"Be Cleansed By Being Cured"

Pastor Wayne Clabaugh

 

Scripture Text: "And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Matthew 8:2-4 (KJV)

I need to start off today's Devotions with a prayer request that was sent in by one of our Subscribers regarding a precious family in the Bronx who have led in and awesome inner-city work there. Here's the request that was sent in verbatim from the email.  It comes from Pastor Dave Peterson of the Warwick Assemblies of God Church in Warwick, NY, and was sent to us by Dee Nunez just this morning. Let me just read this and then we're going to pray - and then I'll get into today's devotional. Pastor Dave writes...

You might know Pastor Tim & Dianna Adour from Church of the Revelation in the Bronx. (Dianna was the District Director for MPact Girls Ministries (Missionettes) several years ago).

Pray for their 6 year old grand daughter, Aubrey. Aubrey is currently in the hospital in Intensive Care with pneumonia and with another infection  that the doctors are unable to identify at this time. She is on a respirator and is chemically sedated and paralyzed to keep her from pulling the tubes out from the respirator.

Her parents, Justin and Angela are the youth pastors at the church.

Please pray for God to intervene with His divine and supernatural healing to Aubrey! The Adour family covet your prayers.

Let's pray:

Almighty God, Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Precious Holy Spirit, We add our voices and our prayers today for a Super-Natural Healing to take place in little Aubrey's life. Oh Father, as close as so many there in Warwick are to this precious little girl and her family, You are even now in their midst and watching over little Aubrey because you love her and you love her family. Why this little girl has contracted this infection that is trying to take the life of this little girl is more than we as humans know at this time - but you know everything about it, and we know that you have a very special transfusion that you are imparting to this little lady right now. Oh Precious Jesus, come in Your strength and your power and touch little Aubrey and make her clean. Through the person and work of your precious Holy Spirit we ask for a complete and total recovery to continue in her  little life today and may this miracle in this darling little girl be know all across the Nation and yes Lord even the WORLD - that Jesus is Alive  and that He IS RELEVANT for every need this world has today. We stand in for this little girl today and we receive your promise to heal and to restore and to make whole - to cure! And we ask this to be a sign and a wonder to many today, In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Devotional

I was surprised by a few who thought that yesterday's message at least led them to wonder if Pastor Wayne believed in Divine Healing. My goodness, if they had been around for the last 20 years of this online Ministry they would know that I do. What I was trying to do in yesterday's devotional was to give hope to someone out there who might be wondering why when they faced the faith healer in their sphere of spiritual influence - they weren't healed.

Many have gone home - having felt nothing when they were prayed for, and were told by the faith healer and or by their Pastor that you didn't get healed because you didn't have "enough" faith to believe for your healing. Now these precious souls spend the rest of  their lives believing they will never be healed because they don't have "enough" faith to even ask God for healing ever again! FRIEND... THIS IS A  GOSPEL TRAVESTY AND A LIE OF THE DEVIL!

Do you need faith to be healed? Why sure you do. But what does the Bible say? Look at Matthew 17 with me and let's begin with the nineteenth verse. It says there:

"Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? (20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for  verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Now, let me ask you this morning, what do you think the chances are that you can go out there - anywhere... and command that a mountain would move and see it happen? Have you ever heard of ANY FAITH HEALER pull off such a feat? No! Why? Because Jesus wasn't speaking in a literal sense here.

Let me put this in perspective.

When you go on vacation and you end up around those high and lofty peaks in ANYWHERE PLANET EARTH - most generally you are swept away by their AWESOMENESS AND THEIR BEAUTY! Not many, but a few aspire to conquer those mountain peaks by laying their lives on the line to climb it. That is "their way" of "moving that Mountain". For them or for anyone to say, I am going to literally move that mountain from the Blue-Ridge Mountain range, to the Swiss Alps today merely by my words alone... would be laughed to  scorn. But take a look at Aubrey there in Warwick, NY - was her sickness and the trial upon her and her family not suddenly a MOUNTAIN in their  way? Let me tell you out of experience that it is. But it is a MOUNTAIN THAT CAN BE REMOVED! Hallelujah!

But here's the kicker... some mountains cannot be removed accept by prayer and fasting. Look at that 21st verse of Matthew chapter 17 and what do we read there? Let me back up and add the couple of verses before it...

(19) Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? (20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (21) Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Now, I want to point out here today that Jesus added a little addendum before He added the BOMB; and really, everything he said in these verses could be considered to be a BOMB! But as an addendum to

"Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove;"

He said: "and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Does it sound like the Lord and Master has any doubt in His mind what the Father will do for those who ask of Him? Yet, He blatantly said it was because of their unbelief that this young man who threw himself into the fire and threw himself into the water was not healed - because they had not applied all of the tools at their disposal. He then says in verse 21:

"Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

Fasting and prayer: or the exercise of miraculous faith...  is expressed in solemn prayer to God, joined with fasting.

I have recently been turned on to the Power of Fasting by a dear brother and also a member of the In The Garden Prayer team, Larry Deemers, and have taken on a further study and application of fasting for healing in my own life.

It's pretty simple my fiend: "Garbage in... Garbage out... and your body cannot function on Garbage".

But let's apply that to more than the stronghold of eating. Apply it to your conversation; apply it to your leisure time and don't tell me you don't have any because the statistics show that the every man, woman, boy and girl in the U.S.A., sits in front of the television at least 15 to 20 hour per week. If you liken that to your job of 40 hours per week, that mean every man, woman, boy and girl spends up to 19.5 weeks of watching television every year. Now, if you decided to get it all out of the way and watch TV for 15 hours per week, multiplied by 53 weeks out of the year and divided by 24 hours in a day, that means you would have to sit in front of the Television for 32.5 days straight every year just to meet the lower end of what statistics tell us is the minimum time every man, woman, boy and girl watch Television every year. You get the idea... and so did the disciples - as The Lord gently chided them that the reason they were not effective in casting out the evil spirits in this young man, was because they weren't full of  God. He was telling them that they needed to spend more time praying and less time being ordinary men.

Now, I know that last comment will spark some questions for tomorrow, and that's where we've got to leave it for today. But I need to tell you that Jesus was serious about YOU and ME, LIVING a GODLY LIFE - not just talking about it or feigning it. I must admit that there are so many things that we WANT to do for God and so much time that we spend working for God - that our time in a personal relationship with Him through the Power of The Holy Spirit is found wanting... and that's what Jesus meant when He said to the disciples it is because of your unbelief.

It seems that Christ not only suggests, that faith was greatly wanting in his disciples; for which reason they could not cast out the devil, and heal  the lunatic; but they had been wanting in prayer to God to assist them in the exercise of their miraculous gifts; and that while Christ and the other three disciples were on the mount, they had been feasting and indulging themselves with the people, and so were not in the mindset or should I say the faith-set for such extraordinary service. So the Lord gently rebukes them because of their unbelief - apistia in the GREEK which referred to their unfaithfulness to their own prayer and building themselves up in the faith and led them to actual unbelief that they could deliver this young lad from his stronghold by the devil.

More tomorrow, but for now let's pray.

Father God - I bless your Holy and Matchless Name this morning, and I come to you pleading the blood over my life. Father I honor you and praise you for your goodness to us in giving me the Gift of Life, and the abundance of Life in your precious Son Jesus. I come now asking not only for myself, but for every person who hears or reads this message, that your precious Holy Spirit would condition, and apply the balm of understanding to our minds and hearts - to know that you have risen with healing in your wings, and that Faith in you, and understanding of your Word - will save us. I ask for healing in my life this morning Lord. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes - I speak your healing. I pray for those who are reading or listening to this message right now Father, and I ask your healing touch on every aspect of their lives right now in the mighty Name of Jesus Christ your "Living Son". I praise you this morning Father for the anointing you have placed on this study, and for the healing power that will flow from the understanding of your Word. I give you all of the glory and the Honor, and the praise now - In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen.