They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum.
—Romans 15:18-19

When you order a sandwich at a fast food restaurant, you may be asked if you want to add a few items to complete the meal. While the Good News can’t be compared to a quick lunch, it is certainly more than a one-course meal. The Good News of Christ is not only what Jesus said about salvation, but what He did. He didn’t stop at preaching the message of eternal life. He healed the sick and cast out demons. When Peter preached to the Gentiles, he captured the essence of Jesus’ ministry on earth: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:37-38).

When Jesus was here, people had no problem accepting and believing that He could heal the sick. Their problem was in believing that He could forgive their sins and save their souls. Ironically, Christians today have no problem accepting Jesus as their “ticket to Heaven,” but they sometimes struggle with believing He still heals the sick. Then, as well as today, Jesus wants us to receive the full reward for His suffering. He wants you and me to live the abundant life of freedom He won for us on the cross (John 10:10). He wants to give us the “full meal deal.”

To appreciate the fullness of salvation, we must believe that physical healing, like the gift of eternal life, is part of the atonement given by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Isaiah prophesied that He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases. He was beaten so we could be whole and we were healed by His stripes (Isaiah 53:4-5). Matthew acknowledged that when Jesus cast out evil spirits and healed all the sick, He fulfilled these words spoken through the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 8:16-17). Jesus Himself said, “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’ “(Matthew 9:5)? Here He implied that forgiveness of sin and physical healing were both part of His redemptive grace. The ministry of Peter and Paul further exemplified that healing and miracles were a central and vital part of God’s message to the world. When Peter prayed for boldness in preaching, He also asked the Lord for the power to do healing miracles through the name of Jesus (Acts 4:29-30). Paul was satisfied that he had fully presented the Good News by his message and by the miraculous signs and wonders he worked among the Gentiles (Romans 15:18-19).

The fullness of the Gospel is captured in the Greek word “sozo” used 110 times in the New Testament meaning “to save or make well or whole.” The New Testament writers showed the completeness of the word by using it in different contexts to refer to three aspects of salvation. For example, in Romans 10:9, “sozo” means saved from eternal destruction: “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you shall be saved (sozo).” In Matthew 9:22, “sozo” refers to physical healing:  “But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well (sozo), and at once the woman was made well (sozo).’ ” And in Luke 8:36, “sozo” refers to inner healing or deliverance from demonic strongholds: “And those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well (sozo).”

Jesus died so you could receive the have rich, satisfying, abundant, and complete life. He wants you to receive your full reward for His suffering: salvation from eternal destruction, physical healing, and deliverance from demonic strongholds. He wants you to experience the full meal deal.

Father, thank you for the Good News of Christ Jesus! Help me to believe and receive by faith the fullness of my salvation: forgiveness for my spirit, healing for my body, and deliverance for my soul. Amen.

Excerpted from Peace For Each Hour by Mary J. Nelson; Copyright © 2013; ISBN 978-1938388170; Published by Comfort Publishers; Unauthorized duplication prohibited.

“And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost.”
— Luke 14: 27-28

In one of my favorite writings by C.S. Lewis, he challenges us to count the costs of following Jesus. Are you really ready to do this “almost impossible thing” and “hand over your whole self” to Christ?

In Roman culture, condemned criminals had to carry their own cross to the crucifixion site for all to witness. It symbolized the criminal’s submission to Rome and served as a public warning to others to submit. When Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow Him, He meant that we were to identify completely with His message (Luke 9:23-24).

But He also warned us to count the cost of following Him (Luke 14:25-30).  In speaking to the crowds, He wanted them to think through their enthusiasm for Him. Was it real or superficial? Were they ready to totally submit, or was gathering with the crowd just a good place to be? Jesus wants us to know that following Him will come with a cost. It might mean giving up control of our finances, time, and career. It might jeopardize our social status or wealth. We might be hated and separated from family and friends. For many disciples then and now, it can mean persecution and even death. Jesus wants us to count the costs, so when trials of this world come, we won’t be tempted to turn back.

Many of His early disciples decided they couldn’t pay the cost (John 6:67-68). Some left because they expected an earthly king would come to save them from their oppression by the Romans. Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations or give in to their self-centered requests. Others found His teachings were difficult, even offensive. How often are we tempted to do the same thing? We want to follow Him, but at the same time, we want to be stay comfortable, unchallenged, secure, and undisturbed. We’re afraid of what He might do, or what He might require of us. We want to protect our present life at all costs, because we know following Him could lead us to unknown, unsafe, or even dangerous places! Quite simply, we want to live on our own terms. And let’s be honest: for most of us, it’s really hard to accept that our human effort accomplishes nothing (John 6:68).

When the Lord asked the Twelve if they were also leaving, I think Peter spoke for us all when he said, “Lord, to whom would we go?” And I’m convinced that in choosing to “hand over your whole self” to Him, there is no middle ground. We can dip our toes in the water, but sooner or later, we have to jump in. We are either true seekers, choosing to turn our hearts toward His, allowing His grace to pick us up when we fall and fail, and slowly, lovingly mold us into the child He created. Or else we’re dabblers, faces in a crowd of superficial believers, satisfied with being a Christian on our terms, rather than His. But His ultimate goal is guiding us to perfection; not what we desire ourselves to be, but what He intended for us to be when He made us. If we continue to protect ourselves from the discomfort God calls us to endure, we will never fully experience His power and the life He has promised.

I hope you enjoy the wisdom of C.S. Lewis. It will bless you, but it also might challenge you. It might even make you uncomfortable. And that’s a good thing.

Counting the Cost by C.S. Lewis

“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self–all your wishes and precautions–to Christ.

“Christ says ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked–the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours.’

“When I was a child I often had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother–at least not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain, but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie. If you gave them an inch they would take a mile.

“Now, if I may put it that way, our Lord is like the dentists. If you give Him an inch, He will take a mile. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of… or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, He will cure it alright: but He will not stop there. That may be all you ask; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment. That is why He warned people to ‘count the cost’ before becoming Christians. ‘Make no mistake,’ He says, ‘If you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less or other than that.’

“Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life…whatever it cost Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect–until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with Me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.’

“The goal toward which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realize that. If we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resisting Him after a certain point. I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do. And we should be obliged if He would now leave us alone.

“But this is the fatal mistake… The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us….

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you know that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of–throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself!

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.  —1 John 5:14-15 (NKJV)

“Lord, if it be your will, please do such and such…..” As a pastor of prayer, I often hear this caveat placed in front of someone’s prayer request. I understand that we often do this out of reverence to God and His sovereign will, and sometimes, it’s appropriate to do so.  But when we add “if it be your will, Lord” to every petition we make of God, there is no need for us to stand in faith that we will receive what we ask for. Essentially, we are preparing ourselves in advance for Him to say “no.” When He doesn’t answer, we conclude that our prayer was outside of His will. In reality, we didn’t pray in confidence according to His will.

When we know God’s will, we can pray specifically and without doubt. Scripture tells us that we can be confident He hears us when we ask according to His will, and since He hears us, we can also be confident He will give us what He ask for.  So how do we know God’s will so we can pray in accordance with it? The best place to start is Scripture. When we pray the truth of Scripture over our situation, we can be confident and expectant, knowing He will answer. Sometimes, I hear a cancer survivor pray, “If it’s your will, Lord, keep me well.” What they are really praying, is “Lord, if it’s not your will to keep me well, then let this cancer come back and take me!” That doesn’t sound like Jesus to me, nor does it align with the mandate He left with His disciples to “lay hands on the sick and heal them (Mark 16:18)!” Jesus died to save, heal, and deliver you so you can thank God for your wellness without adding an “if it be your will.”  You can bring all your practical needs to God and pray in confidence that He will supply from His glorious riches (Philippians 4:19).

In addition to knowledge of the Scriptures, you can know the will of God by simply resting in His presence. Psalm 46:10 invites you to “be still and know that I am God.” In your quiet times with Him, He might highlight a specific Scripture to reveal His will to you, or you may have a dream or vision, or hear a still small voice in your spirit. Occasionally, you might receive a prophetic word from a trusted source. Paul gives us deeper insight in knowing God’s will when he urges total surrender: “I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2).

Even when we don’t know God’s will, we can pray in faith because the Holy Spirit knows the will of Father God and prays for us in harmony with God’s will (Romans 8:27).  Jesus is interceding for us at God’s right hand (Romans 8:34). What a comfort to know that the Holy Spirit seeks the depths of our hearts and prays with and for us, even when our thoughts and desires may yet be without form! Through the Spirit, the prayers of Jesus become ours and ours become His. Instead of coming to God with my laundry list of petitions and praying “if it be your will,” I can know my prayers will align with His and pray in confidence!

When you pray, enter His courts with thanksgiving (Psalm 95:2). Tell God exactly what you want Him to do. Remember, Jesus made the blind man Bartamaeus declare his desire to be healed (Mark 10:51)! Don’t cry out for mercy without telling Him why you need it. Don’t ask for forgiveness without naming the sin you need to be delivered from or pray for His blessing without naming the areas in your life that you want to be blessed. Specific prayer helps you to know whether your greatest desires align with His. It helps you to wait in faith for the things you ask and to know when your prayers are answered. When you ask according to His will, you can pray in confidence the answers will come.

Excerpted from Peace For Each Hour by Mary J. Nelson; Copyright © 2013; ISBN 978-1938388170; Published by Comfort Publishers; Unauthorized duplication prohibited.