Receiving from God part 2
Matthew 9:33-44
“And when the demon was cast out, the mute spoke. And the multitudes marveled,
saying, “It was never seen like this in Israel!” But the Pharisees said, “He casts out
demons by the ruler of the demons.””
Receiving miracles or our needs met from God is something that every believer has to
learn to do very well. This is one of the beauties of serving a living God, an All-sufficient
God who loves us. 2 Peter 1:3-4 tells us that God has provided everything that we need
both for life on Earth and for life here after. However, we have the responsibility to
actually receive the things that God has provided. I call them gifts, because they are
free.
Think about it as a birthday present. When we got born into the kingdom of God, on our
first day of birth, God gifted us so many gifts to cover everything we could ever need
(halleluyah). However, when you look around, there are many Christians who lack one
thing or the other, whether spiritual or physical.
If you gave a gift to a newborn baby on the day of their birth, they may not know that
they do have those gifts waiting for them as they grow up. Someone older has to tell
them and let them know the gifts must be received, opened and used.
Otherwise, if those gifts do not get opened up by the growing child, then they will not
take advantage of the free wealth and benefits that have already been gifted them.
Most times, we may not know that when we get born into the kingdom of God, we have
different free gifts waiting for us to claim, open up, and use. God has provided gifts for
us “since the foundation of the world”, so they were there before we were conceived,
and are certainly ours for the taking when we get born again into God’s family.
Ephesians 1: 3- 5
“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will,”
Paul was writing this letter “to the saints”. Therefore, every disciple of Jesus Christ is
blessed, chosen, and called to be sons of God, all according to the good pleasure of
God’s will. It is sad to be blessed and not know it.
The good news is that receiving from God is actually easy. If we learn how to receive
from God before we have been adulterated by religion, it will be an easy habit. However,
if we are learning to receive from God after our minds have been polluted with unbelief
and doubt, or the teachings of ‘performance for merit’, then it can be a little bit more
difficult, and we may have to train our minds in order to get up to speed. (Receiving from
God 1)
Let’s look at the passage that we’ve chosen today. It looks like Jesus’ day may have
started at Matthew 8:1, and between then and Matthew 9:34, the Lord Jesus had
performed 11 distinct miracles and healings, some of which involved more than one
person at a time. For example, He set free two demon possessed men, cast out demons
from multitudes of people, He healed multitudes of people of sicknesses, he gave sight
to two blind men. Therefore, these 11 acts of healing were not necessarily on just 11
people, but on a lot of people. Just an ordinary day in the life of the Lord Jesus. And
these people all received.
Please, realize that none of these miracles and healings were forced on the people. The
people who benefited wanted those blessings. When people did not want Jesus in the
neighborhood doing miracles, He would honor their request and leave (Matthew 8: 334-
Matthew 9:1). So, it looks like one of the necessary ingredients to receiving from God is
that you have to want it.
Badmouthing healing or lying against Jesus is one way to keep from receiving healing.
This is what the Pharisees did. They were too proud to humble themselves to accept
that God was performing miracles through Jesus, so they said, Jesus was using
demonic powers! (Matthew 9: 34)
The healed people, on the other hand, showed they wanted Him to heal them. The sick
persons either asked Him directly, or someone in the place of spiritual/leadership
authority over that sick person came and asked Jesus for the favor. The leper asked to
be cleansed. The centurion came to Jesus to ask for healing for His servant. The
multitudes brought their sick from their homes to where Jesus was showing they
wanted them healed by Jesus. The paralytic in Matthew 9: 2-7, was brought to Jesus.
The woman with the issue of blood left her house, found Jesus, and did all she could to
touch Him. The ruler asked Jesus to raise his daughter back to life. The two blind men
asked Jesus to have mercy on them. The mute man was brought to Jesus by those who
were connected to Him.
Faith has a lot to do with receiving from God. Jesus would say, “Do you believe I can do
this?” And then He would say: “According to your faith, let it be done to you”. Someone’s
faith played a role. Faith in God is trust in who God is and what He is able to do.
(Hebrews 11:6). If you need money, you will likely go to your rich relative or friend. You
could go to your bank, because there are things that have caused you to believe that you
can withdraw money from your bank account or that your banker will loan you money.
You would probably not go to a homeless person on the street to ask them to give you
$2000. You probably would not have the faith for that. Sometimes, it is good for us to sit
and take into consideration the things that would build up our faith in God, and after we
come to the conclusion that God is able to do it, we have the faith for it, and we then ask
Him for it.
Faith is not a feeling. Faith is a heart decision. Faith is a determined, die-hard decision
based on the truth that God has provided the resource that you need, it is yours, and you
are taking ownership of it in a determined way. That determination can cause you to
make some statements expressing your faith. “For she said to herself, “If only I may
touch His garment, I shall be made well.”” Matthew 9: 21.
That decision may make you act mentally or emotionally feisty. This lady with the issue
of blood risked her life to come out looking for Jesus because she had faith in His
ability to heal her. Her mindset was like Esther’s “If I perish I perish” (Esther 4: 16). Or
like the lepers who went into the Syrian camp (2 Kings 7:3-4). Maybe she was thinking:
“If leaving home for this healing is going to be my death, so let it be, afterall, what I am
doing now is not life anyway. I am bankrupt, broke, anemic, weak, ostracized, and
without any hope. I am as good as dead anyway, so what’s new?” She had no fear. She
was determined. Exercising your faith to receive from God takes some spunk, some
feisty determination. If it does not bother you enough to cause spunk and feistiness to
rise up, it does not bother you.
I remember when I received healing for dry eyes in 2019. I had gotten upset at the
inconvenience, pain and cost of dealing with the dry eye. They had lasted over a decade.
I got feisty because I realized that it was the devil who was holding on to my wellness,
and causing me this grief. He needed to let go of what belonged to me. I was
determined that I was either healed or decidedly blind, but I was not going to put up with
those eye drops anymore.
After about 3 days without the eyedrops (which was a miracle in itself), Holy Spirit told
me what I was to do about it. Praise God, I have not had to use eye drops since the day I
made that feisty determination to stop. (check out our Testimony videos for the full
story)
Which brings up the next necessity: help from the Holy Spirit. If God has provided
everything we need for life, then all that is pending is me receiving it. If I do not know
how to receive it, I need Holy Spirit to help me take what is mine. And He is very willing
to oblige. So make sure you are baptized in the Holy Spirit because that helps you hear
Him better too. Holy Spirit will lead you to and point out to you, promises and scriptures
that apply to your situation. He helps you with clarity to see how that Scripture applies to
your situation, He tells you what to do practically etc.
Application: Sometimes, you may be good at receiving from God in a certain category
but not in another. Let us keep exercising our faith until we get rid of the sacred cows in
more and more categories.
