CLAIMING PROMISES

I so appreciate how the Lord keeps directing me to study examples in Scripture that give weight and voice to my choice to believe I will be healed.

Today, the setting is the area around Jericho (in the fifth and sixth chapters of Joshua), a walled city, where few left or came in because it says the citizens all feared the Israelites. Joshua, Israel’s leader, sees a man with a drawn sword. He learns that the man is a commander of the army of the Lord. Joshua asks him, “What message does my Lord have for His servant?”

It is not certain whether the Lord spoke audibly to Joshua, or spoke through His representative, but the chapter goes on:

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men.” (6:2)

God did not say I WILL deliver the city to you, but I HAVE delivered it. The victory was already theirs. They had only to claim it. Was Joshua thinking, how could this possibly happen? There was not one indication that this “impossible” scenario could take place.

The chapter goes on with the Lord instructing Joshua as to the logistics…..most of us know what the people were told to do. March around the city for 7 days and on the 7th day with a trumpet blast and a loud shout, the walls would crumble before their eyes. So Joshua, with the eye of faith fortifying him, called his people together and told them all of God’s instructions. I imagine many eyeballs were raised. This, after all, was the same clan who had wandered in the desert for 40 years because of their continued disobedience and disbelief in the Lord’s promises and provisions.

But to their credit, they complied with their leader’s orders, and for the next 6 days, they silently marched around the city with the Ark of the Covenant one time, and then returned at night to their camp. On the seventh day, they marched around Jericho’s fortressed walls seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city." (6:16) Once again, God reminds us that He had given the victory long before. All they had to do was claim it.

The wall collapsed and Israel charged into the city and took it.

The shout. That shout of unwavering faith. The shout that brought the victory from God’s lips to reality. Finally, the Israelites dared to take God at His word and believe it without doubt. It was faith that saw absolutely no possible way to have the promise fulfilled, but believed anyway. So simple. Believe God when He promises something. Let faith be an outgrowth of that belief. The nation of Israel finally did just that.

Stage 4 lung cancer is my wall. But after a year of intense studying about divine healing and finding so many Scriptural truths that point me to unwavering faith that it is happening, I believe my walls will fall. I have given my shout of faith, believe God is who He says He is, my Healer, and have total confidence that His promises never go unfulfilled (Psalm 146:6, 2 Cor 1:2). Joshua knew God’s word was truth, believed it, and acted on it in faith. I choose to do the same.

PET scans and CT scans show tumors. Everything I now know about healing tells me that those tumor walls will fall down, in God’s time. And there my mind, heart, and soul will rest in steadfast faith.