Recognizing the Source
//Timeless Teachings of Kenneth E. Hagin
Often, before we can receive anything from God, we must find answers to the questions that keep us from receiving. As long as questions crowd our minds, we will have doubts, and our faith will be hindered. I know from my own experience on a bed of sickness, there were questions in my mind that had to be settled before my faith could be effective.
For a long time the devil tried to tell me that God had afflicted me and was punishing me for some wrongdoing in my life. I listened to this for a while but finally said, “Mr. Devil, I was born with a deformed heart and serious internal trouble. Why would God punish me for something I don’t even know about? That must not be true.”
Then the devil said, “You’re sick because of something your parents did.” This is what the disciples thought about a man who was blind from birth. They asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2).
Some people misquote Jesus’ reply. They think He said the man was sick just so God could heal him. If that were true, God wouldn’t be much of a God. But thank God, that’s not true.
Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me” (v. 4). Then He immediately did the works of God by healing the man. When the devil saw that I still believed in healing, he tried to convince me that it was not God’s will to heal me. He said, “Healing is real, but it isn’t God’s will to heal everybody.
You’re one of those who it’s not His will to heal.” It’s illogical to believe that God heals and at the same time believe that He won’t heal you. Although I had heard people say, “Your sickness is God’s work,” I couldn’t accept this. Others said, “Well, maybe God didn’t commission it, but He permits it for a purpose.” But that’s about the same thing.
I was born again while bedfast, but even after that I had questions. “Why me,” I asked God. “Why was I born this way? Did you cause me to be born prematurely? Why couldn’t I have a normal childhood? Did You rob me of my childhood? Now I am bedfast, and five doctors say I have to die. I didn’t have anything to do with it. God, did You?”
Who Did What? |
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Jesus contrasted what He did with the works of the devil. In John 10:10, He said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” If we want to see God at work, we only have to look at Jesus. In John 14:9, Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Nowhere in the four Gospels do we see Jesus refusing to heal someone or putting sickness on a person, only to heal him later. It’s evident then that sickness and disease are the works of the devil. |
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Such questions demand an answer, but nobody really gives you an answer. They give you some theological concept that doesn’t amount to anything. I’m so glad I found the answer.
ACTS 10:38
38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about DOING GOOD, AND HEALING ALL THAT WERE OPPRESSED OF THE DEVIL; for God was with him.
This verse showed me that Satan is the oppressor. Satan caused me to be born prematurely, have a deformed heart, be almost totally paralyzed, and have an incurable blood disease.
Jesus is the deliverer, the life-giver. He is the Savior. Jesus is God manifested in the flesh! I was so thrilled when I discovered this truth. After I saw what the Bible said, I received my healing. I crawled out of bed and said, “I’m not going to die. I’m going to live!” I was 17 years old then. I had never heard healing preached. But the Bible said it, I believed it, and that settled it.
Don’t Blame God
It’s difficult for people who are not acquainted with Scripture to understand that natural laws governing the earth today largely came into being when Adam sinned and the earth was cursed.
Because people do not understand this, many blame God for causing accidents, the sickness and death of loved ones, and such natural catastrophes as tornados, earthquakes, and floods. Even insurance companies call natural disasters “acts of God.” But God is not responsible for any of these things. He is not the author of death and He is not to blame.
Accidents, disease, sickness, death, and disasters come as a result of the fall of man. Their author is Satan.
Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief [Satan] cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
In this verse Jesus contrasts the works of God with the works of the devil. That which steals, kills, and destroys is the devil’s work.
Instead of taking advantage of what belongs to us, all too often we allow the devil to steal from us. God laid on Jesus not only the sin, sickness, and disease of us all, but also the cause of that sickness and disease. And what He bore, we do not need to bear. Let’s quit blaming God for the adversity we experience and instead tap into the abundant life He has for us.
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(Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from Kenneth E. Hagin’s minibook Don’t Blame God.)