"...open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Psalm 81:10b
My job at West Point Military Academy is (as my wife will tell you) sometimes hard to define, but generally it falls under the category of management. I work for a contractor, which has its downsides when compared to working directly for the government, but one of the benefits in working for a good company is that they provide career advancement training, so when I have down time I take online courses working toward a Project Management Professional certification.
These courses often are geared toward the manufacture and marketing of a product (which has little to do with what I do or what I'm interested in), but often there are universal principles that are interesting and applicable to not only work but other things as well. Since I've started a Christian blog my antenna is always up for a spiritual application of a particular truth or phenomenon.
One of these principles that caught my attention while working on a course was the concept of what's called the "Kanban pull" in manufacturing. The concept was developed by the ever-efficient Japanese, at a time when the fledgling company Toyota was actually struggling in production when compared to American companies (imagine that!). A problem was surplus and waste due to overproduction, which led to re-thinking the process.
The concept they came up with was called "Kanban (literally meaning "sign", or "billboard") Pull", and it meant that materials would be "pulled" into the manufacturing stream only when the market (i.e., the "sign") demanded it. The organization as a result became very flexible and streamlined, and the results speak for themselves: Toyota and it's sister companies such as Subaru have become prime examples of efficiency in production.
If we look at this concept in electrical terms it would look like this: the power supply (wattage), or materials and labor, match the demand of the customer, or potential (voltage), resulting in a steady current flow, or high amperage (provided the conductor, or quality of labor and materials, is good, and there are no "resistors", or factors inhibiting flow).
Not to get “New Age-y”, but spiritual power is a lot like electricity. If we then transfer this idea of electricity to the spiritual realm, to start, who is the power source? God. It is safe to say that through him comes unlimited reservoirs of spiritual power. When Jesus walked the earth the Bible says God gave him the "Spirit without measure" (John 3:34). As we all know and study in the healing ministry, healings followed Jesus wherever he went. Why was this? Let us look again at our principles of electricity.
First of all, we established that God is the source of all (good) spiritual power, and that he gave that power to Jesus (without measure). But what caused that power to flow through Jesus? The first answer is the potential (Kanban pull), or in electrical terms voltage, created by the Messiah.
In the world of physics we know that nothing has more potential to be filled than an empty space, or a vacuum. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Phillipi tells us that Jesus emptied himself (Philippians 2:6-7), or laid aside any rights he had as the Son of God. By voluntarily doing this it created a huge potential for God the Father to flow through him. He caused the Kanban pull to be felt, drawing power to Him, and we are to be the same, emptying ourselves of our will so we can be filled with His. So this is one part of the equation.
The second part of the equation is the people receiving the healing touch.
I think of the woman with the issue of blood touching the fringe of Jesus' garment (Luke 8:43-48), which is such an appropriate picture encapsulating what healing is about. But how did the woman create potential, or pull, to lay hold of the power that Jesus was carrying?
The answer, in short, is desperation. She was at the end of her rope, done with doctors, done with everything else, and she had put "all her eggs in one basket" so to speak on that encounter with Jesus. Enormous potential energy! It must have been like a bolt of lightning when she touched that tassel!* In fact, the Bible tells about many who touched the fringes of Jesus' garment and were healed (cf. Matthew 14:36; Mark 6:56). (Interestingly, these tassels were the ones commanded by God to be worn at the four corners of garments in the book of Numbers, chapter 15 (Numbers 15:37-39), and were believed to be receptors of spiritual power. Just more confirmation of Jesus life as an observant Jew.)
Also, the word "touch" doesn't really convey the full meaning of the Greek: the word haptomai carries the meaning to fasten or to cling to something. These people caught hold of Jesus' power. If someone desires healing, often (but not always) they really have to want it. Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda, "do you want to be healed?" (John 5:6), which seems a strange question, but the pity party the man has (John 5:7) after Jesus asks the question gives some indication why he asked it. Some people deep down don't want to be healed! They've come to some agreement with their illness, accept it as part of who they are, and can even wear it as a badge of honor.
So when I'm praying with someone, if the Holy Spirit prompts me, I will sometimes ask the question, "Do you want to be healed?", usually prefacing it by saying "I know this may seem a strange question", or, "please don't be offended by this but..." The person has to want it to create the potential for power to flow. If the answer is "I don't know", or "I think so", healing may be hindered.
So we've covered potential, or voltage, but what about factors that affect current flow, or amperage, such as the quality of the conductor, and resistors, which slow current?
As for Jesus part in the equation, the answer is simple: he was the sinless Son of God. Since he did not sin, and the devil had no place in Him (John 14:30), there were no restrictions to the flow through him. Although obviously we are not the one Son of God, we are sons and daughters of the Almighty, and the Bible is clear that the Spirit of Jesus lives in us and can control us, and every characteristic of Jesus' earthy life can be ours as well. But we need to be living holy (or set-apart) lives, continually confessing sin, and renouncing any grip Satan has on our lives.
As believers, we should be aware that things such as un-confessed sin and longstanding agreements we have with the enemy can have a major effect on our healing. In fact, if I'm praying with someone I know to be a believer, if prompted by the Holy Spirit I will often delicately ask the question "is there any sin in your life you haven't confessed?" The answer to this question can mean the difference between healing and not healing.
As for unbelievers it's a whole different story. We are not to lay any of God's requirements on them before praying for healing. As in Jesus' day, healing is a free gift that is meant as a sign for people to come to God.
We often wonder why our churches and our meetings aren't filled with the manifest power of God shown to us in the New Testament. Some people may say it's not in God's timing, and there are of course those who go to the extreme and say that healings were only meant for the apostles (even though there have been countless miraculous healings in the name of Jesus since). Others blame church leadership, or even other church goers.
First of all let us be clear and settle in our hearts that the fault is not with God. All the power in the universe is in Him. The fault isn't with the world, because the need, or potential, is there. The fault lies with us. We have not yet become the vessels for God's power to flow through. We haven't cried out to him to send revival. We are not desperate enough. Our vessels aren't clean enough. We cling to sin and idolatry, yet still desire Him to move. He will not.
As I wrote this I want you and myself to feel convicted, not condemned. There is a "remnant" of Christians today who have not "bowed the knee to Baal"(Romans 11:4-5), have counted the cost, and long to see God's kingdom on earth. I want to encourage you that I see revival - real revival - starting here and other places, due to the faithfulness of a few. But we need to press in. Every revival in history has been preceded by a faithful few who would press in and cry out to God day and night. We need to get desperate if it's going to come about, to create that Kanban pull that will pull the heavens down to earth. Amen.
* Some of you may have experienced being "slain in the Spirit", that is, when you were prayed for you felt something like electricity run through you which caused you gently to fall to the ground. John Arnott, lead pastor of the Toronto revival, when responding to skeptics of this phenomenon said something to the effect of "when the power of the God of the universe is flowing through your body we should be surprised that's all that happens!"
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