25 And in answer to his prayer, the Lord made him see a tree, and when he put it into the

water, the water was made sweet. There he gave them a law and an order, testing them; 26 And he said, If with all your heart you will give attention to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his eyes, giving ear to his orders and keeping his laws, I will not put on you any of the diseases which I put on the Egyptians: for I am the Lord your life-giver. 27 And they came to Elim where there were twelve water-springs and seventy palmtrees: and they put up their tents there by the waters. What do we think about when we think of God as healer? For some preachers the idea is to think that we should never be sick. For others it is that we should not take medicine. But is that what scripture really says? Often we look at one verse or a combination of verses and make them fit an idea. That makes for good philosophy but not good study of Gods word. We cannot always be healthy and the scripture here does not refer to normal sickness. Let us look at the ideas we find in these verses. First we must remember that Israel had just escaped from Egypt and the plagues they had endured. When Moses went before pharaoh he caused many sicknesses to come over the land. Israel was protected but because they were slaves endured the anger of the Pharaoh. The people escaped and complained continuously because they had different expectations than God. Isnt this what we do today? We love God when things go well. When we are healthy. When our business is booming. But when it all falls apart we start questioning Gods wisdom. When we lose our health or business God is not the guy we think He is. In this scripture as in all of scripture we find that God says the same thing. Keep focused on me. Worship me and only me. Be different than all the others because I am a different God. I have found many Christians in Korea still go to the Mudang. They do it in secret because they still do not trust the Christian God. I have Christian friends who think Harry Potter is just a fun idea. Though there are many things that are fun when it comes to spiritual things there is no fun and games. God is serious and we need to take our spirituality seriously.

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