Category Archives: christian soteriology

The Jesus Flex Or The Spirit Flex?

Jesus chose the Spirit’s flex. And so we will do the same.

I saw this not so harmless comment today. We will learn again that you can never attack the Spirit and come out innocent.

“There is an aberrant teaching gaining traction in the Christian world that states that when Jesus lived on the earth two thousand years ago he did not perform miracles by his divine nature but as a mere man through the power of the Holy Spirit. And since he could do this, so can all of His followers. It is stated that we can follow Jesus as our example (true), including we can all raise people from the dead (but this is false, from any view of spiritual gifts – continuationist, restorationist, or cessationist).”

If I choose not to flex my arm, I don’t stop being a human being.

It’s glaringly obvious from the pages themselves that Jesus didn’t flip a switch between “God-mode” and “man-mode” like some cosmic light switch. He was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), lived as the perfect man under it, and powered His whole ministry by the Holy Spirit. Check the deduction right from His own mouth: “If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). That’s not a one-off; it’s the package deal for His entire gig. Peter spells it out in Acts 10:38: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and… he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” And Jesus Himself ties it back: the Spirit empowers the whole show (Luke 4:14, 18). He did not toggle off the God-mode or human-mode when, He crashed in bed to sleep, or when He cast out demons: no, He stayed consistent as the God-man submitted to the law, not because He lost a drop of deity, but because He chose to model the human life we’re called to copy. Jesus made a choice not to flex His right arm.

Now, the deity part? He never clocked out of being God. Philippians 2:6-7 lays it out deductively: He was “in very nature God” but “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.” Me choosing not to flex my right arm doesn’t make me non-human. Jesus not choosing to flex His arm in ministry, but instead allowing the Spirit to flex His arm, doesn’t make Jesus less God. He retained full God-ness (John 1:1,14; Colossians 2:9 says the fullness of deity lives in Him bodily), but operated under the law as our example.

The quote concedes that we “follow Jesus as our example” part. So far, so good; we follow Jesus even being baptised in the same Spirit-filled power. Then they pivot to “but you still can’t raise the dead and have healing on demand” by claiming to have the same Spirit empowered ministry Jesus’ had. Their sneaky move. Jesus was mainly flexing His own biceps in ministry. Thus, “if Jesus was mostly flexing His own divine power the whole time, then even if we’re filled with the Spirit exactly like He was, we still don’t get the same miracle menu, the same certainty for miracles—because His real horsepower was the Jesus-arm curl, not the Spirit’s flex.” Sounds clever on the surface, right? But watch how the Bible’s own logic torches it.

First, even if we grant their “mostly Jesus power” claim for the sake of argument (which the text doesn’t actually say—Matthew 12:28, Acts 10:38, and Luke 4:14,18 all tie His whole ministry package to the Spirit), it still changes nothing about what we can do. Why? Because Jesus’ extreme faith doctrine stands completely independent of that debate. It’s not riding shotgun on the “Spirit empowerment vs. divine flex” argument—it’s a separate, rock-solid command for every believer. He flat-out says:

– “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed… nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) 

– “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things…” (John 14:12) 

– “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt… it will be done for them.” (Mark 11:23)

That’s not “if the Spirit gives you the resurrection gift” or “only when you’re flexing like I sometimes did.” It’s “pray in faith, speak the command, and receive it.” The faith doctrine is always in play, always available, always normal discipleship. So their whole attack on the Spirit’s role? Pointless detour. It doesn’t touch the mountain-moving, dead-raising promise Jesus handed us directly. Even on their own terms, we still get the goods through faith. Game over.

When they downgrade the Spirit’s role in Jesus’ miracles like this, they’re tiptoeing on the line Jesus drew in Mark 3:28-30. He warned that attributing the clear works of the Holy Spirit to something else (or in this case, minimizing them) is the one thing that doesn’t get forgiven—because it insults the very power that proves the kingdom has arrived. The text doesn’t play games here: the Spirit empowered Jesus’ entire show (Peter says so in Acts 10:38, Jesus confirms it in Matthew 12:28). Trying to push the Spirit into the background so Jesus can flex His right arm in His earthly ministry? That Spirit’s blasphemy warning 101.

Their attack is a logical swing-and-miss on two fronts: (1) it ignores the faith doctrine that makes miracles our everyday expectation anyway, and (2) it risks the exact Spirit-dishonoring trap Jesus flagged. The Bible keeps it simple and extreme: Jesus modeled Spirit-fueled, faith-speaking life under the law (without ever clocking out of being God), then said “you do the same—and even bigger.” No fine print, no “mostly divine flex” loophole. That’s the deductive flow straight from the text.

And here’s the final point: the critic always shoots too low. This is the default posture of the faithless. Because they don’t truly believe in God’s promises or the gospel, they limit God—and in doing so, they limit themselves. The gospel says aim for the stars, but they aim for the dirt. They end up hitting the dirt and then high-five each other for their incredible accuracy. Yet they aim too low in every area of life—including when they take shots at their opponents. They fire at the dirt a few feet in front of the target and call it a bullseye.

They imply our goal is to be like Jesus. But our calling is more than Jesus. Jesus Himself said we would do greater works than He did. The doctrine of faith, combined with the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gave us, means we’re equipped to do greater things than He did while on earth. Jesus promised more miracles—not fewer.

Head Held High

Maturity is not the nervous waiter routine some Christians keep pulling at the cosmic buffet—scraping together a few spiritual tips, hoping the Father will notice their effort and toss them a crumb. Nah. Maturity is you, the full-blown son, leaning back in the seat of adoption and letting the endless, jaw-dropping blessings roll in like waves that never quit. The Spirit is no vague vibe floating around; He is the insider, searching the deep things of God and shouting straight into your soul, “Hey kid, this feast is already yours—dig in!” (1 Corinthians 2:6-12). The gospel was predestined for your glory, not your groveling. Paul spells it out: we have received the Spirit who is from God so that we may understand what God has freely given us. Freely. No strings, no performance review, no cosmic rent due. Just pure, ridiculous generosity from the One whose unmerited favor supplies man—man does not supply God.

Picture the prodigal again, but this time do not stop the story where most do. The kid drags himself out of the pig pen, stench still clinging to his rags, ready to beg for servant status. “Father, I have sinned… treat me as one of your hired hands.” That is the low-faith script most believers keep rehearsing. But real maturity? That is when the Father’s Spirit pumps iron in your soul so you do not limp home begging scraps. You stand tall, eyes locked on the One who ran to meet you while you were still a long way off. He slides the signet ring onto your finger—full authority, baby. He drapes the best robe over your shoulders—righteousness that screams, “I belong here, and the blood of the Lamb made sure of it.” He buckles the sandals on your feet so you walk like royalty, not crawl like a hired hand. Then you march straight into the house, head high, grin wider than the banquet table, because you are not a guest. You are the son. You are the prince. The party is for you.

This is the heartbeat of the gospel. The Father does not negotiate a probation period. He does not say, “Earn the robe first.” He restores identity on the spot because that is what the contract always promised: I am your exceedingly great reward. You are the promises of God. The same love the Father has for Jesus, He pours out on His elect without measure. We are co-heirs with Christ, clean, righteous, empowered with the same Spirit of power and ministry that Jesus had through the baptism of the Spirit. All things are ours. The past and the future are ours. We judge the world and angels. We inherit the world. We boldly approach the throne of Almighty God as sons, princes of heaven, to ask and receive. Financial prosperity and healing belong to the same faith that receives forgiveness—because the gospel is total salvation or it is no gospel at all.

Some still tiptoe around like they owe the King rent. They treat maturity as a spiritual gym membership where they sweat out enough good works to qualify for blessings. It denies the unmerited favor of the gospel that supplies everything. It treats the cross like a down payment and your effort like the rest of the mortgage. Stop it. The Spirit who searches the deep things of God does not hand you a to-do list; He hands you the finished work and says, “Understand what has been freely given.” Faith is mental assent to God’s word, full stop. Emotions are not epistemology. Works are not grace. When you live by feelings or performance, you are being disobedient and irrational at the same time.

Look at the ring again. That signet is authority. The robe is righteousness. The sandals are the walk of a son who knows his Father is not keeping score. The fatted calf is already on the spit, and the Father is not waiting for you to earn the barbecue sauce. He is running toward you with arms wide, robe flapping, ring ready, because the gospel was predestined for your glory. Paul says the wisdom of God is hidden in a mystery, but God revealed it to us by His Spirit. The world’s wisest philosophers could not dream this up. Human wisdom never gets you there because its limits are bound by observation. Our measure are the promises of God, not empiricism. Only the Spirit who knows the mind of God can shout the good news into your heart: you are not a servant eating pig slop. You are the son.

This is where faith to move mountains becomes everyday reality, not a special-occasion trick. The same faith that receives healing receives prosperity, receives authority, receives joy that the world cannot manufacture. By faith you save yourself from double mindedness. By faith reality obeys you because the Sovereign God who upholds all things has placed His word in your mouth. You do not scrape together faith by human effort; you assent to what is already true. The promises are not waiting for your perfection—they are waiting for your confession. You are the promises of God. Test yourself: are you walking in your new identity? Do you approach the throne like a nervous waiter or like a prince who knows the King delights to give the kingdom? The answer is not in your feelings; it is faith in your confession.

Heaven throws better parties than any pig-pen after-party ever could: the Father is not keeping score. And if He is keeping score it is keeping score on the righteous score sheet given to you through Jesus.  He is popping the champagne while you are still rehearsing your apology speech. Maturity looks like you receiving the ring, the robe, the sandals, and then throwing your head back and laughing with the joy that only sons know. You belong at this table.

Some will read this and feel a twitch of resistance—old religious programming whispering that you must earn the seat. That is the servant mentality trying to sneak back in through the side door. Kick it out. God’s Word is our theology, our doxology, and our apologetic. It attacks the central weakness of every defective view: the lie that man supplies God. We do not. He supplies us. The same unstoppable power that created the world out of nothing now creates fresh confidence in your heart on the occasion of His word, separate from anything you feel, observe or achieve. That is occasionalism at work in the life of faith—God directly causing the knowledge and the assent, every time.

So head held high, son. The Father is already running. The robe is draped. The ring is on. The banquet is served. Stop acting like you are still mucking out the pig pen when the banquet hall is calling your name. The Spirit has searched the deep things and handed you the menu: everything is yours in Christ. Understand what God has freely given you. Receive it. Confess it. Live it. The party is for you, and the Father is grinning wider than the table because His son is finally home—head held high, heart full, future exploding with glory.

This is maturity. This is the gospel. This is you.

Stay At the Foot Of The Cross

To stay at the foot of the cross is to functionally deny the Resurrection and the Ascension. “Gospel-centered” movements? Come on—they’re straight-up theological gaslighting dressed in pious robes. They use shiny Christian lingo to trap believers in spiritual poverty and powerlessness, like it’s some noble virtue. The “Gospel” isn’t a dusty historical biography of a dead man hanging on a tree. It’s the current, active decree of an enthroned King who’s very much alive and ruling right now. A theology that fixates on the bloody mess of Calvary while ignoring the present “occupied throne” is nothing more than a dead man’s religion. It’s like showing up to the victory party and obsessing over the scar from the battle that was already won—comical, if it weren’t so tragic.

Scripture never leaves us stranded at the cross. The doorway of the gospel is of first importance, because you cannot enter the King’s house and dine at His table without the doorway, but it is not the whole house and it is not the table. Jesus is not on the cross. He is sitting at the throne; He is seated at the table and has given us good things there. To receive you must meet His eyes at the throne, or that is, at the table and partake. You cannot have a relationship with Jesus on the cross because He is not there. How more obvious can that be. He is presently at the throne, and the throne is part of the gospel: without it there is no gospel. The gospel is you presently engaging Jesus on the throne, walking boldly to Him on the throne as your daily fellowship with Him. Without this you have no gospel and you mock the crucifixion of Jesus as ineffective. The gospel is a packaged deal; it is both the finished cross and the present ruling Jesus on the throne pouring out the Spirit’s power and answered prayers.  

The New Testament writers were obsessed with the throne, because the throne passage was their number one quoted O.T. passage, not the tomb. Cross-centered? That’s the entry door for newbies. Throne-centered? That’s full armor—advancing the Kingdom with miracles, healings, and unshakeable faith. Jesus isn’t still bleeding on a hill. He’s seated, victorious, and inviting you to rule with Him. Stop camping at the cross and start reigning from the throne. To stay at the cross is a dead man’s religion and a zombie theology. The King is alive. You cannot talk to a corpse, but Jesus is on the throne.

If Christ is enthroned and we are “seated with Him” (Ephesians 2:6), then the benefits of the atonement—including physical healing and material provision—aren’t optional extras or “maybe someday” blessings. They are your legal rights as a co-heir, paid for in full. Jesus became sin so you could become righteousness. He became a curse so you could walk in blessing. He bore your sicknesses so you could walk in divine health. He became poor so you could be rich. That’s  Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 3:13-14, and 2 Corinthians 8:9 screaming at us from the page. The cross-centered crowd loves to weaponize the suffering of Calvary as a shield to protect unbelief. By obsessing over the bloody tree they explain away zero miracles, unanswered prayers, and powerless Christianity as “God’s sovereign will to suffer.” Doctrine of demons, plain and simple. It’s a sophisticated way to remain an atheist while still using Christian vocabulary—trading the tangible power of the living Christ for historical sentimentality and a permanent pity party.

Look at the exchange the Father made in the atonement and you will see why the throne must be our center. Isaiah 53 does not stop at forgiveness of sins; it explicitly includes healing in the same breath: “He took up our pain and bore our suffering… by his wounds we are healed.” It is quote in Matthew 8 as referring to physical healing not spiritual. Paul picks up the identical logic in the New Testament and applies it without hesitation. “He who did not spare his own Son… will he not also graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). All things. Not some things. Not spiritual things only. The full package was purchased at the cross so it could be released from the throne. Jesus became poor so that through his poverty we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He redeemed us from the curse of the law so that the blessing of Abraham—blessing in every area—might come on us (Galatians 3:13-14). To camp at the cross and call that “deep theology” is to rip the completion and effectiveness out of the gospel and then wonder why the power is missing. The resurrection proves the payment was accepted. The ascension proves the payment is now being disbursed from the right hand of Majesty. The throne is where the King sits and hands out the spoils of victory to His co-heirs.

The Lord’s Supper itself presupposes we are throne-centered. Jesus instituted it after the resurrection, not before. He broke the bread and poured the cup as the risen Lord, then told us to remember Him this way until He comes. The table is not at the foot of the cross; the table is spread in the presence of the enthroned King. You do not crawl to the table on your knees begging for crumbs while staring at a corpse. You sit down as a son, look the King in the eye, and partake of the finished work. The doorway (the cross) got you in, but the table is where relationship and provision happen. To keep your eyes glued to the doorway while the King is calling you to the table is spiritual insanity. It is like refusing to leave the foyer of a mansion because you are emotionally attached to the front door. That’s not merely immaturity, it is a slap in the face to the host.

This is why the New Testament writers could not stop talking about the throne. Hebrews spends chapter after chapter showing Jesus as the great high priest who has passed through the heavens and sat down at the right hand of God. Paul tells the Ephesians that God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms so that we might display the incomparable riches of His grace. The same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him far above every rule and authority is now at work in us who believe (Ephesians 1:19-23). That power is power for here and now. It is the same Spirit that raised Jesus, the same Spirit that healed the sick through the early church, the same Spirit that is available right now to every believer who will believe. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is mental assent to what God has already said and already done. When you assent to the throne reality, you receive the benefits the throne releases.

Cross-fixation is vile precisely because it turns the greatest victory in history into an excuse for defeat. It takes the blood that purchased total salvation and uses it to justify half-salvation. It takes the empty tomb and pretends the tomb is still occupied. It takes the ascension and acts as though Jesus is still hanging in the air. Such theology does not honor the cross; it dishonors the One who left the cross. The cross was the doorway. The resurrection was the victory parade. The ascension was the coronation. The throne is the present reality. To live anywhere else is to live in functional denial of the gospel.

So stop the pity party at the foot of the cross. The King is alive. The table is spread. The benefits are yours by legal right. Healing is received by the same faith that received forgiveness. Provision is received by the same faith. Every promise of the new contract is received by the same faith. Do not limit God. Believe what He has already declared from the throne, confess it with your mouth, and watch reality obey the word of the King who sits there. The gospel is not a dead man’s religion. It is the power of an endless life flowing from an occupied throne. And for those who have received the free gift Jesus’ righteousness and unmerited favor, here and now, they also reign in life with Him from the position at the right hand of the Power.

The First Importance Of The Gospel

Some folks out there still treat 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 2:2 like a pair of spiritual brass knuckles, swinging them at anyone who dares point out that a lopsided “cross-centered” slogan has been twisted into an excuse for unbelief and disobedience. They read Paul’s words about the message of the cross being foolishness to the perishing and decide that any critique of a so-called cross-centered gospel must mean the critic is perishing too. They quote Paul’s resolve to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified, then act as if that single phrase cancels out the rest of the apostolic deposit. It doesn’t. It never did. The cross is glorious, but when the faithless use the doorway of the gospel to bludgeon gospel into a blood heap, they have become Satan’s little helpers.

Scripture never hands us a minimalist gospel; that’s the devil’s job. God’s revelation is the sole starting point for knowledge, and that revelation is a seamless, non-contradictory system. Paul did not preach a bare fact of crucifixion and then stop. The faithless love a bisected gospel because it reduces the one thing they can’t do, faith. They can’t believe Jesus and they will do all they can to make sure you follow them in their perversions. Paul preached the whole counsel that centers on Christ crucified precisely because that message, understood in its full biblical context, is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). To rip the phrase out of that context and wave it like a stop sign against systematic theology, apologetics, sovereign election, miraculous gifts, or the present authority of the risen Christ is not faithfulness; it is the very anti-intellectual distortion the apostle confronted. The same Paul who said he knew nothing but Christ and him crucified went on to write thirteen chapters of dense doctrine, ethics, and correction to those same Corinthians. He reasoned, disputed, and taught the entire worldview that flows from the cross and resurrection. Anything less is not the gospel Paul preached; it is a counterfeit that leaves people sick, defeated, and emotionally broken while boasting that “this is the power of the cross.” That is not power. That is unbelief dressed up in Calvary language.

Vincent Cheung nailed this exact abuse years ago, and his words still cut through the fog better than most modern pulpits ever will. In “The Proof of the Spirit” (December 26, 2008) he wrote:

“The entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 2 has been distorted by many anti-intellectual commentators. For example, Paul says in verse 2, ‘For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ … The statement … refers to the gospel’s contrast against non-Christian thinking, and not an anti-intellectual strategy of evangelism.”

He said it again in “Remember Jesus Christ” (November 16, 2009):

 “Many people, especially those with an anti-intellectual bias, interpret this to mean that Paul did not preach an entire body of biblical doctrines, and that he was not interested in theology or in intellectual arguments, but that he only preached the ‘gospel.’ … such usage misrepresents what the New Testament means by ‘gospel.’ … although he uses ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’ as an expression that embraced all that he preached to the Corinthians … this is only a representation (not even a summary) of what he preached, when what he preached was doctrinally much more extensive than the bare expression can convey in itself.”

And in “Theology of the Throne” (November 23, 2025) he drove the point home with surgical precision:

“If the cross becomes the sole reference point, Christianity risks degenerating into perpetual guilt and weakness, as if believers must linger forever at the site of sacrifice without grasping the triumph that followed. … We are not standing at the foot of the cross as if history had stopped there, nor are we waiting outside the empty tomb as if resurrection were the end. … A theology of the throne guards against distortions that arise from an incomplete focus.”

The same abuse shows up when people grab 1 Corinthians 15 and twist Paul’s phrase “of first importance” into another excuse to camp out at the doorway instead of walking through it. Paul opens that chapter by saying, “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you… For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:1, 3-4). The atonement and the resurrection are indeed first in importance—the doorway, the entrance, the non-negotiable foundation that gets you inside the house of God’s. But the doorway is not the dining room. The doorway is not where you sit down at the table and feast with the King. You do not build your whole life in the foyer, staring at the hinges while the banquet hall echoes with joy and power and promises kept. Paul goes on in that same chapter to thunder about the bodily resurrection, the defeat of death, the sovereignty of Christ, and the certainty that “God may be all in all” (15:28). He is not handing us a slogan to linger at Calvary or the empty tomb forever; he is flinging wide the door so we can enter the gospel, which includes the present throne life, Spirit baptism, healing by faith, mountains moved, and every promise made good in Christ.

The Lord’s Supper itself proves the point with blunt apostolic logic. Jesus commanded, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24-25). If we were meant to stay perpetually cross-centered, locked in endless sin consciousness and weakness at the foot of the cross, then commanding a repeated supper that looks back while we press forward would make zero sense. The table presupposes we have already walked through the doorway. It calls us to remember the price paid so we can enjoy the victory won. It is a feast of triumph, not a funeral dirge. To treat the cross or the resurrection as the entire meal is to turn the Lord’s Supper into a self-flogging session that the apostle never authorized. That is not biblical piety; that is a unbelief that robs the gospel of its forward momentum and leaves believers spiritually malnourished in the foyer while the King waits at the head of the table.

Vincent Cheung saw this coming and warned against it with the same clarity he brought to the cross-centered slogan. The full gospel is never a truncated one; it is the doorway that opens onto the throne room. Anything that stops short of that full-orbed revelation—election, resurrection power today, miracle gifts, sovereign lordship over every thought and every sickness—is not protecting the gospel; it is shrinking it into something the faithless can do by human effort.

If you find yourself reaching for 1 Corinthians 2:2 or 15:3-4 every time someone says the atonement and resurrection are the entrance, not the whole house, stop. You are not defending the gospel; you are defending a half-gospel that leaves people sick, broke, and powerless while boasting that “this is the power of the cross and empty tomb.” And when they die before their time, their blood is stained on your hands. The real cross and resurrection say, “By His stripes you were healed” (1 Pet 2:24) and “All things are possible for the one who believes” (Mark 9:23). They fling open the door to the throne where we boldly approach and ask and receive. Anything that stops short of that is not the power of God; it is the power of unbelief sugar-coated with spiritual-sounding phrases.

The throne is where the story ends, not the cross or the tomb. Stop lingering at the doorway like it is the finish line. Get up, believe the full revelation, walk through, and sit down at the table with the King. That is where Jesus is. And that is the only way the cross and resurrection stay anything but empty in your life.

Your Fame is the Gospel’s Priority 

One of the major things God promised Abraham was to make “his” name great—not just to hype His own fame (though Abraham’s elevation would glorify God too). “I will make your name great,” the Lord straight-up declared (Genesis 12:2). Boom. Direct promise. No footnotes, no fine print about waiting until heaven. Right there in the covenant, God hands Abraham a destiny of renown that the world would notice. 

Through the Gospel of Jesus Christ—who took our curse upon Himself and redeemed us from it (Galatians 3:13)—we’ve inherited that exact same Abraham package! Christ became our curse, as a substitute, to give us the gospel of Abraham. The full Gospel isn’t just forgiveness of sins (which is more technically the doorway to the gospel); it includes God making “your” name famous on the earth. Fame, favor, and footprint are baked into the blessing of Abraham we now own by faith. In Systematic Theology 2025 I lay this out plainly: the Abrahamic blessings convey much health, prosperity, and favor—tangible, visible realities that display God’s power through the lives of His elect. You don’t get the half-gospel of sin-forgiveness alone and call it complete. The Spirit and miracles were part of the promise preached to Abraham (Galatians 3:14), and that promise lands squarely on us who believe. 

Dying unknown, in total obscurity and absurdity? That’s no holy humility badge—that’s a curse straight out of Satan’s playbook. It’s the ministry of his dark priesthood, the thief who comes to steal your fame, rob your health and wealth, kill your destiny, and destroy your impact (John 10:10). He loves keeping you small so the world never sees the Royal Priesthood in you. Let’s be honest: some folks wear “I’m just a nobody” like a merit badge, but the Bible never calls obscurity a virtue. It calls it defeat. Satan’s strategy is simple—keep the heirs of Abraham hidden so the nations never see what the living God can do through flesh-and-blood people. 

As Vincent Cheung points out in Our Prosperity in God’s Program, “Receive things from God for your own benefit. If it stops there, God is honored because he has blessed one person. You can then consciously participate in the expansion of the kingdom of God. However, even if you do not concern yourself with the situation any further, you will naturally further God’s program. He will take this and increase the effect to benefit more people and to magnify himself with it. Just by receiving from God for yourself, more and more, again and again, you will do more for God than the counterfeit Christians who seem to suffer much for their religion, but who refuse to receive from God and forbid others to receive. They hinder the gospel and bring shame to the name of Jesus.”

Even if we were only focused on our own fame, by faith in Jesus, it will always have indirect effects in magnifying God’s kingdom. Thus, it is good to seek the fame God promised in Abraham’s gospel, when it is given to us in Jesus’ gospel. The gospel preached to Abraham was about his fame, his wealth, his health and him being highly favored in all he did, and not God’s. The gospel has many aspects about it that are concerned with your fame and increase, not God’s. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:7, the gospel was predestined for your glory. Because we deny pantheism, thus, directly referring to these aspects of the gospel that help, increase and bless the elect, the gospel is for our glory not God’s. Now of course God has designed it so that our glory and increase ultimately glorifies God. But the point remains. The gospel makes you famous. This is gospel. Without it you don’t have the gospel. 

Once you are walking in faith, health, wealth, answered prayers and miracles, you will find you stop thinking about yourself, because you are doing so well, and all fear and stress to climb up are gone, and this freedom will lead you to show compassion and help others. Seeing your own heart’s desires come into reality will help and free you to say, “God you have blessed me so much, I want to more directly focus on expanding your Kingdom against the remaining darkness. How can I help?” The point is simple. Simply by receiving the good things promised, such as health and wealth, you expand God’s kingdom. Anything done in faith, no matter what it is, establishes God’s kingdom more and more. On this point alone, receiving miracle health and miracle money for yourself still establishes God’s kingdom. 

By seeking your own fame and increase in faith, you directly bless yourself, your family and friends. This is why I remind us: How little the faithless value the Gospel and God Himself. They think so small of themselves and then force the promises of God through the tiny pinhole of their limited self-view. But newsflash—you are “not” the measurer of reality. God and His promises are! 

We must measure our ability and destiny by God’s Word and our new identity in Christ Jesus: Abraham’s seed, co-heirs with the King, destined for greatness. God will boast about you. Publicly. He doesn’t whisper your victories in secret; He puts them on display so the nations tremble and the devil flees. Stop playing small, saints. Let the Father boast about you. Step boldly into the fame He promised and make some divine power plays for His glory! 

Look, I get the pushback. Some twisted cross-centered types act like wanting your name known is selfish. Funny how they never apply that logic to wanting their sins forgiven or their bodies healed. Selective humility is just pride wearing a fake halo. The same God who said “I will make your name great” to Abraham is the God who predestined the gospel for our glory (1 Corinthians 2:7). He didn’t stutter. He didn’t say “I’ll make your name great after you spend eighty years anonymous and broke.” No—He redeemed us from the curse so the blessing of Abraham could come on the Gentiles by faith. That blessing includes the kind of visible success that makes people ask, “Who is this God they serve?” 

Think about Joseph for a second. Sold into slavery, falsely accused, forgotten in prison—yet God elevated him until the whole nation knew his name. Why? Because God works all things for our good, not for our obscurity (Romans 8:28, that promise is laser-focused on the elect who walk in faith). The devil meant it for evil; God meant it for good—and that good included fame, favor, and footprint that fed nations and preserved the covenant line. Same pattern with David. Same pattern with Esther. Same pattern with every hero of faith listed in Hebrews 11. They obtained a good report—meaning their names rang out—because they believed God for the impossible. 

So when you confess the promises, when you command sickness to leave, when you decree increase in Jesus’ name, you are being “name-it-and-claim-it,” just as Abraham did when he confessed, “I am the father of many nations,” before he was. You’re being Christians; you are being like Abraham the father of faith. The gospel isn’t a call to pretend you’re insignificant; it’s a call to realize you’re significant because of whose you are. Co-heirs with Christ means you inherit the same package. And yes, the ultimate goal is God’s glory—but God’s glory shines brightest when His kids aren’t hiding under a bushel. 

Here’s the fun part most miss: the moment you start walking in the fullness—miracle money showing up, miracle health locking in, doors flying open—you actually stop obsessing over yourself. The fear evaporates. The scramble disappears. You find it easier to not think about yourself. Suddenly you’ve got bandwidth to look around and say, “Okay, Lord, who also needs this same freedom?” That’s when the kingdom multiplies. One blessed life becomes ten, then a hundred, and then a million. Satan hates that math. He’d rather you stay “humble” and broke so the world never sees the difference Jesus makes. 

I’m not suggesting you chase fame for fame’s sake like some carnal influencer. I’m saying chase the promises like Abraham did—by faith—and watch God handle the rest. He’s the one who swore it. He’s the one who sealed it with blood. And He’s the one who will make your name great so that His name is magnified through you. 

The faithless will keep shrinking the gospel down to fit their tiny expectations. Don’t join them. Measure everything by the Word. You are Abraham’s seed. You carry royal blood. The Father is ready to boast about you—publicly, powerfully, permanently. So step up, speak up, and let the world see what the gospel really does. Fame, favor, footprint—yours for the taking.

Power Identification Theology

The Believer as Extension of the Enthroned Christ

Traditional Christianity has long framed the believer as a “sinner saved by grace”—a redeemed but still fundamentally human struggler, locked in perpetual warfare against sin, self, and circumstance. This view keeps the cross as the gravitational center: a place of ongoing guilt, repentance, and partial victory. Power Identification Theology dismantles that operating system entirely. It declares that God’s declarative perspective is reality. The believer is not a patched-up sinner limping toward heaven but an extension of the enthroned Christ—fused, seated, righteous, and incapable of the old human category. The cross was the doorway; the throne is the destination and the present address. This is not metaphor. It is metaphysical fact executed by divine revelation.

The gospel itself is defined at the root. What is that root? Jesus is not primarily the Man on the cross or even the Victor from the tomb. He is the King seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens (Hebrews 8:1). The cross dealt with sin once; the resurrection installed the Davidic King on Zion (Psalm 2; 2 Timothy 2:8); the ascension released the Spirit (Acts 2:33). Hebrews calls the enthroned High Priest “the main point.” Everything else—atonement benefits, healing, dominion—is enforced from this throne room. Believers are raised and seated with Him in heavenly places right now (Ephesians 2:6). Sickness, lack, demons, and mountains are not battles to fight; they are footstools already placed under the feet of the enthroned Head, and therefore under His body.

Cross-centered theology is exposed as vile precisely because it keeps eyes fixed where Jesus no longer is. It manufactures perpetual sin-consciousness, false humility, and unbelief. Apostles quoted Psalm 110:1 more than any other Old Testament verse—dozens of times—precisely to drive the church away from the bloody pole toward the occupied throne. To linger at the cross post-resurrection is to celebrate a wedding by obsessing over the proposal while the feast is served. It turns the gospel into a somber memorial service instead of a regime-change announcement. Throne-gazers, by contrast, see the Victor looking back at them. They mirror His purity (1 John 3:2-3), approach boldly (Hebrews 4:16), and issue decrees that rearrange reality. The gospel is Jesus crowned and commanding—and you seated there with Him, laughing at the devil’s attempts to withhold inheritance.

This power flows from radical identification about reality. God does not merely forgive or improve the old human self. In His sovereign mind, that self died, was buried, and was replaced. “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT). When God looks at the believer, He sees Jesus—fused as Head and body, one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). This is not poetic; it is creative reality. God’s thoughts sustain existence itself. He considered the old Oshea (or any believer) dead with Christ and a new creation defined as part of Jesus. That divine consideration *creates* the new ontology. Believers are therefore co-heirs, partakers of the divine nature (Romans 8:17; 2 Peter 1:4), and empowered by the same Spirit that anointed Jesus for miracles—only multiplied through a global body for greater works (John 14:12).

Because the old container no longer exists, the new creation is literally incapable of producing human works. Sin is impossible without accusing the Head of sin—an ontological contradiction. The new self cannot generate human righteousness either; both categories died on the cross. Accusations from conscience, Satan, or religious systems collapse logically: they require pretending the believer is still the old human self, which God has declared nonexistent. It is as absurd as charging a cloud with murder or expecting a rock to author a novel. Human effort, good or bad, is a category error. Works not built on this reality are burned up because they cannot be attributed to the new creation grafted into Christ. The believer’s only “work” is alignment—agreeing with God’s verdict rather than resurrecting a corpse through self-effort or guilt.

Into this vacuum, God has sovereignly gifted the flawless righteousness of His Son. Not infused gradually, not earned through law or striving, but credited wholesale as an irrevocable exchange (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:17-19). Just as Abraham believed the promise and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4), believers who trust the resurrection receive the same divine ledger. Christ became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. When God looks at the believer, He sees the spotless, exalted Son. This is not partial or probationary; it is total, pre-dating Moses, rooted in grace alone. Doubt here is not humility—it is unbelief undermining the finished work. Maturity means owning this righteousness as naturally as one owns their own hands: “When you feel so ‘right,’ nothing can stand in your way.”

The contrast with the wrong understanding could not be sharper. The “sinner saved by grace” model breeds beggars at an empty cross—tiptoeing, repenting endlessly, scraping together partial victories while Satan mocks from the sidelines. High-Power Identification Theology produces co-regents issuing throne-room decrees. Sickness is not a test of endurance but a defeated enemy already footstooled; prayer is not pleading but commanding reality to align with the King’s already-spoken word; defeating temptation is not a old-man self-effort, but divinely empowered sanctification, with Jesus being the author and perfecter of your faith; the old self is gone, and the new is rules in life through Jesus Christ. Dominion, healing, miracles, and prosperity are not future hopes or rare exceptions—they are administrative functions of the enthroned body. The Spirit convicts the world of the single sin of unbelief in this reality (John 16:8-9). Faith simply assents to what God has already declared.

This theology demands a full system reinstall. It is not an upgrade to the old OS; it is a new kernel. Cross → Throne. Human → Christ. Guilt → Decree. Victim → Co-regent. Once installed, the old guilt loops throw exceptions, self-effort crashes, and dominion becomes the default process. The believer wakes each morning already seated above every principality, already righteous with the Son’s own perfection, already incapable of the old category. Reality follows the declaration.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the gospel is about the “substitution,” where the “Father identified” our sins, sickness, curses and poverty with Jesus, and “now identifies” us with Jesus’ righteousness, health, wealth and blessings, the gospel is theology about identification. The gospel is about truth and reality. It is an Identification Theology. Because it identifies us as co-heirs with Jesus, one with His body, a Royal Priesthood in Him, as baptized in the same Spirit of Power for ministry and to use the name of Jesus to ask and receive, it is an identification theology of Power.

God Took My Son!

Uh..no, He didn’t

Jesus already took care of all the bad stuff once and for all (Acts 10:38)—things like sickness (Isaiah 53), sin (Isaiah 53), poverty (2 Corinthians 8:9 and 9:8), and every curse (Galatians 3). In exchange, He hooked us up with riches, righteousness, healing, and the full blessings of Abraham’s gospel! So when someone says about a Christian who left this earth too soon (before that long, satisfying life we’re promised, Psalm 91, Abraham’s gospel), “God took my child” or “God took my spouse”… they’re missing the mark. If that person was truly in Christ, God “received” them with open arms, sure, but He didn’t “take” them from you. The real culprit who did the taking was Satan, using the curse and unbelief as his sneaky weapons of choice.

Quick reminder: the only truly unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And even though healing is a straight-up command (James 5), just as believing the gospel is commanded, and Jesus straight-up invited us to pray for anything we want and actually receive it—failing to get healed is not the unpardonable sin. Thus, if you died before your time, because you sinned by not having faith to get healed, it is not the unforgivable sin. A Christian can die sick and still be saved. But let’s be crystal clear: it wasn’t God who cut their time short. It was Satan and unbelief that opened the door. Taking your health and life is Satan’s priesthood, not Jesus’. Premature death is Satan’s middle finger at Jesus’ atonement. Jesus is not flipping the bird at his own gospel; that’s Satan’s job.

Because here’s the deal: our God is the Giver, not a Taker. It is correct, in a broad sense of God’s ultimate causality, you could say God “takes away,” but in relationship to His elect? Jesus stood in our place so that the Father “takes away from Him,” so that God doesn’t “take away” from us. God took away health, love, wealth, every good thing from Jesus; and finally, the Father took away Jesus’ very life. That’s the whole point of substitution. God did some taking from me, but it was at the cross. Jesus was substituted to let God take away from Him, so that God now only gives to us. That’s how the gospel of substitution works.

Look at the cross again, because the atonement is not some fuzzy feeling—it is a precise, legal exchange sealed in blood. Isaiah 53:4-5 declares, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering… and by his wounds we are healed.” The Hebrew word for “took up” and “bore” is the same one used for the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement: the priest laid the sins on the goat, and the goat carried them away into the wilderness. Jesus carried our sicknesses away the exact same way. He became poor so we could become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He became a curse so we could receive the blessing of Abraham (Galatians 3:13-14). In the mind of the sovereign God, the transaction is finished: all the bad is gone from us, all the good is credited to us.

To turn around and say “God took my child or spouse” after that is to spit on the finished work and act as if the cross never happened.

On the relative level where the Bible mostly speaks to us day to day—God relates to His covenant children as a Father who supplies, not a cosmic leg-breaker. Peter tells us in Acts 10:38 that “Jesus… went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil.” Satan is the one oppressing with sickness; Jesus is the one delivering. When Paul handed the incestuous man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh (1 Corinthians 5), who did the destroying? Satan. When the woman was bent over for eighteen years, who did Jesus blame? Did Jesus blame God’s sovereignty? No. He blamed Satan (Luke 13:16). When Job suffered, who brought the boils? Satan. God sovereignly permitted the trial in the ultimate sense, but on the human level He never ministered the evil—Satan did. And Job was without a Contract with God, and thus there is much with respect to Job that is not relevant to me. The New Contract flips the script entirely. God is now our Exceedingly Great Reward who only pours out good.

Thus, to say “God took my child,” is a sin.

So yes, if you are not healed by faith, you are sinning by not getting healed, just as you are sinning if you do not get wisdom by faith. James says if you lack wisdom, ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you (James 1:5). But then he immediately warns: the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind, and should not expect to receive anything from the Lord (James 1:6-7). Notice the logic here—deductive, airtight, no wiggle room. God commands supernatural wisdom to be imparted directly by Him when you lack it. This is not self-generated insight scraped together from your own brain; it is God pouring it in by faith. If you ask while doubting, you have disobeyed the command. The act of asking becomes sin because faith is required, not optional. The same ironclad pattern holds for forgiveness. Paul declares in Acts 17:30 that God “commands all people everywhere to repent.” Repentance is not a half-hearted shrug or emotional tears mixed with lingering doubt; it is turning in full intellectual assent to God’s promise of pardon. If you confess your sins while secretly doubting the Jesus’ finished work to cleanse you right then, you have sinned in the very act of confessing. Even if you tried “really hard” to believe, the moment doubt creeps in you have violated the command. There is never an excuse for not obeying God, period. Faith for forgiveness, healing, wisdom, or wealth is not a suggestion tucked in the back of the Bible like some optional devotional—it is a direct order from the throne.

Thus, it is a sin to die sick. It is even a sin to say “God made me sick, or God took my child,” if the context is about your faith in God’s promise. The bible presupposes and appeals to the law of identity, when Paul explained that grace is grace and works are works, and grace is not works and works is not grace. When the Bible is talking about one category A, but you keep bringing category B into category A’s context, then you are twisting and mishandling the word of God, and thus you are sinning. The bible denies pantheism, and so the category of God and creation are not the same. Even if there is a necessary connection between an antecedent to a consequent, the category of the one is not the same as the other.

Jesus both made comments about God’s absolute and direct sovereignty over all things (the ultimate level—“you are not my sheep” in John 10) and also talked about the relative level, saying “your faith saved you from your sins, and your faith healed you of your sickness” (Luke 7:50, 8:48). Because all material blessings first start as spiritual blessings (God is Spirit and we already have all spiritual blessings in Christ, Ephesians 1:3), and because God’s sovereignty is ultimate over the relative level, you can always answer any question with a spiritual or sovereignty-based answer, no matter the context. But—and there is a big but here—if the context is the category of relative level or the material level, and you keep dragging in the spiritual or ultimate level, you are sinning. At the very best you are misleading or more likely, you are twisting and abusing the word of God to justify your unbelief.

Think of it like this: mixing water with motor oil does not make your engine run on miracles—it just wrecks the car and leaves you stranded. Theologians and pastors commit these category errors constantly, and it is not cute; it is dangerous. They take the ultimate metaphysical truth—God decrees all things—and shove it into the relative context where the Bible commands us to resist Satan and receive healing by faith. That is not clever theology; it is deductive failure dressed up in pious robes. It violates the law of identity: the promise of healing is not the same thing as the decree of sovereignty in the way the Bible applies them. It violates non-contradiction: you cannot say “God sovereignly made me sick” in the same breath as “by His wounds I am healed” without turning Scripture into a contradiction. And it commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle—treating the ultimate cause as if it erases the relative command by having no necessary connection to it. Result? Believers sit passively while Satan robs them, thinking they are being “God-centered.” No. That is unbelief with a religious accent.

Let me illustrate. The centurion in Matthew 8. He understood sovereignty better than most theologians: “I am a man under authority… just say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus marvelled and declared, “I have not found such great faith in Israel.” The centurion did not say, “Well, God sovereignly decreed the sickness, so who am I to ask?” He applied sovereignty to receive an immediate miracle. Second, Peter on the Day of Pentecost. He preached election and predestination, then immediately commanded repentance so people could receive the baptism of the Spirit and forgiveness. He did not blur categories; he used the ultimate truth of God’s call to fuel the relative command to believe and be filled with power. Third, Jesus Himself with the woman bent double for eighteen years (Luke 13). He said, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity,” and then explained it was Satan who had bound her—not the Father. He healed her on the spot and rebuked the religious leaders for their unbelief and tradition. Jesus never once comforted anyone with “God made you sick for His glory.” He smashed sickness because it was the enemy’s work.

So tell me… are you finally catching what the gospel is really all about? Stop letting bad theology turn the Father into a taker. Jesus took the taking. Now the Father only gives. Reclaim what the enemy stole—by faith, by command, by the finished work of Jesus. Your loved one who died in Christ is safe in the Father’s house, but the years stolen from you and them were never God’s doing. They were the devil’s heist. Repent and correct yourself. Direct your anger at Satan and his perverted theologians who sell the theology of unbelief that killed your family member. Rise up. Resist. Receive. The gospel is total victory, and faith still moves mountains—including the mountain of premature loss.

The cross was not a partial deal. Jesus did not bear 90 percent of the curse and leave 10 percent for you to carry “for God’s glory.” No. He bore it all. The same love the Father has for the Son, He has poured into you (John 17:23). That love does not take; it gives. That love does not shorten life; it commands abundant life. Stop saying “God took” and start declaring “Satan tried, but Jesus already won.” Then watch the same power that raised Christ from the dead flood your body, your family, and your future. Because that is what the atonement already secured and deposited into your account by grace.

Aim for the Stars

Aim for the Stars and Faith Will Make You Hit Them

It is sad—borderline tragic—that even Christians have bought the lie to aim low. Most take the vision and desires God planted in their hearts, yank out a shotgun loaded with birdshot, and blast away at a target just beyond their own feet. And guess what? Without surprising anyone, they hit it. Then, to our astonishment, they start patting themselves on the back, congratulating themselves like they just won the Olympics. Most of the time they shoot so low that some of the pellets bounce off the ground and smack them right in the face. They call this “humble” and “suffering under the sovereign hand of God,” as if they accomplished something worth God’s time—or mine—to even notice.

Yet this is exactly the opposite picture Scripture paints. The Bible never spotlights a person who aimed for the dirt with birdshot and then high-fived themselves for a job well done. The Heroes of Faith in Hebrews 11 are the polar opposite. It puts a blinding spotlight on people who pointed their vision at the stars and watched faith rocket their arrow straight to Orion’s Belt. These weren’t cautious calculators; they were bold archers who refused to waste God’s ammunition on pebbles. And God loved it. He still does.

Take the Roman centurion for the masterclass. He was a Gentile outsider, not even under the contracts yet. In his context the ground was all he was supposed to aim for. Remember the Gentile woman? Jesus told her He was sent first to the lost sheep of Israel—it wasn’t her turn. But this centurion marched straight up to Jesus, looked Him dead in the eyes, and pulled his bow back to the moon. “My servant is sick and needs healing.” Jesus’ immediate reply? “You got it, bro—I’ll head to your house right now.” The man aimed for the sky, and faith slammed the arrow into the moon. Boom.

But wait—there’s more. The centurion could have stopped there like any normal person. Jesus had already said yes. Most would have grabbed the miracle and run hoping God wouldn’t change His mind. Not this guy. He looked Jesus in the face a second time, yanked the bowstring all the way to Centauri, and fired again: “Actually, Lord, don’t even bother walking—just speak the word right here, right now.” Imagine the nerve! In today’s church some faith-fumbler would have whispered, “Dude, you already got your miracle—don’t push it. Jesus might get annoyed.” Yeah, right. Jesus’ actual response? Astonishment. Public praise. “I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” He didn’t scold the upgrade request—He celebrated it. The man aimed outside our solar system, and faith delivered. Jesus was all happiness and surprise, like a proud Father watching His kid dunk on the rim and then immediately ask for the NBA.

Put yourself in Jesus’ sandals for a second. Most people are drowning in unbelief. When someone finally scrapes together a thimble of faith, they still aim so low the arrow barely leaves the front yard. But this outsider Roman sized up Jesus, concluded He had absolute authority over reality itself, and instead of wasting time with self-debasing groveling, he asked for a miracle—and then upgraded the request on the spot. Jesus didn’t sigh and say, “Be satisfied.” He marveled. Publicly. Before the whole crowd. That is the God we serve.

The doctrine is as simple as it is explosive: the higher you aim, the more God likes it. Aim for Orion’s Belt and faith will get you there. The moment you land, God beams with delight if you immediately say, “Wait, wait—add Andromeda Galaxy in my other pocket too!” He doesn’t roll His eyes. He boasts about you the same way He boasted about the centurion. You can never aim too high or too often with faith. The only error is aiming too low and too infrequently.

This isn’t some prosperity gimmick; it’s the self-authenticating revelation of Scripture itself—our only starting point for knowledge. God’s Word is His will (Maxim 19). And His will, stated over and over, is that “all things are possible for the one who believes” (Mark 9:23). Not some things. Not safe things. All things. Jesus didn’t stutter when He said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 21:22). He didn’t add footnotes about aiming low to stay humble. The footnotes are the inventions of men who have never tasted what real faith feels like when it leaves the bowstring.

How about David? Kid with a slingshot stares down a nine-foot giant who had the entire army wetting themselves. David didn’t aim for “maybe I won’t die today.” He aimed for the giant’s forehead and declared, “I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies!” One stone, one shot, one dead Philistine, and the rest of the army routed. Faith took a shepherd boy’s pebble and turned it into a guided missile that hit the Keyhole Nebula.

Even the woman with the issue of blood aimed high. Twelve years of doctors, twelve years of worse. As a child of Abraham she tried to pay for healing that was freely promised in the contract; and the result was poverty.  Society said stay home and bleed quietly. She said, “If I can just touch the hem of His garment…” She crawled through a crowd that could have stoned her for uncleanness, stretched out her hand, and grabbed healing that wasn’t even on the menu that day. Jesus stopped the whole parade: “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” He called her out publicly so everyone would know—high aim plus relentless faith equals miracles on demand.

This is why Jesus commands us to ask in His name and expect greater works (John 14:12-14). Greater. Not equal, not smaller—greater. The resurrected, enthroned Christ has identified us with Himself so completely that when we speak in faith, reality hears the voice of the Son. That’s not arrogance; that’s agreement with God’s definition of us. We are co-heirs. We are seated with Him. We are the righteousness of God in Christ. Why would we aim at our feet when the throne room is wide open and the King is saying, “What do you want? Ask big—I already paid for it”?

The faithless love to slap a “God’s timing” or “humility” label on their low aim. They call it wisdom. Scripture calls it unbelief, dressed up stupid. The Israelites limited the Holy One of Israel (Exodus 13-14) by their evil report. They could have aimed for the Promised Land in one generation, in one day. Instead they wandered forty years because they aimed at the dirt, and God hated them for it. Don’t repeat their mistake. God is still the same yesterday, today, and forever. His promises are still “yes” in Christ. The only variable is faith and aiming high.

So what will you aim for today? Cancer, diabetes? Aim higher—total eradication, and the healing of your whole family, and a testimony that shakes your city. Debt? Aim higher—supernatural debt cancellation that funds you with 5 houses, and the gospel with 500 houses. Loneliness? Aim higher—a spouse of your dreams and a household that multiplies the kingdom on steroids. Here is the big secret the faithless keeps from you. The dirt is not a starting line, it is the opening to the pits of hell. The stars are not the limit; they’re the true starting line for faith. Yes, Faith will make you hit them, then immediately reload for the next galaxy.

You were born from above, and so you were born for this. You carry the same Spirit that raised Jesus. You have the mind of Christ and the name that makes demons scream and mountains move. Stop aiming for your front yard. Load the bow with the promises of God, pull it back to the stars, and let faith fly. God is not rolling His eyes—He’s already leaning forward with a grin, ready to boast about you the same way He boasted about that Roman outsider.

Aim high. Fire often. Jesus already said all things are possible for the one who believes. The stars are waiting—and God is cheering louder than you can imagine.

The stars never looked so good, nor so close.

Jesus the Healing Hero – IS the Gospel

Right from the opening pages of the Bible, God doesn’t ease in with pleasantries. He drops the declaration of war and victory in the same breath. After the fall, He turns to the serpent and says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Think about that for a second. Before Adam and Eve even finish sewing their fig leaves, God is already pointing to Jesus—the promised Seed—and saying, “This Hero is coming to end you.” Satan gets a bruised heel. Jesus gets total conquest. That’s the opening scene of the whole story. The protoevangelium is not some poetic footnote; it is the explosive launch sequence of redemptive history, the first unmistakable shout that the Seed of the woman would march straight into the fight and settle the score once and for all.

Satan didn’t charge in like some obvious monster. The coward used lies. “Did God really say?” he whispered, and the doubt took root (Genesis 3:1). They ate, and God kept His word exactly as He said He would. The curse hit creation hard—thorns, pain, death, the whole mess (Genesis 3:16-19). And from that day forward the devil has exploited it nonstop, hammering people with his favorite dirty weapon: sickness. It’s how he oppresses, how he victimizes, how he keeps humans under his thumb. Sickness isn’t neutral. It’s bad. Straight-up evil. Let’s be real—Scripture never once calls disease a helpful life coach or a mysterious divine favor. Jesus looked at that woman bent double for eighteen years and named the culprit outright: “Satan has kept her bound” (Luke 13:16). John 10:10 draws the battle line with zero ambiguity: the thief steals, kills, and destroys; Jesus brings life to the full. The fingerprints don’t lie.

That’s why when Peter stands up for the very first official gospel sermon to Gentiles in Acts 10, he doesn’t start with abstract theology. As Vincent Cheung points out in “The Dividing Line,” Peter tells the classic hero-versus-villain story God loves telling. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Satan is the bad guy. Sickness is his bad tool. Jesus the Hero shows up anointed with power and starts setting people free from it—one healing after another. God is perfectly happy framing the good news this way. No need to complicate it. The simple showdown works just fine. Peter could have opened with justification by faith or the doctrine of election—glorious truths, no argument there—but the Spirit led him to lead with power and healing, because that is how the gospel first detonated into the Gentile world. Goodness and healing are welded together in the same sentence. Oppression and the devil are welded together in the same sentence. The Bible refuses to separate them, and frankly, neither should we.

Peace comes through violence and conquest, not some polite negotiation. The Son of God appeared for this very reason—to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). He didn’t just rescue us from the judgment we deserved; He yanked us out of the original villain’s grip too. Forgiveness? Yes. But also tangible freedom right now. Notice Satan’s go-to weapon is always sickness. That’s bad. Healing is good. Jesus healing every single person oppressed by the devil is the Bible’s hero story preached at the launch of Gentile ministry. Matthew 8:16-17 makes the connection unmistakable: “He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.’” The cross wasn’t only about sin. The same atoning work that substituted guilt for righteousness, substituted sickness for healing. Isaiah 53:4-5 and 1 Peter 2:24 stand shoulder to shoulder—by His wounds you have been healed. The Greek tenses shout finished reality. Not “maybe someday.” Not “if it’s God’s will in some vague sense.” Healed. Period.

Picture the devil showing up at the cross like a landlord waving an overdue rent notice marked “sickness stays forever,” and Jesus just rips the contract in half, spikes it to the wood with the nails, and laughs out loud while every demon in the vicinity does the fastest tactical retreat in history. The same Spirit and power that rested on Him to destroy oppression now rests on us. Stop playing victim to a defeated snake. You’re seated with the Hero who crushed his head (Romans 16:20). The devil is not your personal trainer. He is a conquered foe whose only remaining strategy is to convince you the fight is still fair. It isn’t—come on, the head is already crushed.

The faithless try to muddy the water with their “maybe God is using sickness to teach you” nonsense. That’s like cheering for the villain in the movie because it “builds character.” Dumb. Jesus already bore our sicknesses and carried our pains so we wouldn’t have to. By His stripes we are healed. It’s like the devil is still trying to collect rent on a house Jesus already foreclosed on, burned to the ground, and turned into a victory bonfire while the angels roasted marshmallows over the flames. The same Spirit and power that rested on Him to destroy oppression now rests on us. Stop playing victim to a defeated snake. You’re seated with the Hero who crushed his head (Romans 16:20).

Command that sickness to leave in Jesus’ name. Lay hands on the sick and expect recovery (Mark 16:17-18). Believe like the victory is already yours—because it is. The gospel is still advancing through power, healing, and authority in Christ. Live it out loud. The Hero won the war. Now go enforce the victory.

Let me press this a little deeper, because the stakes are eternal. When Jesus sent out the Twelve and then the Seventy-two, He gave them authority over all the power of the enemy and told them to heal the sick (Luke 9:1-2; 10:9). That commission did not expire at the end of the first century. The same Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The same Spirit who raised Him from the dead lives in every believer (Romans 8:11). If sickness were somehow God’s loving tool, then Jesus would have been working against the Father every time He healed someone. That is theological insanity. The Father anointed the Son precisely to destroy what the devil had built. Every miracle was a preview of the age to come crashing into the present. Every healing was a declaration: the kingdom is here, the curse is broken, the Hero has arrived.

When Christians remain in sickness, besetting sins, broken relationships and poverty, it is Satan’s middle finger at God shouting, that Jesus’ kingdom is not here and the curse is not broken and the Hero did not arrive.

Some will object that not everyone gets healed instantly. Fair observation, however, because it is based on observation it is logically irrelevant for knoweldge. Notice what Jesus never did: He never blamed the Father for the delay. He never told the sick to embrace their condition as a gift. He blamed unbelief when it blocked the flow (Mark 6:5-6), and He trained His disciples to keep pressing until faith rose. Paul left Trophimus sick, not because sickness was God’s will, but because the apostolic team was on mission and timing mattered (2 Timothy 4:20). Yet the same Paul commanded the church at Corinth to examine itself so they would not be weak or sick (1 Corinthians 11:29-30). Sickness was the exception to be judged and removed, not the rule to be celebrated. The New Testament pattern is relentless: preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead. That is not optional flavor. That is the normal Christian life.

Think about the woman with the issue of blood. She had suffered for twelve years, spent everything on doctors, and grew worse (Mark 5:25-26). The doctors could not help because the real oppressor was not a germ or a hormone—it was the kingdom of darkness. She touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed instantly. Jesus called her “daughter” and sent her away in peace. That is the gospel in miniature. The Hero sees the victim, feels compassion, and ends the oppression on the spot. He is still doing it. The same power that flowed through His robe now flows through His body on earth—you and me. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead and put Him above all names, times and places is the same power the works in us who believe (Eph 1:19-21).

So grab your spiritual eviction notice, look that defeated snake square in the eye, and say, “Not today, not tomorrow, not ever again—your lease was canceled at Calvary, and the new Landlord is moving in with healing, power, and zero tolerance for your sh@t.” The gospel is not a theory to be debated in seminaries. It is power to be demonstrated in streets, homes, and everywhere. Peter preached it that way to Cornelius’ house, and the Holy Spirit fell while he was still speaking (Acts 10:44). The same thing can happen when you open your mouth with the same message.

The devil has had two thousand years to refine his lies, but the Hero has already crushed his head, and God’s truth is indomitable. The blood still speaks. The name still works. The Spirit still moves. Sickness is still bad. Healing is still good. And Jesus the Healing Hero is still the gospel.

 Watch the kingdom advance exactly as it did in the book of Acts. The victory is already yours. Now go enforce it with joy, with boldness, and with the full expectation that the same HERO who healed all who were oppressed by the devil, is now sitting at the Power’s right hand, doing it through you.

The God of Peace Will Crush

Ah, the God of peace—sounds like a serene deity lounging on clouds, doesn’t it? But flip open your Bible, and you’ll see He’s more like a divine general, marching into battle with a strategy that leaves enemies flattened. Romans 16:20 declares our thesis statement plainly: “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” Notice it was not under God’s feet, but your feet. When Satan eyes meet yours, it should be when he is crushed under your feet. This is the only correct position for Satan to meet your gaze.  

Jesus Himself chimes in from John 16:33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” This isn’t some fluffy, feel-good tranquility; it’s peace forged in victory, the kind that comes when God stomps out what’s troubling you. If your idea of peace is just a balanced brain chemistry or a quiet afternoon without the kids yelling, you’re missing the biblical punch. God’s peace is intellectual and material—your mind aligns with His unbreakable promises, stabilizing your whole being, and then reality bends to match, with enemies crushed underfoot. Peace comes through war, blood and triumph.

Let’s unpack this. The Bible hammers home that true peace arrives through conquest, destruction of foes, or flipping former adversaries into allies. You don’t get heart-peace by ignoring the chaos; you get it because God removes the chaos-causer, by destroying it. The enemy isn’t politely asked to leave—he’s demolished. Joshua 21:43-45 spells it out: God handed Israel the promised land, giving them “rest on every side” after delivering enemies into their hands. No foe stood against them because God fulfilled every promise. Rest? Peace? It came post-victory, after the dust settled from crushed opposition. Or take 2 Samuel 7:1: Once David was palace-settled, “the Lord gave him rest from all his enemies around him.” God’s provision of peace followed conquest, not some mystical inner glow detached from reality.

Then there’s 1 Chronicles 22:9, where God promises David a son of peace: “I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side.” Solomon’s reign would embody this—peace through subdued threats. Even Proverbs 16:7 adds a twist: “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” God doesn’t just crush; sometimes He recalibrates relationships, turning rivals into reluctant allies. But make no mistake, it’s His sovereign hand at work, not some human diplomacy. This isn’t a chemical brain balance or anti-intellectual fuzziness. No, God’s peace is rooted in logic and substance: your mind assents to His truths and promises, renewing your propositional framework to be stable and healthy. That’s why Philippians 4:7 calls it “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding”—not because it’s beyond intellect, but because His promises blanket every life scenario. You might not eyeball the “how” in a tough spot, but faith knows He’ll deliver peace. It will happen.

Jesus embodies this perfectly. He overcame the world, so we cheer amid tribulation. Think Jericho: marching and trumpeting wasn’t busywork; it was praise rooted in promise. God vowed victory, so those walls were toast before the first lap. They praised pre-fall because faith treats God’s word as done deal. God crushed those walls under their feet, bringing peace. Paul’s line in Romans labels God “of peace” precisely because He’ll “soon crush Satan under their feet.” Not in some distant heaven, but here, now. Heaven will be a place of peace, because all enemies will be crushed. Crushing enemies “is” the act of peace-bringing. Jesus nailed this at the cross, pulverizing sickness, poverty, curses—the lot. It’s done. Isaiah 54:17 echoes: “No weapon formed against you will prosper.” Weapons form—tribulations like demons, illness, lack—but cheer up! Jesus defeated them; by faith, they’re soon underfoot.

Don’t get me wrong; this peace starts intellectual, in the mind’s assent to God’s guarantee, but it spills into flesh and circumstance. We praise pre-victory, as with Jericho, because faith’s useless post-fact. It’s for the “before,” fueling praise that knows enemies will crumble, yielding total peace. Peace without crushed foes? That’s non-biblical bunk, a counterfeit calm that leaves Satan smirking.

Dig deeper into Scripture, and this crushes any watered-down view. Isaiah 45:7 has God declaring, “I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things.” Peace isn’t accidental—God authors it, often through calibrated calamity for the reprobate and triumph for His elect. No weapon prospers against you, but they do form. The promise is simple. With faith the weapons will be ineffective against you. God did not send those people to attack you, and so you are free to condemn them in the name of Jesus and crush them under your feet.  For reprobates, even sunshine fattens them for slaughter (Psalm 73). But for us, temporary trials and forged weapons against us, yield an opportunity for easy game XP for our level ups.

Look at Colossians 1:19-20: “For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” Peace via bloodied conquest—Jesus reconciling by demolishing sin’s divide. Or Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Justification swaps enmity for alliance, but it’s God’s doing, not our charm.

And Isaiah 53? Brutal beauty: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” Chastisement for our peace—Jesus bore the bloody atonement so we carry calm. He says, “My peace I give you” (John 14:27), not some generic vibe, but His substitutionary shalom. Leviticus’ scapegoat “carried away” our sins; same word in Isaiah for Jesus bearing sickness. He was led outside the camp as our diseased substitute, so we don’t carry illness or turmoil, because He carried on Himself so that we don’t. That is what the idea of a substitution means. If you carry the same sickness Jesus carried, then there was no substitution. Peace in soul, body, life—it’s contractual, sealed in blood, already carried away to the grave by Jesus’ substitution.

Hebrews 4 ties peace to approaching God’s throne: redeemed, we boldly ask and receive help. No spiritualizing—it’s literal receipt. Jesus contrasts pagan prayer myths. When the pagans pray they mainly give to their gods, and when they do ask, it is done without much hope, even with trepidation, knowing the request could be used against them. Jesus’ prayer doctrine contradicts this. God gives us a fish for fish, a miracle for a miracle, a child of a child, prosperity for prosperity, a spouse for a spouse and Spirit for Spirit (Matthew 7:7-11). If evil humans give good gifts, how much more our Father? Our Good Father gives us the things we ask for; anything less is demon dogmatics.

This crushes defective ethics peddling unbelief. Faith-fumblers teach God’s stingy or sickness teaches lessons—nonsense! Experience as a teacher is the worst type of teacher. For us, revelation’s our sole teacher of knowledge. Sickness comes from Satan not God. Therefore, destroy it in Jesus’ name, advancing His kingdom. If you are doing something to give a foothold, correct your behavior. To let Satan’s attacks linger glorifies hell, not God. Mindset matters: the atonement is finished and the benefits already deposited into your account by grace. Faith sees them, withdraws at will. Forgiveness, healing, prosperity are not begged, but claimed in faith. The natural man, using the five senses, cannot receive the things of the Spirit, who reveals to us all the good things God has freely deposited to our accounts.

Cheer up! Praise God before the crushing, knowing God’s promises are guaranteed. Peace starts in faith-filled minds, and manifests in crushed foes. Biblical peace is where God’s crushes Satan shortly under your feet. Notice it was not under God’s feet, but your feet. When Satan eyes meet yours, it should be when he is crushed under your feet. This is the only correct position for Satan to meet your gaze.  If doubters peddle less, get them out of your life. For us? We assent, crush, receive and advance. All things possible when you believe—mountains move, enemies flatten. That’s God’s type of peace: conquest, not compromise.