"God gave me this illness to teach me patience and humility in my final years."
How it sounds in your head: I've been sick for so long now. Maybe God needs me broken to keep me close to Him. Maybe my failing body is His way of preparing me for heaven, teaching me to let go. My pastor said suffering sanctifies us.
"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him."
-- Acts 10:38Religious teaching that makes God the author of disease and suffering, contradicting His nature revealed in Jesus who healed ALL who came to Him.
After decades of church teaching about 'redemptive suffering' and watching friends die slowly, it seems spiritual to accept sickness as divine curriculum. The physical reality of aging makes it easy to confuse natural deterioration with God's deliberate lesson plan.
Bent over for 18 YEARS, couldn't straighten up, religious leaders said wait for proper day. Jesus called her forward on Sabbath, said 'Woman, you are LOOSED from your infirmity,' laid hands on her, and IMMEDIATELY she was made straight and glorified God.
I REFUSE the lie that my Father gave me sickness as a teacher. IT IS WRITTEN that Jesus healed ALL oppressed by the devil, revealing God's true heart. My illness is oppression, not instruction—and Christ has REDEEMED me from the curse. IT IS WRITTEN that by His stripes I WAS healed—past tense, finished work. I am Abraham's seed through Christ, heir to the BARAK blessing that protected even when they sinned. My body may be 80 years old, but my covenant is ETERNAL and my Father runs toward me with healing in His wings. I receive supernatural strength and health RIGHT NOW.
Your Father isn't using cancer or pain as a classroom—He sent Jesus to DESTROY the works of the devil, and sickness is devil's work. He's running toward you RIGHT NOW with the same power that raised Christ from the dead, ready to quicken your mortal body the instant you receive.