October 21, 2006

• Wholeness – Nehemiah 1 – by Pastor Don

  Pastor Don was talking about praying for a person for a healing. That sometimes we, in our zeal, pray beyond the faith that the person has. We have to come in agreement in prayer. If we are praying for complete healing and the person can only believe that the doctor’s medicine will help heal them, we might be doing damage to their faith by praying beyond what they can believe. We need to locate what a person can believe and come in agreement with them in prayer, or if their faith needs building up, we need to take the time to build up their level of faith so that you can come into agreement. When Jesus walked through the crowd at the Pool of Siloam, he did not heal every one, only the one person who Jesus picked from the crowd, the one who could receive his healing. If you lay hands on a person who only has hope for a healing, you get hope, but not the faith for a healing.

  Pastor Don then talked about times when God supernaturally protects you from troubles. When you feel like you are in a bubble of protection. He mentioned a time when he first started doing the TV show on TBN and there were no nitty gritty problems coming his way for a few months. God was protecting him. But after awhile, when there were not challenges, he began to wonder if he was being effective in God’s kingdom. Sometimes God gives us a brief rest from challenges, but so often we know that we are reaching people when they start reacting to what we are saying or doing.

  Sometimes people expect that when they get saved it will end all their troubles, life will be free of conflict, attacks, challenges. Not so. When we start being effective in God’s kingdom, satan’s attacks will increase for satan does not want effective workers for God.

  What should we do when we are under an attack?  We need to remember that God’s plan for us is perfect. He has equipped us and given us power to STAND in the midst of trouble.

  STAND is not a passive standing. It is active. If you are passively standing in one spot, you are then a good target, and you will end up with victim mentality, a martyr complex. You may decide to blame the devil, other churches, the pastor, other people for what is happening to you. We have to mature enough to realize that everything is not going to work right all the time. If we think that everything should always work right, we are setting ourselves up for depression and disaster.

  What people don’t realize is that the things that we worried about yesterday, God has often resolved. But we don’t see that God did resolve what worried us yesterday because we are focused on what we are worrying about today. We focus on our current problems, and are ingrates, because we do not realize that God freed us from something we were worrying about yesterday.

  We need to have an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE and realize that God, in our situations, gives us a peace that passes all understanding.

  Pastor Don said that many people feel that he was born mellow and cool. Not so, he had to work hard to get to that place and maintain that place in his life. That God would pick one area in his life to work on. When he got that resolved, God would say, “Now Donnie, work on this area.”

  He talked about a poster that he had when he was struggling financially. It had two vultures on it, and one vulture said, “Patience my, a–, I’m going to kill something.” It reminded Pastor Don that he needed to continue working to get things in order financially – that he had to take the offensive – to tithe, do do the Biblical principles necessary, in spite of circumstances, so that he could become financially solvent. He had to have patience, but also do things in a sensible way.

  He also realized that great musicians study and practice. If you just pick up the instrument and practice sporadically nothing will happen. You have to work and study to gain proficiency. If you think that you can just do something without the necessary work it is EGO INSANITY.

  It is the same with spiritual things. Pastor Don was healed of an incurable lung disease and diabetes. Most people do not realize that after you are healed the battle isn’t over – you also have to maintain your confession of healing, to maintain your faith. The battle after the healing of sickness is the true victory.

  The woman with the issue of blood, received wholeness, not just a healing for her blood disease. Jesus said your faith has made you WHOLE. When Jesus healed a person, he did not just heal the symptom, but the whole person.

  The paraplegic who was lowered from the ceiling, God first forgave the man’s sins, then he healed him. Jesus was concerned with the whole person. And he also told people to “Go and sin no more.”

  Sin is the problem that brings about sickness and disease.  We are often sick because something is missing in our lives and the sickness fills that hole. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. When we get into the will of God, then we gain wholeness.

  God wants lifestyle changes in our lives. It is often very hard to get people to want to be whole. People want to be healed, but they don’t want to do the work required to replace the piece that is missing in them. If we don’t address that hole in a person’s spirit, we are just healing the symptom.

  Nehemiah was not looking for peace. He was looking for an effective way to have life and do the job.

  Pastor Don told a joke, he said that a woman married Mr. Right, and then was distressed because she didn’t realize his first name was Always.

  Wholeness includes salvation. When we come to Christ, we have eternal salvation. But there are other salvations that we work out on the earth with fear and trembling (awe). We are compartmental. We can have faith for salvation, but not faith to feed 5000. We might have faith for finances, but not faith for healing.

  Nehemiah was a cup bearer for the king – a very important position. He swapped spit with the king, drinking some of the wine before the king drank it. Then he would wait 15 or 20 minutes, and if Nehemiah did not drop dead, the wine was safe for the king to drink. Nehemiah lived during the time of Daniel and Ezra, prophets. He wanted to go back and rebuild Jerusalem. At this time they had been 70 years in captivity (predicted by Jeremiah), and Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah had been counting up the years and realized that the time was at hand for their liberation. Daniel prayed a prayer, and an angel had been delayed before coming to him.

  When we have challenges, God knows how He is going to deliver his children of God from them. We often have preconceived ideas about how God is going to deliver us from our circumstances. Often God has a plan that does not coincide with our ideas. We need to trust God.

  Nehemiah came into the king’s chamber with a sad face (something that could have caused his death for you were not to show a sad face to the king). The King asked Nehemiah what was wrong, and then offered to allow Nehemiah to go and repair the city of Jerusalem. He gave him letters confirming this, money to do the project, and permitted Nehemiah to do what was necessary. God delivered far above Nehemiah’s expectations.

  Nehemiah 1:5-6 And I said: “I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love you an observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be outeating and Your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel, Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned.

  Notice, Nehemiah prayed night and day and he takes the heat, confessing sins. He realized that the problem of Israel was a sin problem and he confessed the sins to get back into a covenant relationship with God.

  Nehemiah 1:11 “Oh LORD, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name, and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer.”

  Pastor Don suggested reading all of Nehemiah Chapter 1 and 2 to get the whole picture of what was going on.

  Nehemiah 2:17-18 Then I said to them, “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach. And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, “Let us rise up and build.” Then they set their hands to this good work.

  Nehemiah assessed the situation and shared the real deal with the people. He told them the truth, but then led them to action with come, let us build… Nehemiah’s positive outlook was contagious, and people caught his vision. It was a good work and Nehemiah had the favor of the king to do the work.

  Even though Nehemiah had that great kind of faith, he did not stay in the bubble of protection. Evil would come against him. So often we think that evil should not be within the church, but when we are doing what is right for God’s kingdom, satan wants to prevent God’s work from going forward. We can often tell that we are doing what is right when we observe that there is opposition to what we are doing.

  Nehemiah 2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?”

  They are telling a lie, for Nehemiah was not rebeling against the king, he had the king’s permission. These enemies were just trying to cast aspersions on Nehemiah and prevent the work. Do not be deceived. Not all men will speak well of you when you are doing God’s will.

  Nehemiah 2:20 So I answered them, and said to them, “The God of heaven Himself will prosper us, therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem.

  We need to identify who is speaking doubt and unbelief into God’s work, for they have no heritage or right or memorial or credit for the work that God is doing. Some get so sanctimonious that they spread doubt and unbelief. We need to speak the truth of God like Nehemiah said and not pay heed to the nay sayers.

  Hoping that this teaching blessed you! Thank you for your prayers, I can’t wait to share Friday’s study with you.

  Have a blessed day,

  Heather

   

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