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This message is to encourage Believers to live healthy, to live in victory, not defeated. Believers have what the world does not have. We have the victory. It has been given to those who believe. For this subject, I will cover the area of sicknesses and dieases. It is very clear in the Bible that it is NOT God’s will for us to be sick. Unfortunately, I have seen a COMMON “fall-back” among most Believers who want to accept that they are sick or have dieases attacking them. They go back to point out that Paul said he had a “thorn in the flesh” which can be found in 2 Corinthians 12:7. I will show you in this vlog that “the thorn in the flesh” DOES NOT mean sickness and I strongly encourage us to abandon that misleading understanding. It is a mentality that Satan has attempted to infest God’s church.

For those who are not familiar who Paul was: He was a pure Jew, a pharisee, who was anti-Messiah. He murdered a lot of Believers but one day he saw Yahushua (Jesus) in a vision and believed in Him. He became a Believer of the Messiah and established many churches and was inspired by God to write 2/3 of the New Testament. He was one of the powerful apostles of Yahushua. He said in one of his letter that he had a ‘thorn in the flesh’ and many Christians today view it as sickness and as a result, many accept the fact of being sick….because Paul was said to be sick, too. Some assume that Paul’s sicknesses are: earaches, headaches, eye afflictions, epislepsy, hysteria, malaria, speech impediment, or sexual lust.

Praise God for the TRUTH. Gosh, if there were no such thing as Truth, I’d be a mess.  The “thorn in the flesh” DOES NOT mean sickness. I will show you some pointers where we can see that it does not mean sickness.

Paul preached ‘big-time’ on healing. Never do you see in the Bible where a sick person has healed sick people. Did not Yahushua say that a kingdom divided against itself would fall? You can read that in Matthew 12:25-30. Sickness vs. Health? We can see this is not so.

The truth is: In the Bible, God wants His children to be healed, well, and strong! Yahushua suffered beatings so that we could be healed. 

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” -Isaiah 53:5

Notice the verse says, “By his wounds, we ARE healed.” This means healing is possible and will happen. Satan wants you to be sick– he wants the opposite of this verse. He wants to limit us of what we are capable of doing. He wants to snap us away from God’s plans for us. What good are we if we are sick. We cannot do anything if we have to stay in bed and try to recover.Unfortunately, we as Christians, agree with Satan in this view. We think that the thorn in the flesh is a sickness put upon us.

Now, let’s get to the bottom of the “thorn in the flesh”. That  mentality must be destroyed. It is a false teaching or ”concept” that Satan has infested in the Chruch today and caused us to believe a misconception of the Bible. Knowledge is power. God has said:

 ”My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge…” Hosea 4:6

 And later in that verse, he blames it on preachers. Preachers are supposed to be shepards– taking GOOD care of God’s flock but instead, many just take care of their flock allowing them to be sick and get worse.

Let’s see what kind of attitude did Jesus’s own brother, James, have when he wrote a letter to a church:

“Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;”-James 5:14

This clearly tells me that James is expecting to hear that there is no one sick. He asked if there was ANYONE among you that is sick…He expects that no one is to be sick.

Now back to Paul, himself, healed people and performed healing. He raised the dead back to life! It would be truly an ironic if he was dead-sick but healing everyone else.

“The thorn in the flesh” really means HUMAN ENEMIES.

‘Thorn of the flesh’ is an Old Testament idiom. That’s something the Bible uses. It’s a Hebrew idiom not used among us, Americans. If you mentioned that idiom to a Jewish person, they would know that it means someone is being a bothersome to you. Unfortunately, to Americans or to those who are not familiar with the customs of Israel, they think this idiom means sickness. 

 Joshua used that phrase and so did David. Let’s see the CONTEXT of what that idiom was used in the Bible. Joshua said:

“But they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges on your sides and **thorns in your eyes**, until you perish from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.” -Joshua 23:13

Joshua was not talking about sickness. The ‘thorn’ in that verse was regarding to the heathen nations in Caanan. We see that ’scourges on your sides’ and ‘thorns in your eyes’ are not sore eyes or sore body. It is human enemies.

.Again, David said:

“But the godless are like thorns to be thrown away, for they tear the hand that touches them.” -2 Samuel 23:6

In this verse, thorns means personalities from a human. A godless person. A human enemy.

Paul was clear when he mentioned what the ‘thorn’ was.

“…a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan…”-1 Corinthians 12:7 

A messenger of satan = human enemy and is also angels of satan. It’s a CLEAR reference to what “thorn in the flesh” means but unfortunately many people do not get it. It’s a MESSENGER from satan.

First of all, if ‘thorn in the flesh’ were really sickness, then boy, the people were really stupid when they took Paul’s handerchief which was filled with mucus, booger, snots, from his sickness. The handerchief would be filled with g-e-r-m-s of his eye infection and all the boils and other infection and dieases Paul had, but interesting, the handerchief was used to heal many OTHER people, but not Paul?!?!

 We can see the lie in the meaning of ‘thorn in the flesh’ being a sickness.Secondly, If Paul, “the sickest of men” was one of the mightest apostle accomplishing more work than a well man, then let us all pray for sickness in order that we also may do more work for God.

it’s not sickness. It’s a messenger of satan, which means human enemies.

Now, if some of the people say that Paul had the “thorn in the flesh” to prevent him from being boastful– and they have the same thing. Then in my perspective, they are SO arrogant to think they are so righteous, so like Paul, and so wonderful and that they have their thorn in the flesh to keep them humble. This is an issue of pride.  that’s an arrogant mentality.

I want to close this with encouragement. Beloved I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers.” -3 John 2:1

We can see here that the apostles wish for their beloved brothers and sisters to prosper in everything and to be in good health just the same way as their soul prospers. When you are saved, you have a new creature– in this verse, John is saying he wants you to have it all.

Be blessed!

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