Empowered Evangelicals chapter three

Every Christian knows, through personal experience, that the Christian life is lived on two tracks, power and pain, victory and defeat.  But how shall we make sense of it?  Our understanding of power and pain is rooted in the biblical message of the kingdom of God.

Reading theology to INXS "Suicide Blonde" and "Disappear" is a little incongruous.  This quote really hits home.  It annoys me to hear the radio preachers shouting that you will have "the Victorious Christian Life" and never get sick or have anything bad happen if only you do X, Y and Z, and donate generously to their radio show.  In practice, it just isn't like that.  Hebrews 12 lists the prophets who had great effects on people's lives, and followed God, then it lists the ones who were sawn in half, lived in caves, and had a lousy time of it.  Jeremiah was tossed in a well.  Only one of the twelve disciples died a natural death, and that was in exile on a prison island.  Power and pain, the title of this chapter.  Healing is not guaranteed.

The not yet of the kingdom means that not everyone will be healed even if they have perfect faith.  And even regarding those who do get healed, all of them will surely die if Christ does not return first.

The authors get bonus points to my mind by mentioning "mental and physical healings."  Many people won't even acknowledge the fact that the brain is not immune to illness, and therefore Christians can get depression, panic disorder, schizophrenia and all the rest, just as they can break bones, get pneumonia and have cancer.  That's another thing that bugs me about the majority of radio preachers.