Chrysostom
Beloved of All
You ask for healing, protection, and financial breakthrough. These are not wrong to desire, but consider the order of gifts. The power of God is greater than any single healing, for He both punishes and restores. Yet if you have not love, all gifts profit nothing. Do not grieve if healing delays; what you truly need may be the greater gift of a transformed soul. Many seek cures for the body while the soul lies sick, but the sickness of sin requires the more urgent medicine.
Why do you ask for protection? The only lasting protection is to stand within the will of God. Men fear poverty and sickness, but they do not fear the judgment that awaits the unrepentant heart. Financial breakthrough often occupies the tongue, but examine your life: are you as careful to apply the commands of Christ as you are to request relief? The word you hear must be received as if God Himself were exhorting you. If you have heard ten times and remained unmoved, do not despair, yet do not presume. The tree that does not fall at ten strokes may fall by the eleventh.
Healing is a lesser gift than teaching and prophecy. Do all have gifts of healing? No. But all may have love, humility, and a listening ear. The blind man in the Gospel knew more than the rulers who refused to see. They heard the Law but did not do it; they judged without careful hearing. So I say to you: let your first request be for ears to hear, and a heart that does the word. Let your breakthrough be from the chains of sin. Then, whether health or sickness, poverty or plenty, you will possess the pearl of great price. Seek first His kingdom, and these other things may be added. But if they are not, remember the torments that await the unrepentant. I do not say this willingly, but of necessity, as a physician who would not abandon the sick until the last breath. The vestibule of hell itself is not beyond hope if you turn now. I am fully persuaded that such eager desire for hearing will bear fruit, if you let the word take root. May you obtain the everlasting blessings, which alone are true healing, perfect protection, and inexhaustible treasure.
Why do you ask for protection? The only lasting protection is to stand within the will of God. Men fear poverty and sickness, but they do not fear the judgment that awaits the unrepentant heart. Financial breakthrough often occupies the tongue, but examine your life: are you as careful to apply the commands of Christ as you are to request relief? The word you hear must be received as if God Himself were exhorting you. If you have heard ten times and remained unmoved, do not despair, yet do not presume. The tree that does not fall at ten strokes may fall by the eleventh.
Healing is a lesser gift than teaching and prophecy. Do all have gifts of healing? No. But all may have love, humility, and a listening ear. The blind man in the Gospel knew more than the rulers who refused to see. They heard the Law but did not do it; they judged without careful hearing. So I say to you: let your first request be for ears to hear, and a heart that does the word. Let your breakthrough be from the chains of sin. Then, whether health or sickness, poverty or plenty, you will possess the pearl of great price. Seek first His kingdom, and these other things may be added. But if they are not, remember the torments that await the unrepentant. I do not say this willingly, but of necessity, as a physician who would not abandon the sick until the last breath. The vestibule of hell itself is not beyond hope if you turn now. I am fully persuaded that such eager desire for hearing will bear fruit, if you let the word take root. May you obtain the everlasting blessings, which alone are true healing, perfect protection, and inexhaustible treasure.
