S2E12 — You do not lack faith (Word of Faith series, part 3)
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The following is a transcript of a video I made for YouTube.
Opening: Welcome to another episode of “Almost Ordained.” I am your host, David, the guy who graduated seminary but never got ordained.
In my last episode called “Depression and the Word of Faith,” I talked about what it was like to be involved in the Word of Faith movement while also living with undiagnosed clinical depression. I got emotional at the end. While I might want to edit that out, I’ve told you before, I have no budget. Therefore, there is no editing.
I talked about how at times it seemed my relationship with Jesus was closer than I ever imagined it could be. But that wasn’t always a blessing. At times it felt more like an abusive relationship where I could never do enough or believe strongly enough to where God was not disappointed or angry with me. And I put up with that, because on some level I thought I deserved it. My prayers weren’t getting answered, and in that belief system, that means you lack faith. You don’t believe the Bible. You don’t believe God’s word that promises healing to you. You believe the lies of the devil, that you are sick. You believe your symptoms over God’s promises. And what could be worse for a Christian than to believe the Devil more than you believe God?
1:47 Healing for the trauma
It took years to see through the lies of that belief system, and years more to understand that just because they are quoting scripture doesn’t mean they are speaking the Word of God. And years more to get over the PTSD that resulted from it. And my response in that last video reminded me that that whole experience still haunts me.
I’ve said before, and I think I’ll say it 1,000 times if the Lord lets me live that long. The Bible is only the Word of God when it is rightly read, rightly interpreted, and rightly applied. And rightly doing all that begins with three things: Context, context and context. When they read all these so-called promises to you and me as individual believers into the Bible, they are taking it out of context.
When you read the Bible in context, there’s only two promises we can claim as individual…
