Hop on It!

One lesson I’ve learned the hard way is that the first symptom is the time to “hop on” a sickness, extend your faith and get rid of it.  It’s easier to get rid of a cold at the first scratch in your throat than to wait until you get home from work and then realize you’re completely miserable.

Here is the principle.  Sin and sickness are both works of the devil.  We are to resist the devil, not just let him mess with us and get around to dealing with his works later when it’s more convenient.  We should be just as quick to put a stop to sickness as we are to put a stop to temptation to sin.  What would you do if you were at work and the devil whispered, “Why don’t you sneak peeks at that new administrative assistant all you can – you know she’s prettier than your wife, and who’ll know you’re looking anyway if you’re discreet about it?”  I would hope your response would be, “It is written – I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman!”  (If not, I feel sorry for you and even sorrier for your wife.)  Many fine, upstanding, moral believers would not tolerate sinful thoughts like that for a second, because Job 31:1 would immediately come to mind.  Yet so many of us put up with thoughts like, “Oh, no, that scratchy throat – here we go, I’ll be sick for two weeks just like that lady who sneezed next to me in the elevator yesterday” without resisting them and casting them down as vain imaginations.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) – both sin AND sickness.  We should want them destroyed in our lives and be just as passionately against the works of darkness as Jesus is.  However, WE are told to give no place (opportunity) to the devil (Ephesians 4:27).  So it is not up to GOD to do something about the devil and his works – He already did something!  It is up to us to enforce our victory.  If we just lie down or neglect things, Satan’s will gets done instead of God’s will.  Jesus REBUKED illness just as He REBUKED demons.  He hates illness because He loves people.  He hates what sickness does to them.   You should share His intense hatred of Satan’s works.  If sickness rears its ugly head, hop on it immediately!

The most drastic case of NOT hopping on it that I’ve encountered personally was a cancer-ridden woman who said that she would not start believing she was healed until the last minute when all hope seemed to be gone, and then it would be such a miracle that it would blow the county wide open for the gospel.  I tried to dissuade her, but to no avail – she just had this spiritually proud idea in her head.  Well, the cancer progressed until she was in no condition to do much of anything or even know what was going on around her.   She went home to be with Jesus.  She did the opposite of “hopping on it.”  Don’t make that mistake!  I for one would rather stay healthy by dealing with things right away rather than letting the devil have his way for a while before I do anything about his works.