Do You Believe In The Power Of The Priesthood?

[Kenngo1969]

And when bad things happen, it's always because one did not have sufficient faith.   That has been the story ever since the Israelites suffered their first defeat at the hands of other Canaanites with different gods.

Who claimed that?  Not anyone on this thread of whom I am aware.  Thanks fer playin'!

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/healing-the-sick?lang=eng

[Kenngo1969]

You do that by measuring the results that fall outside of the statistical noise.  A regenerated limb for an amputee would do it.

I don't know anyone who has had a limb regenerated (a la some species of reptile which are capable of such things).  However, I have known people for whom use of an artificial limb is no liability, and they function as well as they would if their natural limb(s) had been restored.  They'll get the "real one(s)" back in the resurrection soon enough.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Kenngo1969

[Avatar4321]

And when bad things happen, it's always because one did not have sufficient faith.   That has been the story ever since the Israelites suffered their first defeat at the hands of other Canaanites with different gods.

then maybe it's about time we start exercising faith in our lives instead of doubting and complaining about everything. I've found over alot of trial and error that faith works far better than doubt

[The Nehor]

And when bad things happen, it's always because one did not have sufficient faith.   That has been the story ever since the Israelites suffered their first defeat at the hands of other Canaanites with different gods.

 

Job disrespectfully disagrees. If perfect faith automatically created a utopian life then Jesus flubbed up somewhere.

[JAHS]

And when bad things happen, it's always because one did not have sufficient faith.   That has been the story ever since the Israelites suffered their first defeat at the hands of other Canaanites with different gods.

 

Could be lack of faith or it is simply in God's plan for that person to experience the bad thing.

[HairBear]

So, uh, did the missionaries get chicken pox?

 

I don't think they did, but it was a while a go

[mfbukowski]

With all of the threads going on about science and miracles and the stance that many have taken that if science can't prove it happened, it didn't happen and is merely a story handed down through the ages or a metaphorical miracle. I was wondering how many, if any, believe in the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood to actually heal somebody. I mean a real live healing, an instantaneous mending of a broken bone, killing a virus that's killing a human being or to change the course of a storm or a river or a planet. Do you believe the Priesthood to have an actual physical power?

 

I'd do a poll but I'm not that smart to get the questions right. Maybe someone else will volunteer to do a poll.

Just to respond to the non-poll, even though I am a Pole myself I won't hold that against you, the answer is "yes".

 

Just don't ask me to do a pole dance - you will be very sorry.

 

I have seen healings happen overnight

Edited December 1, 2014 by mfbukowski

[Tacenda]

What about healings in other faiths, do they count?

[Guest]

With all of the threads going on about science and miracles and the stance that many have taken that if science can't prove it happened, it didn't happen and is merely a story handed down through the ages or a metaphorical miracle. I was wondering how many, if any, believe in the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood to actually heal somebody. I mean a real live healing, an instantaneous mending of a broken bone, killing a virus that's killing a human being or to change the course of a storm or a river or a planet. Do you believe the Priesthood to have an actual physical power?

 

I'd do a poll but I'm not that smart to get the questions right. Maybe someone else will volunteer to do a poll.

I believe, I have experienced it.

[filovirus]

I have been taken part in a blessing of miraculous healing. I do believe. 

[pogi]

What about healings in other faiths, do they count?

 

If they are healed, how could it not count?

 

The New testament speaks of the gifts of the spirit which are not limited to priesthood holders.  The gift of healing is one of them.  We are taught to seek after these gifts.

[Avatar4321]

I've been a part of instant healings.

[The Nehor]

What about healings in other faiths, do they count?

Obviously this is devil healing. Participants should be burned to death. Okay, that may be a bit harsh, just burn them alive.

[Tacenda]

Pogi, that's why I think we all can glean from the High Priest, Jesus Christ and that power. But PH power granted to the LDS males, sure can help him elevate himself and reach a lot of potential. Or backfire and stress them out with trying to live up to it.

[Kenngo1969]

Pogi, that's why I think we all can glean from the High Priest, Jesus Christ and that power. But PH power granted to the LDS males, sure can help him elevate himself and reach a lot of potential. Or backfire and stress them out with trying to live up to it.

If the Priesthood "stresse [someone] out," he's "doing" it wrong!  Just sayin'!  (It can and should humble one, but stressing one out?  No.)  I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it shouldn't, if one has the right attitude about it.

[Hamba Tuhan]

If the Priesthood "stresse [someone] out," he's "doing" it wrong!

 

Amen! One of the greatest witnesses I have of the reality of both the Lord and His priesthood is the degree to which He is willing to bless and sustain me as I engage in His service. Doing the Lord's work His way is the pathway of peace, not stress.

[Stargazer]

Edited to be SLIGHTLY less abrasive:

 

One Sunday in sacrament meeting, a dear brother finished singing in the adult choir and collapsed while returning to his seat.  And despite the fact that we had the entire bishopric and a member of the stake presidency in attendance, we all made way for the doctors and nurses in our ward.  In fact, one of the first persons to reach him was a woman who had no priesthood.  But she was the one who was allowed to "lay hands" on our dear brother.  Probably because we wanted him to live.  In that moment, her medical training trumped the combined priesthood power of every holder in the room.

 

Is this an indication of our collective lack of belief in the power of the priesthood (at least, in regards to physical healing)?  Or is our initial reliance of modern medicine as the first option, still consist with a belief in that power?

 

Our littlest one was not quite 2 years old (he's 30+ now) and came down with an ear infection.  It was pretty bad, and he was in a lot of pain, but it was Sunday evening and we didn't want to run in to the emergency room over it, so I gave him a blessing.  I suppose it was a typical "faint-hearted" blessing, in that I didn't bless him to be healed, but just that his pain would be gone and he could sleep.  Immediately after the blessing, he seemed to be fine, no longer crying and in distress, and almost immediately fell asleep.  My wife took him to the doctor's the next day (I was at work), and when they asked her what his problem was said "bad ear infection".  Except that he just played on the floor of the waiting room like there wasn't the slightest thing wrong.  She took him back when their turn came and according to her, the doctor was very skeptical about the reason for bringing him in, since he was completely happy and cheerful.  He said "He looks fine, actually", but the wife said, check his ears, and he did.  His jaw dropped, apparently.  He told her he had rarely seen such redness in an ear, and marveled that our son wasn't screaming for pain.  He prescribed some antibiotics, and there we were.

 

Another similar experience happened a year or two later with a little girl in our ward about the same age as my son had been.  It was during the day, and I happened to be on night shift and at home, so the HPGL asked me to help out with a blessing.  I went there with another brother, and we gave her a blessing.  Immediately, her distress ended and she fell right to sleep, having been up all night.  It was about that time that the father came home from work to take her to the doctor's, and off they went.. I believe the outcome was the same.

 

Many years before this, when I was visiting my brother, during the night his wife came down with something, don't know what it was but she was in a great deal of distress and pain.  My brother woke me up (I was sleeping on the couch) and asked if could give his wife a blessing -- he was a prospective elder, so he couldn't.  She, interestingly, was an atheist, and she still is.  Anyway, I gave her a blessing, can't remember a thing I said, and went back to the couch to get back to sleep.  There began to be a bit of a commotion as she had to suddenly go to the bathroom, and my brother told me later that it was as if her body was dumping all the bad stuff out, like she couldn't contain it.  In the morning she was inexplicably just fine.  There turned out to be an underlying medical condition that took some work from the pill pushers to correct, but that night the power of the priesthood, and at least the faith of two others did her good.

 

Fifteen years ago my daughter called to tell me that her daughter had died that morning from crib death, and could I please cover over (my wife was in Germany at the time).  I rushed to her apartment and prayed mightily to God for permission to let me bring the little baby back, but I got a definite NO.  So all I could do was go over and comfort my daughter and her husband and help start some arrangements.  How can you miss someone who was just barely in your life for 3 months, and whom you never really got to know?  But I do, and think wistfully about the fact that if she had lived she would now be giving us all a welcome trial while she navigated the perils of high school and learning to drive, etc.  But the Lord had other plans for her.  Shadaya was her name.

 

It seems that God wants us use the priesthood for HIS purposes, not ours.  And that God expects that we use it meaningfully.  Do you ask God what to eat for breakfast every morning?  Perhaps God wants you to have oatmeal today, but cream of wheat tomorrow!  But I don't think so.  Do you think the priesthood is there to cure your warts?  Or relieve your ice-cream brain freeze? 

 

We are not Christian Scientists, believing that using modern medicine is evidence of faithlessness in relation to God.  Nor Amish, to eschew all modern technology.  Nor a bunch of Luddites who harrumph at every advance in science and wish mightily for the old days back a 100 years ago when life expectancy in the world was 31 (it's 67.2 now).

[Stargazer]

I don't believe in coincidence...

 

I don't either.  On my mission in Germany I tracted out my future brother- and sister-in-law.  Didn't know it at the time, but... wow.

[Tacenda]

Amen! One of the greatest witnesses I have of the reality of both the Lord and His priesthood is the degree to which He is willing to bless and sustain me as I engage in His service. Doing the Lord's work His way is the pathway of peace, not stress.

I've no idea, that's just my perceptions muddying the water, feeling that it is something you'd have to work at to be worthy to hold it or something, but wrong again.

[Deborah]

Oh, yes I believe in instant healing. But I also believe that the most important healing is in our hearts.

 

Mark 2 makes this point when the palsied man was lowered down from the roof so that Christ can heal him. In v. 5 we read "When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Then when the scribes accused him of blasphemy he replied:
 

9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)

11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.

 

Priesthood is the power that created worlds. It is a real power, but it's greatest power is in saving mankind, whether that be in a broken body or a whole body. Years ago I saw an old movie, it may have been Quo Vadis, where the Roman asked a woman lying in a chair because she couldn't walk why Christ didn't heal her. She replied that he did. He healed her spirit as she was bitter and angry and now she felt nothing but love and in addition to that she was able to lift the spirit of others with her lovely singing. I've always remembered that scene as a lesson in what true healing is.

 

I've watched families struggling with the illness of a young child, praying and giving PH blessings, but the child still dies. Yet the family was spiritually lifted by the compassion and love the received from others. Why some are actually healed physically and others not is not for us to judge. I've experienced both the immediate healing and the not healing and having to then deal and grow with the affliction. God is in charge and that is where we need to place our faith.