Christian Faith Healing; Can it be Lost Once Received?

This seems to be perhaps one of the most important questions a Christian could possibly ask because the state of their health in christ Jesus could as well largely depend on it, TB Joshua watch, A scoan critic wordpress.com site in a recent article, have blatantly attacked the teaching of TB Joshua that explicitly talks about the need to maintain healing, blessing and salvation, in their post titled; Healing at SCOAN and Healing in the bible. Their fallen argument seems to be on the grounds of the fact that Maintenance of  healing is not a phrase found in scripture and that Jesus telling the man at the pool in John 5: 14 to go and seen no more lest a worse thing come upon him actually referred to something totally different, not the same sickness returning.

According to their dodgy theology, faith is only required to receive a miracle and not to maintain it, “True divine healing is complete and final they said” Now we must point out here that this is the height of satanic deception, we’re talking of here of the greatest deception devised by the devil that has been widely accepted by an unfortunate number of Christians today; this false doctrine of  “once healed; always healed’ or “once saved; always saved” this false doctrine/dodgy theology wrongly assumes that the moment a person is healed or saved, there’s nothing he/she could ever do, either by omission or commission to lose his/her healing or salvation, that is, even if the person in question goes on ahead to commit the grossest sins that led to the sickness in the first place, this false doctrine teaches that the person is still healed or saved. Brace up yourselves people and beware, because nothing could be further from the truth of God’s eternal word and obviously the speciality of  the Pharisee authors behind TB Joshua watch. No doubt God definitely did promise to do his part of keeping us in perfect health and spiritual salvation till the end, but this does not mean we have no part to play. TB Joshua watch stated that God’s healing is unconditional, which is true in the sense of us having to earn, work or pay for it,  but in fact, almost all God’s promises stated in scripture are somewhat dependent in part on us for their fulfilment.

 RECURRING AFFLICTIONS: “THE CONSEQUENCE OF RETURNING TO SIN AFTER HEALING”

The man at the pool: Jesus reminded him of the need to maintain his miracle. John 5:14

The truth remains that a lot of requests we make of God today is a clear result of our inability to maintain what He originally gave to us to the effect that we many times stand in his presence requesting for what we once had but lost it, by this I mean, a lot of people who actually come to God for healing today were not always sick, a lot of them were at one time in perfect health as Christians, but eventually lost the good health given to them by God as a result of smoking habits, drugs, sexual immorality and the likes, and today they desire healing, is that not health already lost? And now sought after? Where did they get this warped thinking from that healing cannot be lost? This is clearly satanic doctrine, a doctrine coined by those who don’t want to submit to the tight rein of holy living. Supposing a patient were healed from cancer of the lungs which developed as a result of smoking, and gives his testimony that  he’s healed, he may be  healed all right, but is he healed from the character of smoking? How long do you think such healing would last, if soon after the healing, the patients resumes heavily on Cigarettes? Even the doctors after treatment give some certain conditions under which the patient about to be discharged would stay healthy, stuffs to cut down on, stuffs to never eat or drink etc. and sometimes because of failure to comply with such regulations the patients become regular at the medics while their condition deteriorate, even in medicine, health has to maintained, it’s no different from a faith life, whatever we receive from faith must also be sustained by faith.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE REALLY TEACH?

We must refer to the Bible here, God’s word as the most effective instrument for change, and see what it says about this subject, In Ezekiel 18:24, God himself asked what would be the outcome of a man who turns away from his righteousness to do evil;

“But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sins and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live?

and here was His answer:

“none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered because of the unfaithfulness, he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed; he will die.

The death referred to here is spiritual, the same used when God told Adam and eve they would surely die on eating the forbidden fruit. We must be clear on this biblical truth, there are two parts involved in reception of miracles or salvation from God; we have God’s part and Man’s part, God’s part is His word to cause faith to grow in our hearts and his grace to cover our sins, it is this part God plays in our salvation that enables a sinner to experience the new birth when he accepts Christ. There is no way a sinner can earn this, no matter how many good work he does or no matter how fine an attitude he has, this is why the Bible refers to it as a free gift of God, but man’s part has to do with fining and attending to God’s word, while taking time to live holy lives, this does not in any way imply that salvation earned through good works, it only buttresses a biblical truth, that THOUGH SALVATION/BLESSING/HEALING ARE FREE, KEEPING THEM IS INDEED COSTLY.

Lets bring this down to common knowledge, take for instance a friend gives you a brand new car this Christmas which he bought with his hard-earned money and simply gave you the keys, telling you that its your Christmas present, hope you like it, have a nice ride, all you need to do at the moment is to take the keys and express gratitude. But then let me ask you, was the car a free gift to you, yes of course it was because you didn’t have to earn it or work for it, but then is it going to cost you anything to maintain the car? Of course it will, you’ll get to have to put gas, change oil when necessary, rev up the engines regularly if you aren’t going to use them for long, wax the car and so on, so yeah in the end the car is costly to keep but it was indeed free when you received it. Salvation, healing, and all of God’s blessings work in the same way, God indeed does offer salvation when we’re sleeping in sin, healing when we are sick but once we receive them we must take care not to lose them or in biblical terms, not to fall away, seriously, come to think of it, Jesus is the source of health and healing, if we are healed as a result of a relationship with Him only to later fall away from faith, we are disconnected from the source himself, and as long as the source is disconnected, its only a matter of time before the supply goes dry.

HEALING: AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW OUR LOYALTY TO GOD AGAIN.

When we are healed of the punishments of sin, it’s an opportunity to show our loyalty to God again by learning from our past and moving on, not turning to the left or right that we may not fall away. Probably, the most common passage in scripture that specifically talks about falling away is in  Hebrews, the sixth chapter, there the aftermath of doom awaiting those who fall away is clearly illustrated and ultimately concluded in the words: “it is impossible for them to be brought back to repentance” Apostle peter also clearly highlights the cases of those who have lost their salvation in 2 peter 2:20-21, also in 2 peter 1:10, the scripture talks about the actions that would secure our place as children of God from the Devil who aims to overthrow it in the words:… “If you do these things you will never fall…” healing is definitely of less value when compared to salvation, if salvation can be lost, then there’s no reason why healing cannot be lost as well.

There’s no better way to explain this doctrine than the way TB Joshua put it, when he referred to the purpose of healing as for a relationship with Jesus forever, we do not only need Faith to be healed or saved we also need faith to stay healed and saved, because the blessing attracts persecution, without faith such blessing or healing will not stand the test of time.

TB Joshua watch finally stated in the article, that TB Joshua is either a conman or sorcerer, (thus making  themselves Judges)  and told  their readers who want treatment to go see a doctor, (which is OK, seriously we’ve got nothing against that), and also told those looking for healing to go and see Jesus (they never provided an address or location to meet him though) adding that what TB Joshua provides is poor counterfeit of both. (perhaps they ought to tell this to those who are being healed regularly at SCOAN, delivered of fibroids and babies that otherwise would have been delivered by risky operations, or those delivered from the satanic forces that has held them down so long) well apart from their usual dodgy theology, they also seek to hinder the movement of those seeking God at the scoan, this calls for an unwavering resolve, and an unshakable confidence in what we believe. and the likes of TB Joshua watch would clearly be out of business.