible is “inspired” and thus “God’s written Word” for NOW, today, don’t believe this passage. That’s all …that’s the interjection. Moving right along:
I bought this book and it helped me a lot.
If you claim to believe, but are not yet able to get rid of causes, and affect cures, is it possible that it is because you have not followed Jesus’ instructions, or you have not yet applied them?
If we (and I am including myself) are willing to digest the foregoing paragraph, perhaps we’re ready to chew on something else. Jesus’ handpicked twelve disciples were unable to get rid of the cause in the boy, the result of which, to put it crudely, was that it pissed Jesus off. Why? Why indeed? …especially when we are so prone to make excuses for the same kinds of failures!
We go even further; we hide behind silly doctrines and systems of unbelief that insist that demons or evil spirits don’t even exist! Well, maybe they don’t, by those particular names or titles, but those of us who have experienced the phenomena know there is most certainly something “alien” at work by whatever other name or definition.
Or we hide behind Paul’s rhetorical question, “Are all able to wield miracles?” …and by turning his rhetoric into a doctrine that it is impossible for all to do the seeming miraculous such as getting rid of demons or healing – thereby contradicting Jesus’ promise that NOTHING will be impossible for those who believe enough.
Now hear this: I did not just say that Paul contradicted what Jesus said. Paul was stating an obvious fact that not everyone is able to perform “miracles.” He was not crossing every “t” or dotting every “i” of why they cannot do the seeming supernatural. Is what he said literal? THE QUESTION MISSES THE POINT …stop getting hung up on it. IT DOESN’T MATTER!
Unbelieving men and women have devised doctrines that contradict what Jesus said. So here’s an appropriate question, the answer to which provides the first step to acquiring believing enough to begin.
Am I willing to allow our (your and my) SPIRIT-PARENT’s instructions, or do I insist on following my own preconceived notions and prejudices?
If we want to live in the presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT (by whatever other title or name) and who Jesus claimed did the things he did and spoke the words which came out of his mouth – we might begin to be motivated enough to follow some simple instructions which were also recorded as coming through him.
God has provided this bell so you don't have to be demanding. Just ring bell until He shows up.
Simply stated those instructions are to demand and command continually UNTIL we know and sense the presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT. This is what I did to write this. Is it the only way? Almost certainly not! But it is the way I have found most effective for me, for now.
Any individual, that’s you, that’s me. I can do these things because I have applied this truth, but this isn’t about me; this is about any individual who believes enough.
That means you too can be a worker of miracles. Now then, we get to the crux of this treatise. If we are going to be and do what Jesus did and more, doesn’t it register in our innermost beings that we ought to do it the way Jesus did it?
Reminder: Jesus did not perform any miracles. Our SPIRIT-PARENT in him spoke the words and performed the “works.”
I would say, therefore, the most important step to believing enough to do what Jesus did is to acquire the same consciousness that Jesus possessed.
There’s more, much more, but I’m led to stop here for now and deal with individual questions and specifics for individual readers (period).