Ephesians 3:4-6 “As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone across the board.” Today's episode talks about how great it is that God loves us all the same and that we are all on equal footing with the Lord. It goes into a bit of detail about how freeing this information can be. It also touches on how we all have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us and so we can all be praying for our loved ones who are sick. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
We All Stand On The Same Ground Before God
Ephesians 3:4-6 “As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone across the board.”
I really liked this verse when I read it in the Passion Translation, and then I read it in this Message Translation, and I felt like it expressed it in a way we could all understand. Let me read you the passion translations. “So that whenever you read it, you will be able to understand my revelation and insight into my secret mystery of the Messiah. There has never been a generation that has been given a detailed understanding of this glorious and divine mystery until now. He kept it a secret until this generation. God is revealing it only now to his sacred apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit. Here’s the secret: The gospel of grace has made you, non-Jewish believers, into coheirs of his promise through your union with him. And you have now become members of his body—one with the anointed!
When I first read it I was wondering what the secret was. I was wondering if I knew the secret. They when I read that the secret is that we are all coheirs to the promises through union with Jesus it got me thinking. I don’t think we do all know that. This is why I like the message translation. It says, “The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone across the board.”
What great news that is, especially for those of us who have loved ones that don’t know Jesus. Doesn’t it give you a bit more hope to know that even those who have never heard of God and those of us who have all stand on the same ground? Before the apostles it was believed that the Jewish people were God’s people and the rest were not. Then Jesus came to reveal that God’s wants all His children saved, not just one group of them. What I love about God is that He truly loves us all equally. He loves the sinner just as much as He loves the Saint. He loves those who don’t know Him just as much as He loves those who visit Him in church each and every day.
This is hard for us to wrap our heads around. We like to think that we are special because we go to church, we pray daily, and we do all the things we think God is calling us to do. We believe that this makes God love us more. One of the most freeing things I have learned is that there isn’t anything I can do to make God love me any more or any less than He already does. God doesn’t love me more because I go to church or because I spend time with Him each day. He doesn’t love me less because I eat too many cookies and sometimes choose to watch TV instead of spending time with Him. God loves our children who don’t go to church just as much as He loves us. This can be very freeing if we let it. This means we don’t have to strive to earn God’s love. We can rest in the fact that no matter what we do, God will still love us just as much as He did before we were born.
Another thing we tend to think is that God favors some people more than others. For instance, if we need prayers for something important, we all have that one or two people we will ask because we feel their prayers go straight to heaven. We feel their prayers are more powerful. Yet, we all have the same Holy Spirit living inside of us, and so we all have the same power living inside of us. The people we go to for prayer do not have more power to pray than you do. What they have is the confidence to go to God and ask for what they need. They have faith that God answers their prayers, and they have this because of the fact that they keep going to God and asking Him. We tend to think their prayers are answered because of how holy they are. I have heard testimonies of people who are brand new to the faith and yet obediently prayed over someone when asked and they were healed.
One instance was when a woman had breast cancer. She was at an Easter Vigil mass where the RCIA candidates were being confirmed. She felt like the Lord told her to get prayed over by one of the people who were just confirmed. She waited until after mass and then went up to a young woman, newly baptized into the faith, and asked her to pray for her healing of the breast cancer. She was cured right then and there. Another one was at an Encounter Ministries conference. This woman had stage four cancer in her throat, and the doctors said there was nothing they could do. She went to this conference and waited in line for the priest to pray over her. When she got up to the priest, he said he felt like she needed to have the children pray over her. She was discouraged as she felt like he would be better, more powerful. However, she was obedient and found a few 8-10-year-olds that had just learned that day how to pray over people. They started praying, and she started to feel all warm inside. She told them this, and they got all excited as they knew this meant the Holy Spirit was working. They started to pray more. The woman left the conference, and at her 3-month doctor's, they did a scan to see if the cancer had spread. They couldn’t find the cancer anywhere. She was completely cured! Praise God.
She was not cured because those children had special powers. She was cured because she was brave enough to ask for someone to pray over her and because those children were brave enough to say yes. If you need prayer, be brave enough to ask people to pray for you. If you know someone who is sick and needs healing be brave enough to pray over them. Taking that step out in faith is not saying you feel you have any special gift. It is saying that you trust the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to work through anyone, even you. The Holy Spirit is the one with the power. We are just the vessel. We can’t be a vessel if we don’t say yes. If we don’t try, if we don’t let Him use us.
You don’t have to know anything to pray for people for healing. You just have to understand that you are powerful not because you are special but because the power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of you. Be brave. Pray over those who you know who are sick. God will reward your faithfulness, your boldness, and your trust. If you look through the Bible, God tends to use the broken people, those who have sinned, those who are not perfect. Is that you? Have you sinned, do you get it wrong more than you get it right? Yep, me too. Guess what? That means we are exactly the kind of person God will use.
I know several of you listening have family members who have cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. Step out and faith and pray over them. Ask the Lord what He wants you to say, and then just say it. If you don’t know what to say, just say, “In the name of Jesus, I command all pain to leave. In the name of Jesus, I command all sickness to be healed. In the name of Jesus, I command all cancer to be gone. In the name of Jesus, I command all organs to be restored. It doesn’t matter what you say. It just matters that you say it. I think it is best to say it out loud so the person can hear it so that the body can hear it, but if you need to start praying quietly, then do that. Just start. Can you imagine what this world would look like if we all started standing in our identity as children of God who have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us? Can you imagine how great it would be if we all just walked around with confidence that Jesus will heal the sick through us? We can, and He will. We just need to step out in faith. He might not heal every person you pray over, but that is all the more reason to pray over more people. Your odds go up with each person. Honestly, though, just start with that one person you can’t live without—that one person who needs healing today. Believe more in the power of God to work through you than you do in your inadequacy. It is not you who has to heal them. But it is you who can say the words.
This podcast is all about walking boldly with Jesus. If you have been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, then I believe you are braver now than you were when you started listening. I believe that the Holy Spirit has been working within you this whole time. Let’s take a risk and ask our loved ones if we can pray for them. I know not everyone listening to this episode feels called to the healing ministry. That doesn’t mean we can’t pray for our loved ones. That doesn’t mean we can’t step out and ask the Lord to heal those who need healing. You don’t have to feel like you can do it. You just have to trust that the Lord can work through you. If you do pray with someone, ask if they feel anything. If they don’t, it is not on you, as you are just the messenger. God is the one who is responsible for making our prayers fruitful. Sometimes, oftentimes, that is when the person is healed, when they test it out to see if they feel any different.
A great example of this is in Matthew 12:9-13 “He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” so that they might accuse him. He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other.” The man’s hand was not healed until he trusted in faith and tried to stretch it out like the other one. If your loved one is in pain, ask them if the pain has decreased in severity. If there is a rash, check to see if it is gone. You won’t be able to test all things, but if there is something you can test, that will help.
I know this is a lot of information all thrown into this one episode. I had no idea I was going to go here today, but so many of you are on my heart because you are praying for loved ones who need healing. I guess the Holy Spirit wanted me to encourage you to pray not only for them but over them. Pray for healing over them. Also, I feel God wants you to know that He is in this with you. Whatever it is you are going through right now, He is in it with you, and you will be ok.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, please be with all those who are either struggling with cancer or who are praying for a loved one with cancer. We ask that you give us the courage to ask those loved ones if we can pray over them. We ask that you give us the words to say. We ask that you help us in our current situations. Lord, show us what to do, how to pray. Lord, we ask you to fill us with your hope, your love, and your peace. We ask that you take away all worry and anxiety and replace it with your peace and your assurance that with you, we can do all things. We ask all of this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you need prayers for a loved one, if you want me to pray over your loved one, reach out on social media, my website walkboldlywithjesus.com or my email catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com I would be happy to do that. There is a link for my website at the bottom of the show notes. My prayers are with each of you listening. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in January 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I am the all-powerful, the almighty. With me, you can do it. Just move. Move with my grace, move with my power, and miracles will happen."