DAY 38: HAVE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE BEEN
DUPED BY HEALTH AND WEALTH PREACHING? One such organization, the Church of God, claims Christ’s death on the cross—for God’s glory and our sins—provides complete physical healing for everyone. That is also part of the Charismatic movement that became the Word of Faith preachers. The latter claims that those with enough faith will have perfect health and become wealthy. Unfortunately, the people getting rich are the preachers requesting your donations to prove your level of faith; the greater the check you send them, the more faith you have. Yet, those requesting your money don’t even have the perfect
health they promise donors. While preaching perfect health and wealth is just
lying to grab people’s cash, it is true that God can heal. I’ve personally seen
and even experienced it, but that doesn't mean God always heals us. We see that in the Bible with the Apostle Paul who experienced serious illness. Did he not have enough faith? Maybe he wasn’t “sowing enough seeds” into a health and wealth preacher’s ministry. Is that why Paul was not in perfect health? And Philippians 2 talks about Epaphroditus, Paul’s co-worker for Christ who nearly “worked himself to death.” He obviously did not lack the faith to be healed. And Scripture says Paul’s spiritual son Timothy was often sick. Did Paul recommend to either of those two that they should have more faith to become as healthy as
they’d like? In fact, with Timothy’s medical problem, Paul told him to take
certain liquids that might help better than just water. Good thing Timothy
had the right instructions for life from God, just as all of us
can access every day in the Bible—no donation required!