If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

A Peanuts cartoon shows Lucy standing with her arms folded and a stern expression on her face. Charlie Brown pleads, “Lucy, you must be more loving. This world really needs love. You have to let yourself love to make this world a better place.” Lucy angrily whirls around and knocks Charlie Brown to the ground. She screams at him, “Look, Blockhead, the world I love. Its people I can’t stand.”

I’m sure we all feel that way from time to time, and some of us feel that way most of the time. Maybe you feel that way right now. Loving the world in general isn’t that difficult; loving the people around us can be a major challenge. In 1 Corinthians 13, we find one of the most beautiful and familiar chapters in the Bible. This chapter is typically read at weddings and anniversary celebrations. It has even been set to music. Yet, this was never the original intent. Instead, Paul was writing a rebuke to a dysfunctional church for their abuse of the spiritual gifts. Typically though, this understanding is often ignored. Consequently, I wonder if most Christians have truly pondered the deeper meaning of this passage. Have we heard this Scripture so often that we no longer think about what the words mean? I would suggest that if we ignore the context of this chapter we are in danger of missing its major impact.

1. Love is greater than any spiritual gift (13:1-3). In 13:2-3, Paul mentions five spiritual gifts when he writes, “If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” Prophecy refers to the ability to declare God’s truth in a powerful, life-changing way. Knowledge involves the deep understanding of the Word of God. Faith is the unique ability to trust God for great things. These three gifts are all from the Holy Spirit, and yet without love the person who has them is “nothing.” Verse 3 poses a problem because it asks us to ponder activities that we automatically consider noble. Giving to the poor is a good thing to do. And dying for your faith in Christ is the ultimate sacrifice. But as good as these things are, without love they do you no good. Paul declares that the greatest expression of spirituality is love. We could summarize these three verses like this: Without love…I say nothing, I am nothing, and I gain nothing.

2. Love is expressed by supernatural responses (13:4-7). Love is a word that can only be properly defined in terms of action, attitude, and behavior. Paul has no room for abstract, theoretical definitions; instead, he wants us to know what love looks like when we see it. Thus, he paints fifteen separate portraits of love. Yes, that’s right: in the space of four short verses Paul uses fifteen verbs, all of which have “love” as their subject. Our contemporary definition of love is that it is an emotion or a feeling—we love our jobs, we love football, we love pizza. In the biblical definition of agape, love acts, for love is an action, not an emotion. In the original Greek, the word ἀγάπη agape is used throughout. This is translated into English as “charity” in the King James version; but the word love is preferred by most other translations, both earlier and more recent. Verse 4 begins by summarizing the unselfish nature of love.

1) Love is patient.
2) Love is kind.
3) Love is not jealous.
4) Love does not brag.
5) Love is not arrogant.
6) Love is gracious, courteous, tactful, and polite.
7) Love does not seek its own.
8) Love is not provoked.
9) Love does not take into account a wrong suffered.
10) Love is righteous.
11) Love rejoices with the truth.
12) Love bears all things.
13) Love believes all things.
14) Love hopes all things.
15) Love endures all things.

3. Love is an eternal gift (13:8-13). In these final six verses, Paul discusses the temporary nature of the spiritual gifts and the eternal nature of love. In 13:8, Paul talks about the temporary nature of gifts when he writes, “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.” When Paul says, “Love never fails,” he means love never ends. The synonym for this expression is “love abides” in 13:13. These phrases serve to bookend this final section where Paul argues that the spiritual gifts will be done away with one day.

Today, how will you grow in your love for others? First, I would suggest that you cannot become the loving person you desire to be apart from a loving and vibrant relationship with God. This love relationship must be cultivated first and foremost. Second, you must love those nearest to you. This means that if you are married, you focus on your spouse. If you have children, you prioritize your children. If you are serving in a ministry, you love those children, teens, or adults. You strive to love your neighbors and coworkers. Once you have accomplished this, you will be able to better love the world around you. God has called us to love people. Jesus said that all people will know we are His disciples by the love that we have for one another (John 13:34-35).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17

God’s Word brings us a comforting promise, along with an insightful command as we face a new year: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

We can live this coming year without fear if we apply these four incredibly wonderful truths to our lives and root them deep into our hearts.

1) The Contentment of His Provision

Contentment is not getting what you want, but it is wanting what you already have. 1 Timothy 6:6-8 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” If you know Jesus Christ, you have contentment. If you’ve got clothes on your back, something to eat, and Jesus Christ in your heart, you’re rich!

Do you know why we have fear? Because we think our needs or the needs of someone we love are not going to be met. Or we fear that the things we think are meeting our needs are going to be taken away from us. The deepest need of your heart can only be met in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will provide for our needs, and we should do our best to help Him provide for others’ needs.

2) The Companionship of His Presence

I don’t know what I’m going to face next year. But there’s one thing I know, He will never leave me. As children of God, He will never leave us. He is always by our side, and He is guiding us in the path of righteousness.

We are often afraid we’re going to have to face something we don’t understand, and we’re going to have to face it alone. When God’s Word promises that God will never forsake us, it literally means that He will never abandon us. He will not give up on us. We need to practice the presence of the Lord this coming year. If we believe He is with us, then nothing can stop us and we will never be alone.

3) The Confidence of His Promise

We’re going to zero in on a little phrase in our verses in Hebrews, “He has said.” A promise is no better than the one who makes it. Who says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”? It is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. This is the confidence of His promise.

In the coming year, when we say, “God, I just don’t have the strength.” The omnipotent God will answer, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” When we say, “God, I’m afraid of what is going to happen.” The omnipresent God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” And when we say, “God, I don’t know what to do.” The omniscient God will respond, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” He therefore will not forsake us and will be by our side through all that happens to us in the coming year.

4) The Comfort of His Protection

Hebrews 13:6 promises, “So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'” Now, put that with verse 5, which says, “He has said.”

Like I said earlier, I don’t know what you’re going to go through this coming year. I do not know what joys and sorrows, trials and tribulations that I may go through this year. But I know you can boldly say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” When we find our contentment, companionship, and confidence in Jesus, then, we’ll find our comfort and courage in Jesus. Remember that The Lord is our helper, and we should not have fear. Ultimately, no man can harm us or judge us if we believe in Jesus, for God is our only judge and if we do God’s will and follow His Word then we will truly be blessed in the hereafter, and with courage and faith, we will be blessed in this life as well.

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Romans 14: 1-12

This may sound odd, mainly because I love Christmas, but most members of the church of Christ do not celebrate Christmas as a truly religious holiday. Since the bible does not give us a specific time to celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate it everyday of the year. My family has always celebrated Christmas though, and it’s always been a special time of year for us.

We’ve always seen it as a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men and women agree to stop work, spend time together, and celebrate the joys of giving, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds us of the joy that surrounds us.

But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping the spirit of Christmas.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you? Are you willing to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world? Are you willing to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground? Are you willing to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy? Are you willing to realize that probably the reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life? Are you willing to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness? Are you willing to put aside your judgement of your fellow man, and realize that God does not wish us to judge one another? Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep the spirit of Christmas.

Are you willing to consider the needs and the desires of of humankind young and old? Are you willing to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough? Are you willing to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts? Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep the spirit of Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world–stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death–and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep the spirit of Christmas.

And if you keep the spirit of Christmas for a day, why not always? We should open our hearts and minds to all of humankind and be blessed that we are on this earth another day. We should celebrate the love that Jesus Christ brought us each and every day of our lives, not just on December 25. I had planned to expand my post from Friday and discuss more about those who pass judgement on the LGBT community, but I chose to focus on the good that we can do as people. There will always be those who pass judgement on us, but as the passage above states, they will be held accountable for their actions.

At Christmastime we should rejoice and love our fellow man, whether he or she loves us or not. We need to be the better people, for as the angels declared to the shepherds who were watching their flock outside of Bethlehem:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2:14

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.
Proverbs 19:17

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.
Proverbs 14:31

I have to admit that when I was looking up some commentaries on giving and the Bible, too many of the sources I found focused on giving to the church. I give what I can to church, which is what I think of when the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:12 “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.” Many churches though use this as a means of forcing a true tithe of 10 percent. However, even though we are in the season of giving, we should be giving and helping year round to those who need assistance.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus commands us to give to the needy:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4

Giving is not all about what you give to your local congregation, but what you give to those who are in need. We are to love our fellow man and not judge them. If we look down on the poor, the how can we look up to God. Some people blame God for the misfortunes of the world, I blame those who do not follow the teachings of love and charity. Do you have to be a Christian to have love for your fellow man or to be charitable to the less fortunate? Of course you don’t. But I will say this, too many people who call themselves Christian often follow the proverb “God helps those who help themselves.” The phrase is often mistaken as scriptural, but it appears nowhere in the Bible.

Political commentator Bill O’Reilly employed the phrase, in responding to Jim McDermott, the Democratic U.S. Representative for Washington’s 7th congressional district, who argued, “This is Christmas time. We talk about Good Samaritans, the poor, the little baby Jesus in the cradle and all this stuff. And then we say to the unemployed we won’t give you a check to feed your family. That’s simply wrong.” O’Reilly argued for a more selective approach to unemployment benefits, and the importance of individual responsibility, concluding “while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive. The Lord helps those who help themselves. Does he not?” Political comedian Stephen Colbert parodied him in response, concluding in character, “if this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition; and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” Colbert may be a comedian who is often irreverent, but he makes a good point.

For the vast majority of us, misfortune finds us at one point or another. Various people have helped me during those unfortunate times, and I do my best to help those in need when I am able to help. Giving is not just for the red buckets of the Salvation Army during Christmastime bit for all year round. It is also not about gifts and money, because not all of us are able to do so, but it is about giving our love to those around us. Love is the greatest gift we can give.

Peace, love, and charity!

If this post looks familiar, then you read it a year ago. I wasn’t feeling well last night, and I’d planned on posting about the hymn “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” until I realized that I’d already written that post in October. So I decided on a more holiday themed post from last year.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:12-17

I am far too often guilty of when something sounds good in my head that it doesn’t quite come out the way I intend for it to come out, whether it is written or spoken. It happens, and I try to make amends when I realize it. Part of last Sunday’s post was that way. In that post, I wrote:

We need to let the Bible speak to us, as God intended for it to do. We should not allow our own personal bent to speak into the Scriptures. The propensity for people to take verses out of context and to allow their personal bent to be applied to verses is one of the reasons that homosexuality is condemned by modern Christians. Context matters—God speaks at a particular moment in time, to a particular people group, for a reason.

And rightly so, I was called to task for that paragraph. For me, I think this was simply an example of being unclear in my writing. I’ve been accused of that a time or two and I am sorry. I do believe that the Bible should speak to us personally. I think that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit to guide us as we read and study the Bible. However, with that being said, I think that the central message of the Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus is LOVE, so when someone’s interpretation comes out as hate, then I do think it is wrongheaded.

I also think that on of the problems with, not the interpretations of the Bible, but with picking and choosing verses is that they are often taken out of context. When this is done, people often condemn others and show hate for people because they take a verse out of the context of the verses around it. In Matthew 5:43-44, 43 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus is clear that we should not judge others but show our love and compassion for everyone. The Bible can be very damaging when used as a weapon to condemn. However, we can take hope from various passages, but we should also look at the context of those passages that give us a deeper meaning. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul has been describing to Timothy the difficult times of the last days (3:1-9). He is addressing the question, How can a Christian survive and prosper in such an evil age? In 3:16-17, he reminds Timothy of the reliability and profitability of the Scriptures.

I was raised a member of the Church of Christ, and I was always taught that the Old Testament is history more so than the laws of God for Christians. Jesus came to save us all and to bring a new covenant. The Old Testament laws do not apply to Christians as the did for the ancient Jews. Few, if any Christians, follow all the laws of the Old Testament completely. Christianity is a much more loving and accepting religion than the ancient religion of the Hebrews. God spoke to both Paul and Peter and changed those laws. As a historian myself, I think we should learn from history and take lessons for mankind from it. In the case of last week’s scripture from Jeremiah, we can compare the exile of the Jews to the exile of LGBT Christians. It may not be a perfect comparison, but I do think it gives us a different perspective to look at.

The Scriptures find their origin in God. They are not the result of human religious genius. When I read and study the Bible, I allow the Holy Spirit to guide me in that study, and I have faith that God shows me true understanding. The Bible is not a set of great ideas on which God somehow approved. Rather they are the words of God imparted through the various authors. While God dictated a few portions of Scripture (e.g., the Ten Commandments), for the most part He allowed each author to use his own personality and style. But the final product came from God in the sense that what they said God said, and God guides us in our study of what those men wrote.

The bottom line is that the Scriptures are as reliable as God is. If God is the God of truth and if He “breathed out” the Scriptures, then it is inconceivable that they would contain contradictions or errors. This does not mean that every sentence in the Bible is true: The Bible truthfully records falsehood of its subjects at times. So you cannot lift a statement out of context and claim that it is true or even relevant to our present time (e.g., parts of Leviticus, Job, Ecclesiastes, etc.). But taken in its proper contextual setting, the Bible is an accurate and true record of the very words that God wished to record through the various human authors. It is totally reliable.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Today is my 37th birthday. I decided to search for bible verses about birthdays, and one of the most frequent to come up in my search (i.e. If you exclude those on the birth of Christ) was Jeremiah 29:11. It is such a beautiful verse filled with immense hope, and I wanted to look into the context of it. Conduct a Google search of Jeremiah 29:11 and you’re likely to see it referred to as “the most misinterpreted verse in the Bible.” This verse gets this moniker for a reason.

This verse, quoted to countless individuals who are struggling with discerning God’s will for them, is not written to individuals at all. This passage is written to a whole group of people—the exiled Jewish people in Babylon. The “you” in Jeremiah 29:11 is actually plural and if it had been written by an American southerner instead of the prophet Jeremiah it would say “y’all” instead of you.

We need to let the Bible speak to us, as God intended for it to do. We should not allow our own personal bent to speak into the Scriptures. The propensity for people to take verses out of context and to allow their personal bent to be applied to verses is one of the reasons that homosexuality is condemned by modern Christians. Context matters—God speaks at a particular moment in time, to a particular people group, for a reason.

What this means is that God has plans for a whole group of people, in this instance, the Jewish exiles. And if we read on in the Scriptures we find that this promise was fulfilled: those in exile returned, and the Hebrew nation was restored for a time. God made a promise through the prophets, and that promise came true.

But that’s not the end of the story, either. There is something to the out-of-context prescriptions that so many make using this verse. God is a God of redemption, after all, and He wants to redeem people and put them on a path of wholeness, just as He wanted the Hebrew nation to be redeemed and whole again.

Biblical scholars have said that in this passage, the Jeremiah is speaking not just of historical redemption, for that period in time, but also of “future redemption.” For the Israelites, God listened to their prayers when they sought Him with all their heart, and in His time, He brought them out of exile. But how does any of this apply to us today? Can we still take heart in such a beautiful promise—even though it was spoken to people long ago, people in a far different situation than ours?

First and foremost, we are all in this together. This verse does not apply to isolated individuals or to a broad community. It applies to both, together, functioning as one. The image painted here is one of individuals in community, like the Body of Christ which Paul talks about. Here are a people, worshiping God together, hoping for a future redemption.

We don’t need to be exiles living in Babylon to faithfully appropriate Jeremiah 29:11, but let’s remember something about this chapter when we quote verse 11. First, it was written to people in incredible pain, more than most of us will ever experience. They were mourning death, a move, and a transition to enslavement all at once. And yet into that context, God can still speak words of hope. That’s amazing.

I think when we apply this verse to a group who is downtrodden and seem to be without hope, this verse becomes even more powerful. As LGBT Christians and our allies, we often find ourselves exiled from the church, but that does not mean that we should be kept from our communion with God. God is so much more powerful, loving, and understanding than humans are. He created us the way we are, and we must love and worship Him. We must not give up on our faith because of the things men do, but we should believe in the redemptive power of God. Jeremiah is sending a message to all those in exile to keep the faith, because God knows the plans He has for us, and these are plans for welfare and not for evil, to give us a future and a hope.

And on one final note, as I was looking up verses for birthdays, I came across a site called BirthVerse (http://www.birthverse.com), where a group has gone through the Bible matching up numerical birth dates with chapter and verse in books of the Bible and has chosen a inspirational verse for each day of the year. My BirthVerse happens to be Proverbs 11:30, which reads:

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Psalm 34:8

This is a beautiful verse because of its simplicity and all the meaning this verse brings to my mind. If you look up the definition of taste in on-line dictionaries, beyond the obvious meaning, you’ll find definitions such as, “a sample of experience” (e.g. the first taste of success) or “perceive, discern, or experience . . .” These definitions should get your attention as we look at this verse because this is what I think we should understand when we read this. Several commentaries suggest this verse, when it was written, meant something very deep and meaningful. In simpler terms, to taste and see that God is good is to relish and delight in God’s goodness manifested in and by God’s gifts, and in the contemplation of God’s infinite perfections and boundless love, and to be persuaded and convinced of God’s goodness as to be encouraged in the worst of times.

Taste and see how God is good.

We all have these days when nothing seems to go right. We get one set of bad news and then another and before you know it you are completely demoralized and you think how can things get worse. On some of those days, you realize just how much worse things can get. On those days we always wish things had gone better. On days like that we just have to persevere and continue on, but we just cannot allow ourselves to worry to the point of not being able to persevere. It is what it is. We have to take time to spend with God to remind us to taste and see how good God is. Everything will be okay because God has a path for us. He is watching out for us and is guiding us. Life gets messy. Perfect or not isn’t the issue. Allowing ourself to feel God’s presence is the issue. Taste and see how God is good. Then, we can be blessed. We can feel God’s grace. That is something for which I am very grateful and I hope you are too.

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14-15)

I have a cold. It’s just that time of year. It’s not a bad cold but I am congested and coughing and my chest and head hurts. With that in mind, I decided to look at some sermons about physical illness. Not quite as easy as I thought it would be, but I came across the following story:

In May 1983, the “Chicago Tribune” ran a story about a young father from North Manchester, Indiana. His name was David Gilmore. He told about the illness of his fifteen-month-old son, Dustin Graham Gilmore, that began in April 1978. At first his child came down with flu-like symptoms. The Gilmores took him to their church, and the pastor prayed for him. Members of that church believed that faith alone heals any disease and that to look elsewhere for help (for example, a medical doctor) demonstrates a lack of faith in God. Gilmore and his wife followed the church’s advice and simply prayed for their son. Over the next weeks they prayed faithfully as his temperature climbed, prayed when they noticed he no longer responded to sounds, and prayed harder when he went blind. On the morning of May 15, 1978, Dustin Graham Gilmore died. An autopsy revealed the infant died from a form of meningitis that could have been easily treated and cured.

Whenever I read about Christians that believe that the pure belief in God and his mercy can heal and that looking elsewhere for help shows a lack of faith, I am always saddened by the actual lack of faith people have in God. If you believe that God is the Creator of all things then he is also the guiding force behind modern medicine’s healing technologies. Furthermore, God expects us to be proactive in our faith. We cannot just sit back and wait for God to heal us, we must help God to heal us.

James says, “And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” This is one of the verses about healing that many interpret to mean that faith alone will heal what ails us, but this verse tells us to go to others to get help as well. You might ask about the “prayer of faith” as to what it means. Prayer is talking intimately with God and “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It is mandatory that the person praying and the person being prayed for have a lively faith, but faith in itself does not heal, but it is God who does the healing. Our prayers are the beginning of the healing process; however, we must be proactive in the healing process. God waits for our prayers which are asked “….in the name of the Lord” (v. 14) before he steps in to take care of our requests. He answers our prayers according to His will. If we are not willing to get the help we need, then God will assist and guide our physicians.

The fact is prayer is an important tool, but it is not the only tool that can heal our ailing bodies. The idea that seeking help outside the church is a weakness of faith is merely an interpretation. I do not believe that the Bible is meant to be interpreted in only one way. When we see only one interpretation of the Bible we do not give enough credit to God, who is all things and all knowing. I believe that the Bible was written in a way to allow numerous interpretations. Just as prayer is personal, so is an individual’s reading of the Bible. The dogmatic beliefs in certain scriptures is one of the things that fragments Christianity and causes Christians to turn their backs on other Christians who do not follow their narrow interpretations.

God welcomes all of humanity. If the AIDS epidemic had broken out amongst homosexual men during the time of Jesus, he would have healed them as he healed so many others. Jesus healed men with leprosy, and I believe he would be in the heart of the Ebola epidemic. Jesus was the Great Physician and while he healed many who were sick, He no longer walks the earth as a man who is healing the sick and ministering to outcasts. Just because He no longer walks in a physical form among us, He is with us always among us. We can look to him in times of illness, but we should not depend on just our prayers to heal. We must be proactive in our faith, and proactive with our health.

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:6-8

The above passage from Micah 6:6-8 is considered by many to be one of the most comprehensive and all-embracing statements in the Old Testament. Micah raises the question: “What does the Lord require of you?” Micah answers his own question, and makes some important points, which apply to us even today.

Micah first brings up some possibilities, even some absurdities. God did indeed speak of some of these things, but the majority are examples of hyperbole for the sake of emphasis. One could not please God by simply offering innumerable sacrifices, even things precious to the worshipper, because these things must be accompanied by other things just as essential.

First, we must act justly meaning to act toward God and man according to the standard of righteousness revealed in God’s law. This did involve the offering of sacrifices commanded by God, but it also involved treating their fellow man in a way that was right and fair. Second, we show loving kindness, by which Micah means we are “to show a compassionate warm-heartedness toward our fellow man. We are not only to treat others fairly, but to show mercy when others are mistreated. Finally, we are told to walk humbly with your God which involves living in humble and submissive obedience to God’s desires and will.

Some might think all the Lord requires is the observance of certain rituals like attending church on Sunday. We can’t just attend church, act pious, and then do whatever we want just because we regularly attend church. Don’t get me wrong, I do think attending church is important, but it’s not completely necessary to living a good Christian life. Church enhances our spiritual growth, our commitment in the work of the church, and our close fellowship with God and other Christians. I believe that it is essential that we observe what “rituals” God has ordained for us; but the Lord requires more than just “attending church.”

A close relationship and fellowship with God requires that we daily listen to God, talk to God, and walk with God. By walking humbly with God, we are more likely to keep in proper balance the demands to do justly and love mercy. If we do not do these things, then all the church services you may attended, all the sermons you may have heard, all the prayers you may have offered, will benefit you nothing!