in WHATEVER city you enter, heal THE SICK who are there (Luke 10)

could God's Word be CLEARER and yet God's people in general be more UNCLEAR than the commission to heal the sick as Christians (meaning "Little Christs/Anointed Ones).

Jesus sends the UNNAMED 70 in Luke chapter 10 with the commission to bring the Kingdom:

Where? in WHATEVER city you enter.

To do what?  To heal THE SICK who are there.  How many of the sick?  THE SICK.  In what cities, WHATEVER cities.  And what if the people don't have faith?  Jesus didn't mention that as being a barrier - so nor should we.  Our faith/expectation might be a barrier, but we aren't ever to put that on the people we are praying for.

Is this being preached/emphasized in your Church?  Is this the way your pastor is admonishing you to live every day.

I'm not trying to be negative - it's not entirely his/her fault.  He didn't go to a Church that taught or expected that Jesus meant what He said on this occasion for us today.  It hasn't been his personal experience either.

So we come up with elaborate theological excuses.  Here are a few you might have heard:

• "That was THEN; it's not for us today.  We "aren't the 70".  
• "Miracles were needed before there was a Bible"
• "It might not be the Father's timing for healing"
• "It isn't always God's will to heal"
• "God is trying to teach us things through sickness which is why people aren't healed"
• "What about Job?"
• "There's the now and the not yet"
• "God's sovereign and in control"
• "We'll all be healed perfectly in heaven"
• "God's ways are not our ways"
• "I guess God just wanted that child to come home early"

(Note: some of these are truths that are used in a perverted way so that they become "excuses" for why something like healing doesn't happen)

Funny, that you can't find Jesus ONCE using these excuses to explain away why someone doesn't get healed during His ministry.  He didn't EVER pull out one of these excuses that pastors, Bible teachers and theologians recirculate today again and again.  I might not have put the version of the excuses you've heard in exactly the same words, but I'll guarantee that they are essentially a version of one of these!

Let's just own up to the fact that we've allowed our experience to trump the teaching of God's Word.  We've found verses that "appear" to support our experience and we find comfort remaining in our conditions of profound unbelief.

Maybe we need to dust off our Bibles once again, re-read some familiar stories and dare to believe them to be true.  Dare to believe that Jesus might have been right and a pastor/teacher/theologian today is wrong.  I know I am speaking direct, but the fact is we need to be awoken from our slumber.   We need to have the cold water of God's Word thrown on us afresh each day and respond, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief".