HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE - Logos vs Rhema

Hospital Experience

 

(I had an experience while I was in the hospital for 3 weeks in October/November 2009 that blessed me so much. I want to share it with you so that you may be blessed as well.  It demonstrates how solid & unalterable the plans & purposes of God are on our behalf, and how little impact satan’s attacks on our lives make on God’s will regardless how devastating they may be in actual experience from our perspective.  I have shared this with several who have visited with me, but most of you are unfamiliar with it.  This will be long & I will not apologize for it.  Enjoy!)

 

First of all, I seldom ask ‘why’ questions b/c I know why.  Satan hates God; he hates us as His prize creation to reflect His Honor & Glory; and he hates God’s plans to bring us to a place of total restoration.  Saint Iranaeus said, “The Glory of God is man fully alive.”  In other words, John 10:10: us living the abundant life; fully restored & multiplied 7-fold (for those who are familiar with my restoration teachings).  Can you imagine how it drives him nuts to see any of us acquiring any degree of that!!??

 

Thus, he is always devising & designing schemes to trip us up, distract us, discourage us, cause us to doubt, fall into all kinds of sin…most of it petty sins of the flesh, though we’ve done an incredible job over the past years in allowing him to drag us, as believers, into sins that at one time were totally relegated to sins of the world & unbeliever.  Shame on us, and God have mercy on us.  So I understand that every day, at every turn of the road satan lies in wait to literally “take us out” (Pilgrim’s Progress).

 

I have no doubt whatsoever that’s exactly what’s happening to me.  When I first received my diagnosis of hepatitis B & possible pancreatic cancer, I knew it was a death knell.  But I didn’t ask, “Why ME?”  I knew why me.  I just thought, “The dirty rat. He’s trying to kill me.”  I now knew why & how.  I had just returned from Rwanda, THE most single successful ministry experience of my life.  God told me 25-30 years ago the ministry of my latter years would be teaching & training foreign pastors & leaders.  On 2-9-09 God called me to the nation of Rwanda to do just that.  God confirmed & launched the beginning of that fulfillment thru a Pastors/leadership conference in April.  Satan was attempting to put an end to it in its embryo stage.  I say, “NO WAY, HOSEA!!!!!”

 

On Monday, October 12, lying in the hospital bed after being brought in by ambulance the night before with pneumonia, I asked the Lord the question, “With all the hundreds, maybe thousands of people praying for me, many of them seasoned intercessors, HOW was the enemy able to sneak in & broadside me again?”… for what appeared a second major setback from my receiving treatments.

 

The next day I had been scheduled for a liver biopsy to determine at what stage my hepatitis B was.  We had been confronting doctors over & over again as they focused only on the cancer, “What about the hepatitis?  Shouldn’t we be checking it out & doing something to treat it?”  The response was standard, “There’s nothing we can do about it.  It’ll just have to run its course.” 

 

Now that my oncologist was ready to start treatment b/c everything else was lining up, the liver specialist pulled the plug & said my oncologist could actually kill be by causing the hepatitis to flare up…if she started the treatments on the cancer too soon.  He needed 2-3 weeks to run tests starting with the scheduled biopsy.  Setback #1.  Now I couldn’t keep the appointment for the biopsy & was the hospital with pneumonia.  Setback #2.

 

This is where it starts getting really interesting.  After my question to the Lord, He began sharing some things with me.  First of all, He said that no circumstance as an attack from satan, regardless how devastating in experience & appearance to us can ever affect the Plans & Purposes of God once He sets them in motion.  This is so huge a truth it needs to be hi-lighted, circled, printed up and hung up all over the walls of our homes. 

 

I know you don’t understand what I’m talking about right now & neither did I when God first told it to me.  He then showed me a vision of an old bus going 60 mph down the freeway with me sitting on that bus as a young boy, looking out the window.  Debris was flying everywhere on & off the freeway, but the bus did not veer off course or slow down one iota the entire time. 

 

I understood the bus to be the Plan & Will of God that He sets in motion (whether that be the security of our salvation, specific things in our lives we’re praying about & He confirms to us He definitely will accomplish, etc.…this is an extremely important statement & I will probably re-visit it to explain, later [*see below]) & nothing would/could affect the forward motion of that Purpose until we arrived at the destination…ON TIME!  And He ministered to me that when we did, the circumstances would actually catch up & arrive at the station at the SAME TIME.     

 

I also understood this bus to relate to my healing.  That God had planned to heal me, set it in motion & no amount of circumstances & attacks of the enemy, regardless how devastating & distracting would affect the final outcome & the timing.

 

On Wed., two days later, the liver specialist called my oncologist & said he could find little to no trace of hepatitis in my system.  How he could determine that, that quickly, w/out the biopsy or anything else, I have no idea.  But I was at the destination: miracle #1 had been accomplished.  The bus was undeterred till it got there…on time; and it was as if Jesus, driving the bus, opened a window, snapped His fingers, and all the circumstances came flying in to meet us at the station…right on time as well!

 

(Now stop & take a deep breath, & try to absorb all this & what it means.  Make sure you really get it.)

 

We have now left the station & are heading down the freeway for miracle #2: my healing from lymphoma.

 

(*From above.  The Bible is what we know as the Word of God.  In that context the original word for ‘Word’ is ‘Logos”, which simply means it is the general revealed will of God.  It basically spells out the parameters of God’s Plans & Purposes for us His children & His Promises that these things are possible for us…some conditional; some not.

 

I say ‘general’, b/c even though these are things we can expect, there is no ‘guarantee’ that every time we have a need, we don’t necessarily just locate verses in Scripture that Promise the Provision, ‘stand’ on it & confess it mechanically over & over, hoping that eventually it will come to pass.  The Logos is a general provision of what if possible.  Based on that we can go to the Lord in obedience and ask (1Peter 5:13-16).  But there is one more process that must take place before true faith & confidence can be exercised in knowing that God is actually going to make it happen.

 

The partner word to the ‘Word’ of God that goes along with Logos is ‘Rhema’.  The original meaning of this word is the specific (you get the comparison?!) Will, Plan & Purpose of God for you for the specific need that have.  What is God saying to you about the nature of your need, and what He plans to do about it; and (maybe) how, when, etc.?

 

The process is simply this.  When a need arises, we go to the Word (Logos) to determine what God says about that need in general.  Once you determine it’s in God’s Plan to provide for that need, you then go to the Lord & begin to seek His specific direction (Rhema), in detail, as to what His specific Plan is for you & this need, so that you have a tailor-made plan you can walk out in confidence b/c you heard from God specifically…and you’re not just trying to force something to happen just b/c it’s a Logos provision.

 

Let me explain what happened to me in my journey thus far.  (A disclaimer here, is that I always caution people to not use what I experienced, or anyone else has experienced, as a pattern for themselves.  Every situation is different; and each must be walked thru between the person in need & Lord for their own specific plan.) 

 

When I was first diagnosed with hepatitis B & possible pancreatic cancer,  there was no panic, fear, etc…even though we knew that both were extremely serious, and that type of cancer is often terminal.  God had imparted to us a certain level of confidence in our spirits that everything was going to be okay.  That special gift of Grace that God gave us, & we had nothing to do with producing, carried us for a period of time.  We knew from the Logos that God could heal me, but we did not know that He would b/c we had not received a Rhema to that effect.

 

From day one we shifted gears to pursue medical treatment while we would wait on the Lord for a possible specific word as to what He was going to do. Over time the diagnosis changed to lymphoma, which was good (better) news.  Our prayers were not aggressive all the time.  We had this Peace of God in our spirits, so many times we were in a rather neutral, waiting mode…just waiting on the Lord.  ‘Terminal’ was still on the table, but not a serious issue or pre-occupation.

 

In time people began to receive dreams, visions, ‘words from the Lord’ (from local to Rwanda) seeing me totally healed & restored & doing ministry & real estate just as before.  I don’t always recommend people rely on “other’s” ‘hearng’ from God on their behalf, but rather get their own word. 

 

However, after a while I noticed something had changed in my spirit.  I now did not have just that certain level of Grace & confidence I had before.  I realized God had imparted into my spirit a ’Gift of Faith’.  All of a sudden something would start welling up within me that I knew that I knew that I knew I was going to be totally healed & restored.  I didn’t know when or how, but ‘terminal’ was now off the table completely, and my focus was divine healing.  NOW, I could boldly confess & declare that God was healing me, and I would eventually experience the finished product.

 

Part of it undoubtedly was the vision of the bus, and that God had healed me from hepatitis B…no small thing.  I am now back on the bus heading for the remainder of my healing.

 

I trust this helps all of us in our praying & speaking.  There is nothing wrong with saying you have an illness or need, providing you have heard from God as to what His Plan is for the Provision.  (You can’t be saved unless you confess you are a sinner.)  I believe the enemy has hoodwinked a lot of believers into being dishonest by convincing them they must not make ‘negative’ confessions.  And many believers are walking around making confessions based on what the Logos says & what their desire is, but they have not received a Rhema from God, & their confession is not based on that.  I trust this will help many of you.  And God bless all.

 

This is just one teaching of many that the Lord has shown me will come out of my journey…dealing with proper Scriptural understanding of illness & healing.  Of course, all according to…

 

Mike Bernadsky