Blessings with Conditions Series 1
Acts 19:12
“So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them”.
Blessings
For a while now, this series has been on my mind and the aim is to address some common biblical quotes Christians use to affirm our faith or to reassure ourselves of God’s blessings. However, there is a tendency to focus on God’s blessing to us and neglect our own responsibilities as Christians.
Over the next few weeks, I will elaborate on these blessings with the conditions attached to it in order to remind ourselves of our responsibilities and to act faithfully towards God’s gracious blessings to us.
“So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them”.
The use of Prayer Cloth for Healing
I have been reading the book of Acts of the Apostles for some time now in order to familiarise myself with living through the Holy Spirit. I understand that it is very easy for Christians to adopt worldly ways in the church without realising it, so I thought it would be good to learn directly from what some theologians now call ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’
When I read through the book of Acts chapter 19 verse 12 there is a blessing in it, some of which many churches practice:
“So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them”.
I pointed this out because many Christians argued over the need of using cloth, anointing oil etc as a symbol of healing or miracle, in the battle against the evil spirits. Yet, not many would have come across this part of the scripture which seems to justify it. It would be folly for me to say that it is wrong to practice this in the church or to encourage it, but I am comforted now that for almost every biblical blessings, there is a special condition attached to it and in this case it is in the verse just before it:
Conditions
(Acts 19:11) “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.”
So we see that it is not about the use of cloth, neither is it about the man or woman who prays on the cloth but the power of God which enables us to carry out miracles to the glory of God. My understanding of this was that He could not possibly be everywhere at the same time to attend to everyone’s needs. After all, His stay at Ephesus was for about 2 years and the reward of that stay was the entire Asia continent knowing about Jesus (both Greeks and Jews).
The overriding condition here is that God is the sole author of every miracle. Not the man behind the lectern speaking, not the preacher making the declaration, but the Almighty God with the infinite powers in heaven and earth who can only make things happen, even without the cloth. Therefore, the condition behind these miracles is to acknowledge the creator and His sovereignty, then the power of God will then activate whatever the object is and we can all see the manifestation.
