in the 1st part i presented the issue, the oft-employed fall-back when we're faced with oppression and depression and abuse and illness and loss and financial failure and death .. "God is in control"
i then posited my default position on things biblical, things concerning God - find and take Jesus' perspective wherever possible, and if that's not clear, then find the position that reverberates with Jesus' attitude in general..
Hebrews explains why we take Jesus' take on it; Jesus is the perfect expression of God in human form ..
so, what about the "God is in control" thing ?`|`
let's take the 2 examples i gave originally - the people that suffered life-threatening heart attacks and cancer ..
the clear statement from one was that God gave them the heart attacks; from the other, "don't get in God's way when God is working on someone" by employing cancer or similar; ie. don't interfere with God's working on them, which implies praying for the person's healing .. if we pray for healing we're actually interfering because God is bringing the very illness we're praying against
so, we end up praying something like this: "God, we want Jamal to be healed, but we recognize this could be your plan, so, Lord, your will be done." ..
basically we've just undone the whole point of prayer ..
presumably prayer is for the purpose of bringing about change, somehow employing God's power in the earth to deal with a situation ..
we're saying "God, this is so wrong! please help. bring help to my friend" or similar ... .
aren't we ? ... . eh?
because if that's not what we're doing then we're simply mouthing-off, we're praying to be able to say "i prayed", or worse yet, we're praying because we're 'supposed to' ..
that kind of prayer, "your will be done" in the face of someone who was raped last night is simply disingenuous ..
"Maria was raped, but since you could be working in Maria's life to get her attention, well .. your will be done" ..
or, wait .. maybe rape is the one thing God doesn't 'use'
hmmm.. maybe not murder .. .?
ahmmm .. John and suzy's 2 year-old daughter that was killed by a drunk driver last week ? ..
.. . . .
listen friend, either prayer is to engage God, encourage God to bring healing, to change hearts, to override awfulness, to combat evil or it's simply a waste of breath, and besides, does serious injustice to the consistent biblical injunctions and examples of prayer, including Jesus' ..
`|`
another point to consider - when (if?) we read the gospels, we're consistently presented with a Jesus that goes about doing good
there's a chorus we used to sing, "everywhere he went he was doing good; he's a mighty healer, he cleansed the leper .."; i forget the rest ..
but that was Jesus regular practice, he was famous for it ..
he healed, he fed, he cast out demonic spirits, he restored ..
he did good
if that's so, and it is, then Jesus himself was working against God!
for if God was employing cancer and heart attacks, and Jesus healed cancer and heart attacks in those people, then Jesus was undoing God's work ..
(aside: some 'smart' person might retort that Jesus only healed the ones God wasn't working on - he knew ..
- God works on everyone
- there are passages that relate 'multitudes' (= lots of people) coming to Jesus, and he healed them all, apparently indiscriminately)
`|`
another thing, Jesus didn't interview people he healed
he didn't ask them a bunch of questions about whether they believed in God, or when was the last time they went to the temple and offered sacrifices for their sins, or if they kept the Law
he simply healed them
in fact, there were times when he spent so much time and effort healing people that he had to sneak off to rest, take a break; it was taxing stuff, not anything magical ..
point is, if Jesus life was marked by healing, which took effort on his part, then his intention was clearly to undo the illness and disease, the blindness and the lameness ..
doesn't it strike you strange that this man, who is the very image of the invisible God in human form, is fighting against the things that destroy humanity, and yet God is employing those things?
Jesus fought agaist the destroyer, the Satan
not God, not ever God
more to come ..
peace to you
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