October 25, 2013

During the past few weeks, we (George Robinson, Dwain McKenzie and I) have been hosting a world-wide conference call for the purpose of ministering healing to people. It has been a blessing to add to the mix folks like Jim Riley (with his prophetic ministry), Alicia Brickley (with dream interpretation) and a host of others with their gifts and anointings.

 

The blessing for all of us is seeing people with stage 4 cancer healed completely (and we have medical documentation to back it up) as well as healing from other life-threatening and terminal diseases. George has been really anointed for healing ministry to folks with stage 3 and stage 4 cancer, people who have been given days or weeks at most to live, and of course we are focusing on people who are either terminal or severely debilitated. That's not to say we won't or don't pray for folks in less critical condition, or people with severe pain issues -- we most certainly do, and we see results!

 

That said, if you are suffering from some disease or infirmity -- and especially if you are suffering with a terminal disease -- please join our conference calls on Mondays or Wednesdays or Fridays at 7:00 PM EST. The number to call is (805) 399-1000. Once you dial that number you will be asked to enter an access code. Enter 124763 followed by the # sign.

 

That said, let me dive right into our discussion today. The term, aphiémi, is a Greek word which appears throughout the original text of the New Testament, and is most often translated  as "forgive" or else "to remit." This word is a contraction of two separate Greek words (apo -- which means "off") and (hiemi -- which means "to send") which could literally be translated: to send away or to dismiss. Whenever we see the Greek word, apo, used as a prefix, it usually denotes departure, cessation, reversal, etc.

 

In fact, more practically, the conjunctive, aphiémi, means to erase or to eradicate as though it never existed. Thus, in every instance where we see the phrase "to remit," and in most cases where the word "forgive" appears, the Greek word is aphiémi. It differentiates from the Greek word, apoluo, which means to pardon, to set at liberty, to let go of, or to let die.

 

Apoluo more closely relates to our modern understanding and usage of the word, forgive, in the sense that it does not eradicate from existence whatever offense occurred, but rather lets go of the penalty or the hold upon a person for that offense. This is not the word we see Jesus using.

How many times have you heard someone say, "Well, I can forgive that person, but I won't forget what they did." And in this instance, they may let go of the penalty for the offense, but they won't even let the offense die. And THAT, folks, is where we are going with today's Coffee Break!

 

Let's begin with Mark 11:22-26:

 

"And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

 

"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father  also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."

 

For many folks, their disease (cancer, for example) is a mountain that needs to be moved and cast into the sea. They struggle with it and struggle with it and struggle with it, and hope that the doctors eventually come up with some kind of cure, or at least something that will delay it long enough that they can have some kind of life. In our modern society it seems that more and more people are being afflicted with cancer, and it certainly is prevalent in the body of Christ.

 

Let me express this to you in a way that may sound a bit strange and take you off guard a bit. Cancer is illegal! It's against the Law! Why do I put it that way?

 

Consider something that the apostle Paul wrote to the Ekklesia in Rome.

 

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."

Understand? Cancer is a part of the Law of Sin and Death. That law was nullified and made invalid by the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus! Jesus killed death (I know that's a strange way to put it) and with it, all sickness and disease, when He rose from the dead.

 

Let me put this another way. Diseases, infirmity in the body and sicknesses of every kind are a part of the process of dying. Diseases come into the body when cells die and do not replenish, and the immune system begins to break down. It's all a part of death.

 

Think about something that Paul wrote to the Hebrews (my translation and amplification from the Greek):

 

"And just as each person has an appointment with death (one time) and after that comes God's Tribunal and justice, so also Christ died, keeping that one appointment for us as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people."

 

Don't you get it? Jesus kept our appointment with death! Why do we accept the inevitability of death and with it, the diseases the precede death? Why do so many folks accept the idea that they "get to live" 70 or 80 years, and if they are fortunate, perhaps 90 years? Even if one as a believer in Jesus Christ accepts the curse that came upon the human race with Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden, why do they settle for something less than the 120 years God promised in Genesis 6:3?

 

By His death, Jesus "remitted" our sins (He forgave and erased from existence) -- the very same sins that bring about disease and death. They were eradicated, erased from existence, ONCE AND FOR ALL -- and here's the kicker -- for those who accept and acknowledge His sacrifice for us. Paul does not say that Jesus took away the sins of ALL people; rather he says "many people" -- the distinction being between those who accept and acknowledge His Lordship and sacrifice on behalf of our death, our disease, our sicknesses and, MOST OF ALL, the sins that create that death, diseases and sicknesses and those who reject Him.

 

Let me express it like this: Jesus aphiemied our sins. He forgave (in the truest sense of the word) us of our sins. He erased them from existence AND from His memory. But that erasure only applies to people who accept and receive it. If we continue to believe Satan's lie, we retain our sicknesses, our diseases and the whole dying process because of unbelief. Don't forget, it was Satan's lie that Eve believed in the Garden; and that led to her partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and -- shortly thereafter -- Adam's partaking of that same fruit.

Unbelief is not simply a lack of believing the Word of the Lord. Unbelief is a very active believing of the exact opposite of what God says. There's nothing passive about it. If we do not accept wholeheartedly and believe God's Word, if we do not accept and believe that we have no sins left (and I know this is going to rub some folks wrong in putting it like this!) we still do have sin in our life, and with that sin the open door for Satan to afflict and torment us with sickness, disease and infirmity. We leave the door open for him to kill us.

 

How did Jesus put it? "The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."

(John 10:10, Amp)

 

There is a really sick religious song I hear some gospel singers do. It goes something like this, "I'm just an old sinner, saved by grace." Baloney! You can't be both! You're either an old sinner, OR you are saved by grace. That song and the religious phraseology that goes with it promotes a lie and a religious doctrine that has contaminated God's people. The lie states unequivocally that we can't be totally free from sin, never mind the fact that Jesus commands it in Matthew 5:48, and John makes it clear again in his first general letter to the body of Christ (I John 3:9). [This is a discussion I'd really like to expand upon, but I won't try to do it in this Coffee Break.]

 

Taken to its logical extension, the lie essentially says that Jesus didn't finish His work on the Cross and that His blood wasn't quite enough to settle our debt and finish the curse hanging over us. If you take it one more step, you wind up believing that there is something you have to do to help God make it happen. It's idolatry, folks!

 

The point I'm trying to make is that if you continue to believe that you have unresolved sin in your life even though you have confessed your sin to the Lord and repented of it and turned away completely, you open the door to demonic spirits of disease, infirmity and sickness and you wind up suffering needlessly when your suffering has already been paid for.

 

Let's get back to something that John wrote to the body of Christ. "If we assent to what the Word says and what the blood accomplished, covenanting with the Lord to expunge our sins, He is faithful, trustworthy and fully capable of eradicating our sins -- our failures to meet the mark of His righteousness and holiness -- removing them in such a manner that they never existed, and to purify and wash us [with His blood] completely clean and free of all moral wrongfulness, iniquity, injustice and unrighteousness [or wrong standing with God]." (I John 1:9, my translation and amplification from the Greek text)

 

The word, "confess," as it occurs in the KJV translation and others comes from the Greek conjunctive term, homologeo. A literal translation of this word would be: to say the same thing as, to speak the same word(s). What many folks miss is that this word is also used in the framework of covenant. We agree to what Father God says, we say the same thing He says, and we covenant with Him in what He says, thus implementing and putting that covenant in force.

 

This is NOT a case of mental assent! There is nothing passive about it. In order to covenant with the Lord concerning the eradication (from existence and from memory) of our sins and iniquities (or character flaws which make us vulnerable to certain sins), we enter into a covenant with the Lord concerning this eradication, this remittance, this forgiveness. Once that covenant is in force, all factual existence (*more on this momentarily) all memory of the sin is expunged. It is no longer recorded in God's book of remembrances against us.

 

Therefore, the past cannot be used against us. It has ceased to exist. We are sin-free. [This is a bit of an aside, but we give testimony to this covenant act through water baptism. Where does that testimony make a difference? In the spirit realm. We are testifying before principalities and powers, before world-rulers of darkness, before wicked spirits sitting in high places. Our testimony is that the old person we used to be has died and has now been buried, and that the new person we have become has been raised back to life IN Christ Jesus! If we are in Him, then there is no factual place for Satan to attack and torment us.]

 

Now, let's apply this to our healing.

 

*Satan's primary goal is to resurrect the old dead flesh in us that used to walk or live in sin and to treat it as though it is factually true and present in our lives now. As long as he can succeed in making us sin-conscious and believing that the sins, the habit patterns of the past, the iniquities that shaped our past are still a part of our present existence. Satan treats the facts of the past as truth. They are not the truth! They are old facts. The person for whom those facts existed is dead. We are not that person anymore. Those may indeed be facts of the past but they are not present truth. The truth is that we are free from sin, free from disease, free from sickness and infirmity, free from the death sentence that used to hang over the old us.

 

Am I making this clear enough for you? Good! Let's take it the next step.

 

Now we come back to where we began with this Coffee Break discussion: forgiveness. We have been the free recipients of forgiveness. We are the recipients of aphiémi. We have entered into a covenant with the Lord in order to receive that aphiémi.

 

But that's only the first part. There IS a part two.

 

"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father  also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."

 

Ooooops! See that second part? Our receiving answers to our prayers -- even if we believe that we will receive what we ask for -- is directly linked to our ability and obedience to forgive those who have offended or grieved or hurt us in any way. The word used in the KJV "ought" is a translation of an interesting but very tiny Greek word, tis. This word literally means anything, no matter how big it is, no matter how grievous it may be, no matter how insignificant or seemingly inconsequential it may be.

 

It can be a hurt that affects our lives, it can be something that costs us a lot. On the other hand it can be something so slight as to be a simple misunderstanding. It can be a place of friction between a parent and a child, or a child and a parent. It can even be a doctrinal disagreement with someone that just gets under your skin.

None of that matters. You were forgiven EVERYTHING! If you don't even have the ability to forgive someone their hurts or offenses towards you and wipe the slate clean, (and I don't care what those offenses are) then you have abrogated and nullified your covenant with the Lord. If that covenant is no longer in force, you are wide open to diseases, sicknesses and infirmities which come as a direct product of unforgiveness.

 

There are so many things that come upon people who harbor tiny little unforgivenesses against others -- and one of the most dominant areas where there are open doors comes in family relationships or breaches of those relationships. Chronic illnesses, chronic weakness, nerve disorders, hypertension and constant worry and fretting are all direct byproducts of unforgiveness, but cancer is aided and abetted by unforgiveness.

 

Please don't get the idea that I'm saying that all cancer is the result of unforgiveness. I'm not saying that at all. What I AM saying is that when a person has unresolved issues -- relationship issues -- where bitterness, unforgiveness (no matter how slight it may be) and tension exists, it bears directly on an individual's ability to receive the healing and restoration they need.

 

Let me wrap up today's part of this discussion with one final statement that Jesus makes.

 

"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matthew 5:23-24)

 

See? It works both ways. Even if you don't have unforgiveness toward someone but you know that someone holds unforgiveness towards you because of some unresolved issue, you can't even bring your gift to the Lord and have Him acknowledge it until you go and resolve the issue with that person. THAT'S how important the Lord sees aphiémi.

 

A reminder: If you are in need of healing please join our prayer conference calls on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday of each week at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#.

 

Blessings on you!