Don't Medicate Your Faith: There Is a Balm in the United States

By Dr. Shannon B. Johnson

Have we medicated our faith? Have we replaced our faith in God with quick fixes? When we are sick, do we reach for the medicine only? Or do we also reach toward heaven to the One who made us?
There has been a consistent increase in the amount of medications Americans are consuming over the past decades, and the numbers continue to increase. If faith increased at the rate that the intake of prescription drugs increased, miracles would become the norm, and healing would be an everyday occurrence. When Jesus was on the earth, faith in His ability to heal, out measured medications. Now we have more medicines than we have faith. The scales have tipped over.
Jesus proposed this question to the disciples. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? It seems that the worlds faith in God continues to diminish instead of growing. When the Lord returns to the earth, I pray that He will find faith in the earth. The Lord is not against His children seeking the help of physicians and medicines, but He also wants His children to seek His help and Dont medicate your faith!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481751704

Dr. Shannon B. Johnson

Dr. Shannon Johnson and her husband serve as Pastors of Interdenominational Faith Assembly, a dynamic ministry in Baton Rouge, LA. Their ministry is one of miracles, faith, healing and deliverance. Dr. Shannon’s declaration is, “Nothing is too hard for God.” She is a graduate of Life Christian University, Faith Christian University and Southern University BR. Dr. Shannon is married to Pastor Guevara Johnson. They have six children and one grandson. They reside in Prairieville, LA.

Book preview

DON’T

MEDICATE

your

Faith

THERE IS A BALM IN THE UNITED STATES

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© 2013, 2014 Dr. Shannon B. Johnson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/23/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4817-5172-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-5171-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-5170-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013908470

"Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations noted amplified, are taken from the amplified Bible."

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER I: Don’t Medicate Your Faith

PART I Un-Medicated Faith

PART II Power Present To Heal

PART III The Great Physician

PART IV Wilt Thou Be Made Whole

PART V The Prayer Of Faith Heals The Sick

CHAPTER II: Faith to Forgive

PART I Faith To Forgive

PART II Un-Forgiveness, The Other Silent Killer

PART III Forgiveness, An Act Of Obedience

CHAPTER III: Beyond The Measure

PART I Beyond The Measure Of Faith

PART II Is There A Balm In The United States?

PART III Only Believe

PART IV In The Name, Through Faith In His Name

PART V Fight With Your Faith

CHAPTER IV: Faith vs. Your Feelings

PART I Un-Medicated Emotions

PART II Walk By Faith & Not By Sight

PART III Faith Comes By Hearing

PART IV Restored By Your Faith & The Power Of God

CHAPTER V: Miracles by Faith

PART I By His Stripes

PART II The Gifts Of Healings

PART III Miracles, Yesterday & Today (The Gift Of Miracles)

Testimonies

Conclusion

"I

dedicate this book to God my Father, Jesus my Savior, and the Holy Spirit my Teacher. To my husband, my children, my family and my IFA Church family. To my late Pastor, who inspired me in so many ways and to my Senior Pastor. I love you all so much. Thank you for your prayers, your support and your encouragent."

-To all of you, I am forever grateful.

FOREWORD

In addition to the doctor’s care and the medications they prescribe, God wants us to seek Him and His word for health and healing. As you trust God for healing in conjunction with the doctor’s care, you must build your faith through the Word of God and meditate on it.

– Don’t Medicate your Faith

In this timely and relevant treatise, Dr. Shannon Johnson exposes a primary reason why God’s people – especially in the West are increasingly impotent. Their faith is yoked to temporal resources – pharmaceuticals, pleasure, money, power, religious activity, etc., which ultimately fail them.

Jeremiah 2:13 is clear, "For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."

As a licensed counselor for the last twenty years, I have watched this sad trend slowly grow and then explode over the last several years. These medications can alleviate the symptoms of anxiety, but they cannot give us the peace that only comes from surrender to God. They can mask the symptoms of reactive depression, but they cannot give us the joy that comes from God’s presence.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) – cannot be obtained through a pill (i.e.: We cannot medicate the spirit). These attributes are acquired by practicing the spiritual disciplines – prayer, meditation, worship, solitude, sacrifice, Bible study, repentance, forgiveness, etc.

If we do not cultivate faith, then we will medicate ourselves when a situation demands faith. Thus, we remain bound. Too often we want to change our circumstances, but we do not want to change ourselves.

In, Don’t Medicate Your Faith, Dr. Johnson uses powerful testimonies, humor, personal stories, and current surveys to make a case for the preeminence of faith in God in our daily lives. Her theology is also balanced.

Finally, I have been privileged to watch Dr. Johnson and her husband, Pastor Guevera Johnson, model their faith as they shepherd the flock of God. I highly recommend this book and pray that it will edify your faith and glorify God.

Nick Eno, LPC

Chief Servant

Nick Eno Ministries

INTRODUCTION

This book topic is inspired by a spiritual dream that I will never forget. I don’t know if I really understood how powerful this dream was at the time it occurred. In the dream, words were spoken that seemed to be so simple, but they were filled with a great deal of revelation. In the dream, there were men dressed in robes and sandals with their heads covered. I understood that they were men from bible times. The ground was covered with dirt as far as I could see. It was as a desert and there was a fire burning. The men standing around were very attentive, and an image, which I knew was Jesus, was teaching them. My husband and I were standing on the side listening. It was a great sight. The part of the teaching that I remember distinctly is, and I quote, Don’t let physicians medicate your faith. I thought to myself, this statement would not be the most popular statement to repeat; it may sound as a negative tone towards physicians, but I know that was not the purpose of the statement.

Doctors and medicines were created by God, and they are very helpful in aiding in the health and healing of the body; but there is another source that we can turn to, in addition to doctors and medicines. Luke, one of the Four Gospel writers was a physician. God used him to write the book of Luke through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is unwavering proof that God is not against physicians. God just wants us to consider and believe in His infinite power in the healing process. In addition to the doctor’s care and the medications they prescribe, God wants us to seek Him and His word for health and healing. As you trust God for healing in conjunction with the doctor’s care, you must build your faith through the Word of God and meditate on it. You must then allow the healing process to manifest in the physical body before discontinuing the doctor’s care or medication. When healing is manifested in the physical body, and the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, then you will no longer need medication; your faith will have made you whole!

The dream seemed to have had a simple message, but God will use something simplistic to reveal the supernatural. When God called Moses to deliver His people, the Israelites from under the bondage of Pharaoh, Moses asked God, who should I say sent me? God’s response was, Tell Pharaoh that I Am sent you. That was a simple statement, but it had and still has enormous revelation and impact in the Israelites’ deliverance. I believe that God has ordained this time and this season to share this message of faith and healing with the world.

There are various reasons why faith in prescription drugs has increased so much in the United States. One of the reasons being, advertisements of these drugs. Advertisements in the United States of prescription drugs have played a huge role in the increase of Americans’ use of prescription drugs.

It is clear that advertising substantially influences both patient and prescribing habits. Heavily promoted drugs such as Nexium, Prozac, Zoloft, Lipitor and Viagra account for more than $20 billion in annual sales. These ads appear right next to cereal commercials and car ads.¹ This type of advertizing alludes to prescription medication as being a part of everyday living just as eating food or driving a car.

God’s principle works no matter who implements it. Faith cometh by hearing…² The information that we allow to enter into the ear gate transmits to the mind. The mind is a very influential place. The mind has the ability to influence our actions and reactions. If the word of God is not rehearsed in the hearing daily, it will not become a dominant influence in our lives. Whatever information we hear repetitively becomes a dominant influence. Commercials are aired frequently daily with the intention to influence the mind to act or to react to the information given. The mind is so powerful that it can rehearse every word or almost every word spoken on commercials that are heard over and over again. The catchy slogans linked to products are very effective, and they stick. The word of God should be heard and rehearsed on a consistent basis. This will build our faith in God and His Word.

God is the same. He does not change. He made the human body, and He understands it better than anyone else. God has shared His infinite wisdom with man in many areas to perpetuate healing in the bodies of man. He has allowed man to make many advances in the medical field, in technology and in medicine. Yet it remains a mystery to mankind how God forms the bones in a mother’s womb to create a life! When I took on the task of acting as contractor in building my home, I knew every facet of that house. I saw it form from the beginning to the ending. I hired every worker. I watched their work from the foundation to the complete construction. If a problem arose, I knew where everything was, how to get it fixed and who I needed to contact. I knew more about that house than anyone else. Who knows more about our bodies better than God? No one!

God desires for His children to trust Him in every way, including healing. God is still as powerful as He was when He created the heavens, the universe, the earth and mankind. His power doesn’t diminish. If He had the power to create man, He can surely repair him or restore him. If God formed us and made us, surely He can heal us of any manner of sickness and disease.

God wants us to turn to Him for everything. As earthly parents, we want our children to come to us when they have a problem. We are even offended if we discover that our children turned to someone else instead of us for answers or assistance with their problems. Even if the person or persons they confided in gave them great advice and did not bring any harm to them; as a parent we would want our children to come to us, after all we conceived them. God feels the same way about us when He becomes our afterthought instead of our first thought for answers or assistance. Yes, God has feelings. The Holy Bible speaks of God’s anger, His jealousy, and His love. God wants us to look to Him first, no matter what the situation is, small or great.

In the case of sickness and disease, they are problems in our lives. Who do we turn to? Do we seek God first? Or do we automatically turn to physicians and to medications? Physicians are great people, and they have a purpose in our lives. God gave man the wisdom to learn more and more about the human body in many ways, but we should seek the One who created us. Americans, including believers of God, are relying on and turning to medicine to cure all their diseases and for all of their problems. According to David Gutierrez, People in the United States are taking more prescription medications than ever before, leading some experts to worry that many of these drugs may be unnecessary and expose patients to dangerous side effects.³

Millions of Americans are taking medications. There are many times that medicine is very helpful and needed, but we have reached an all time high in drug intake.

According to a recent study by Medco Health Solutions, a company that manages prescription drug benefits, more