02/26/2015
It occurs to me at this season of my life and tenure on the planet that my entire relationship with the Creator is based, as it should be, on my personal and ever growing faith in Him… AND also developing my ability to pray and see the answers to those prayers. The personal prayer life of a believer seems to me to be the GREENHOUSE from which all spiritual growth is formed and developed over our lifetime.
Further points to comment on are: that FAITH in the heart can only grow by one’s diligent association with his/her Bible… and prayer is really time spent in praise, worship, meditation, talking to the Holy Spirit, and awaiting His revelations for wisdom and overall fellowship by conversation with GOD ALMIGHTY! In summation, the building of strong FAITH and heart-to-heart PRAYER with God can keep your best foot forward in the Christian life and lifestyle!
In reading Brother Osborn’s encyclopedia of “Healing the Sick,” he repeatedly brings the miraculous power of God to the most simple understanding and thereby making it attainable by all who would ask! For decades, I have used the book itself as a workbook in concept, and the audio book by the same title as my personal tutor and teacher… Brother Osborn himself speaks the simple truths needed to receive from God! Many times, whether in public speaking or one-on-one conversation, I have recommended this audio series as a way to put oneself through private “healing school.” It’s everything you ever wanted to know about healing and didn’t know how or who to ask!
If I ever had the privilege to teach a real live “healing school,” I felt I would use three specific books as companion curriculum with the Bible. First, “Healing the Sick,” by T.L. Osborn. Second, “Healed of Cancer,” by Dodie Osteen. And third, “Freedom from Pain,” by Dr. Todd Price. In Dr. Price’s book you would learn how to walk by faith in deliverance from chronic pain to freedom from pain. In Dodie Osteen’s book, you would learn how to overcome a death sentence from terminal diseases. And in Brother Osborn’s book, you would learn faith and how to receive creative miracles. All three books teach you how to walk by faith, build your faith, speak your faith, and pray the correct prayers in the process of receiving the impossible!
We can have the measure of faith, as Romans 12:3 describes, and begin with that confidence to build and grow further. Romans 10:17 says faith comes and continues to strengthen by hearing the WORD of GOD. The added energy boost to the letter of the Law is the vibrant presence of the Holy Spirit that will accompany the reading, hearing, and confessing aloud of the Word of God! Jude 20 tells us that praying in tongues will also build us UP on our Most Holy Faith! Most Holy Faith is not only in the quality of the God-given measure, but also in the Act of Faith from the heart that always pleases God. (Hebrews 11:6)
The absolute truths found in “Healing the Sick” have strengthened my faith for decades in crises and in calm. My favorite quote from Brother Osborn is, “Every WORD of GOD has within itself the ability/POWER to produce what it promises when it is believed and acted upon.” Psalm 78 recounts in great historic detail God’s frustration with Israel because they would not believe! His heartrending disappointment that Israel would not believe Him (whom they could not see) was insult indeed, but also that they would neither believe Moses and not even Joshua and Caleb, whom they could see!
The additional facts shared in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 explain, on the positive side, that if one continues to believe God’s promises, act on them, say them, and stand till they receive them, they will bring each of us into a Sabbath Rest which is TRUST in God and God alone, regardless of the circumstances. This produces a faith-filled, joyous rest and TRUST in God… His power and promises.
If we are to guard our hearts, from which the most sacred of life’s virtues and verities flow, then laboring to enter into that kind of “REST/TRUST” (by faith and fellowship) in the heart, should be the intended and targeted visual we are looking for! The just SHALL live by faith! The Apostle Paul declares in Galatians 2:20, I live by the faith of the Son of God! It always has been and always will be FAITH in the heart and faith in praise and confession that brings the miraculous!
