stripes

Another version of the __rosperity Gospel_ or __ame It and Claim It_ teaching has to do with finding a verse in the Bible and then __laiming_ that verse. Proponents of this thinking believe that God must fulfill his promise to us in whatever verse we are __laiming_ because what God says in his Word, the Bible, is true, and we can trust it to be true. So someone might pray: God, your Word says in Isaiah that by your stripes we are healed and I know you are not a liar and that your Word is true and I claim that Scripture in Jesus__ name and therefore I will be healed of this stomachache! We need to have faith in what the Bible says, but we have to be careful that we aren__ trying to force God to do what we want. That is arrogance rather than humility.God loves us, but we cannot demand things of him as though our faith is in charge rather than God. If someone believes it is our faith that heals us and forgets that it is God who does it, we should ask that person how much faith Lazarus had. Remember, he was decomposing in a tomb when Jesus raised him from death. His faith obviously didn__ matter. It was all God. It is God and God__ grace that heals, not our prayers and not our __aith._ Though we are exhorted by God to pray to him, we cannot compel him to do what we wish.

My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors.

I was sufficiently recovered from my nervous condition _ or else the booze was beginning to work _ to be able to discuss with Rudi the merits of checked or striped trousers, which had been the great debate among the London nobs that year. I was a check-er myself, having the height and leg for it, but Rudi thought they looked bumpkinish, which only shows what damned queer taste they had in Austria in those days. Of course, if you__l put up with Metternich you__l put up with anything.