Pastor Tim said that healing is not only for the “spiritually gifted elite Christian,” but that every Christian, even the young child, can pray for people to be healed! Each and every Christian has already experienced God’s healing in their own life, and now God wants them to mirror his healing to others.
For more podcasts on Healing and Comforting and past Works of Mercy visit the Seoul USA Podcast Page!
You and I would wholeheartedly agree that salvation is the work of God. And I suspect we would also agree on the need for us to share the gospel with others, despite the fact that salvation is God’s work. Yet when it comes to sanctification, although we agree on it being a work of God, we can be misled into thinking that we have no role at all in that process. And not only do we think that we have no role in that process, we are further misled into thinking that the process is largely ineffective in this lifetime! Consider what Mark Galli of Christianity Today said in his recent article entitled, Real Transformation Happens When? He said,
But after living the Christian life for nearly a half century, I doubt the ability of Christians to make much progress in holiness.
He adds,
I look at my own life and marvel at the lack of real transformation after 50 years of effort. To be sure, outwardly I’m more patient, kind, gracious, and so forth. But even after half a century of transformation, my thoughts and motives are a cauldron of evil.
If I put it in my own words, it might sound something like this:
I’m a Christian and I keep sinning. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve changed at all since becoming a Christian. Real change must happen in heaven and not on earth. Maybe God will change me at present and maybe He won’t. If I have faith, I’d better show it by not worrying about sanctification anymore.
The Scriptures paint a completely different picture. Consider Philippians 2, where Paul contrasts Timothy with those who serve their own interests, He says,
I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 2:19-21)
Paul was essentially saying that Timothy had grown in his relationship with the Lord to the point where he was concerned about the welfare of others more than his own. Timothy was being sanctified! The Scriptural witness shows us that we can be sanctified, but we are right to recognize that God does the sanctifying and not us. So what is our role? Our role is to pray earnestly to God for this good gift.
Sanctification, in other words, doesn’t just overtake us when we become a Christian. It’s a gift for which we pray. Galli notes that he does not see a difference in the lives of those attending churches where sanctification is emphasized, but sanctification does not come from attending a holiness church any more than being a Christian comes from attending any kind of church. As the old chestnut goes, being in a church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car. Galli may be discovering that the historic holiness churches are less focused on sanctification than they used to be, or even that their understanding of sanctification is off base. But the reality that God will answer our earnest prayers desiring sanctification is not a peculiarity of a small group of churches in the 21st century. It is the testimony of Christians going all the way back to Jesus.
Thomas Cranmer’s 16th century translation of an 8th century Latin prayer is a great example of just such a prayer for sanctification. It says,
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open all desires, known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Sanctification takes root in our lives when we come face to face with the testimony of Scripture and cry out to the Lord with the same sentiment of Thomas Cranmer. Sanctification takes root in our lives when we understand that God not only can change us, but that he wholeheartedly desires that change for our lives. Therefore, a great index of our sanctification is not only our outward actions but even more so our inward desire for God to change our lives. You may rightly agree with Mark Galli, that you haven’t really grown in the Lord like you should have. But that certainly doesn’t mean that sanctification in this lifetime isn’t possible and that God doesn’t desire it in your life. Dennis Kinlaw describes the sanctification that Paul wrote about in Romans 12-15 this way:
It [sanctification] is a possibility in grace because it is not a matter of attainment. Such love is a gift that can only be received. It is a gift because it is the very life of God himself. One does not rise to such a life. One kneels to receive, to let him who is agape love fill and complete our personhood.
Sanctification is God’s job. Our job? To pray passionately and faithfully for him to sanctify us, and to believe the testimony of Scripture that this is a prayer he loves to answer.
Frequently when I’m interviewed, the host will introduce me by saying, “Today we’ll be talking about North Korea–the worst place on earth to be a Christian.”
Now, if “worst” means “costliest” or “most challenging” such as it does in this excellent piece from our brothers and sisters at Voice of the Martyrs on which I was privileged to collaborate, then that designation is certainly well deserved. In North Korea, becoming a Christian and taking up one’s cross are the same thing, not two distinct steps where the first is good and the second is optional and hopefully avoidable. Trust me when I tell you that there are a grand total of zero casual Christians in North Korea.
But if “worst” implies a diminishing of the presence of God, some kind of “blessing shadow” where Christians receive less of God’s goodness and divine provision than the rest of us, I would emphasize that North Korean Christians would strenuously disagree.
It certainly is true that North Korea would be among the worst places to be if one was not a Christian. But North Korean Christians see the situation differently. They talk about being filled with joy and honor to bear the reproach of Christ. They do not consider their provision from God inferior to our own. They fervently believe that their existence in North Korea has a purpose. North Korean underground Christians are, when compared to other groups in North Korea, among the least likely to try to defect. While some underground Christians do escape, our experience has been that they almost always do so with sadness and as an absolute last resort. I’ve never talked with one who was exultant to leave or who told me that they were looking for a better place to be a Christian.
We should always ask what we mean when we say that a particular place is the “worst” for Christians. Our reckoning that North Korea is the worst place to be a Christian may say more about our own understanding of Christianity than it does about the conditions Christians face in North Korea.
With that in mind, here are 10 reasons North Korea is not the worst place to be a Christian:
1. Romans 8:28 still applies inside of North Korea.
2. One can only suffer for the name of Jesus if he counts you worthy to do so, and so if you are a Christian in a country where it is considered optional or undesirable to take up your cross you probably ought to be more concerned than if you are a Christian in a country where nearly every Christian considers it pure joy when they suffer for the name of Jesus.
3. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. …For your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5: 11–12). The whole earthly thing is temporary. God is a debtor to no one. In the end, no one can say their suffering exceeded or was even comparable to their reward. If you believe in eternal life, aren’t you at least a little intrigued by what Jesus means by “a great reward in heaven”?
4. We Western Christians can be tempted or deceived into confusing God with Mammon, freedom of religion with freedom in Christ. North Korean Christians see–daily–the stark difference between the One True God and every counterfeit. They talk of a freedom that can’t be taken away, even inside a concentration camp.
5. For some Western Christians, our biggest theological preoccupation seems to be making sure we are not trying to earn our way to heaven. I have never in my life heard a North Korean Christian under the impression that they could earn their way to heaven. They have a visceral, moment-by-moment awareness that they are completely dependent upon the grace of God for their daily bread. They are long past thinking that they can do anything to impress God.
6. Wholly reliant upon the power of God, they daily pray and see him move in the most miraculous ways. Some of us Western Christians are either theologically or practically convinced that God quit answering prayers for his miraculous intervention somewhere around Acts 28:30. North Korean Christians would regard that as patently heretical.
7. Some of us Western Christians have a hard time believing in the practical reality of Satan. North Korean Christians have no such hangup. As such, they learn to take evil far more seriously, and thus they actually mean it when they say that Christ is their only comfort in life and death.
8. They understand–in the depths of their stomachs and in every fiber and sinew of their bodies–that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Meanwhile, many of our day-to-day prayers as Western Christians are variations on John 6:34, “Sir, always give us this bread.”
9. Most North Korean Christians find Luke 16:19-31 very comforting and are longing for that day. How are you doing with that one?
10. God raises up the church is a witness to his grace, presence, and judgment in every nation. As such, Christians no longer live for themselves but instead for Christ and as his ambassadors. If one truly understands one’s identity as an ambassador, one glories in that identity rather than grumbling about the country where one got posted.
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