Straight to the Heart
Beloved People of God,
It’s natural when we experience sickness, or see someone we love suffering, to long for healing. We go in search of relief. We ask others if they’ve encountered similar symptoms. We book appointments. We even search for answers from websites and computer collations (ironically referred to as intelligence). The reality is when we suffer, we want solutions.
But often because we don’t know the depths of our maladies, we end up treating symptoms on the surface rather than the inner, unseen disease. Like the woman hemorrhaging blood for twelve years, we go from doctor to doctor desperate for a cure, spending everything we have, only to find ourselves worse off than before (Matthew 9.20-22; Mark 5.26). Cosmetic remedies leave us emotionally depleted when they fail to fix what’s broken within.
When we come to the end of ourselves, when the solutions of the internet and the internist leave us without answers, we look beyond the natural to the supernatural. Scripture tells us Jesus came to heal us, and not just the sickness on the surface but the sin deep within. Jesus speaks over us with all authority and restores us with all gentleness, healing our broken hearts and binding up our wounds (Psalm 147.3).
Matthew wrote of a paralytic man brought to Jesus who’d been “thrown” onto his sick bed (Greek: balló). He wasn’t tossed roughly there by his friends who brought him to Jesus but violently thrust there by his disease. No doubt, knowing the nature of crowds, some thought they knew this man’s sin, and saw his sickness as just punishment (Exodus 15.26). Forgiving little, they loved little, feeling the pain of the paralytic little (Luke 7.47). But for those of us who’ve found great freedom and healing in Jesus Christ’s love, we rejoice in His command to get up and walk! We bow down in awe and praise God (Matthew 9.8)!
Beloved, may we, who have been greatly loved, love all people with the good news of our Great Physician. May we speak straight to the heart of the hurting that Jesus our Healer also forgives our sin!
For Christ the King,
Brett