Our God Delivers! - Rise Up in Faith

"Is anyone of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
James 5:13-16

Miracle Sunday had just passed and we at FCBC saw many miraculous works of the Lord. The crippled walked, those in pain were delivered and the hearing impaired heard! All we need now is for the dead to rise. I had always been a little fearful regarding faith healing. I often wondered whether God will use me to heal and whenever people ask me to pray for healing for them, I would hesitate. There was this fear in me that kept saying "What if the person doesn't get healed? How embarrassing would that be? Not only would you embarrass yourself but you would embarrass God!"

In the past, whenever I prayed for healing, I would literally cry and beg God for the healing. I would say "God, please please PLEASE heal this person." and I would repeat this over and over again with tears rolling out of my eyes in a very desperate fashion and to be honest, it looked very pathetic. Ever since I joined the YouthNet ministry team, things have changed. Through the past few months, God had been teaching me about faith. Somehow, every time a stranger came up for prayer with me after service, it would be for healing. I remember the first time it happened this year. I said to God, "God, do I really have to do this?". Well, in the end I just decided to do it and guess what? Healing took place! What was the difference? (Read on...)

The difference was faith! In the past, I had always thought that healing was brought about by me. I thought that God had somehow imbued certain people with the ability to heal and those people bring about healing. You might say that for a Pastor's son, that's a real big failure in doctrinal principles but I honestly thought that and I think there are people out there who think similarly. We don't see God and we just somehow assume that whatever is done is through us but that's not true. Remember, we heal in Jesus' name and not our own!

Many times we may not actually have true faith. Faith is actually defined as one's confidence in something. The keyword: CONFIDENCE. When we pray, do we pray with that confidence? Do we truly have the confidence that our God is a God who delivers. What does God deliver us from? As we see from the passage above,

God delivers us from two things:

Firstly, sin. God delivers us from sin and that was what He did when He came down to earth as Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross. The verses above us says that God will forgive and thus He has delivered us from sin.

Secondly, sicknesses. God is a God who heals and He is able to deliver us from all sicknesses! Remember, God says that He is Jehovah Rafa, the God who heals! We may think that only Jesus heals but the bible tells us that the Apostles went out and healed in Jesus' name as well and similarly, we can do the same!

All we need is to have that confidence, that faith to believe that our God is one who delivers! Just today, I was praying for healing upon someone. He had a hearing disorder in his right ear where any applause or loud bass sounds would sound like loud explosions to him. His hearing had previously been damaged due to various reasons and whenever he hears people clapping, he would not be able to take it and has to cover his right ear. Well, I prayed for him and you know what? He was standing right in front of the speakers and was surrounded by people constantly applauding and it didn't affect him one bit. When I prayed for him, I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about any "what-ifs". I just layed my hands on his ear and prayed and I knew, I had that confidence that God WILL heal him because He has promised us that He is a God who heals. I tell you the truth, ever since I walked in that confidence that I've found through God, everyone I've prayed for healing has received it. In a sense you might say that it's 百發百中.

So the question is, are you moving in that confidence? Do you truly have that faith to believe that our God is one who delivers? In the New International Version bible, the passage above is entitled "Prayer of Faith". I'd call it "Prayer of Confidence". Have you made that prayer of confidence? Remember. It's not about how big or small your faith is. It's how big is the God that we put our faith in. Walk in that confidence. Believe.


Daniel Khong