A Time To #7

Last time we looked at how we can kill off the influence the enemy has in our lives by embracing the season to kill in our lives.  Today we look at a different season and approach to handling issues in our lives.  It's the season of healing, and it can bring you and anyone who activates it out of whatever malaise you are in.  Find out how below

What is healing?

The term "heal" here means to sew up or mend.  We often think of healing as God's great miracles.  They are Christ delivering the man of Legion, giving Bartimeus his sight back, and raising Lazarus from the dead.  While those are great miracles and signs of healing, healing is not the act of the miraculous, but the act of putting something or someone back together.  It wasn't that Jesus called out Legion from the man that made it healing, it was that he restored his mind and his life in the community.  It wasn't that Bartimeus that could see again.  It was that Bartimeus now was able to choose how he wanted to live his life.  Guess what?  He chose to follow Jesus.  It wasn't that he raised Lazarus from the dead.  It was that he made a family whole again.

God wants to do the miraculous, that much is true.  However, God wants to put people's lives back together more than he wants to put on a show.  God didn't heal Jacob's hip, but he did heal his relationship with his uncle and with Esau.  God didn't take away Moses' stutter, but he did use him to completely heal the nation of Israel and take them to the promise land.  God didn't restore Samson's sight, but he mended the fences and returned him to fulfill his calling.   God might not have performed the full miracle in these men's lives, but he healed them and he can heal you, too.

In our lives, we look for the miracle and the spectacle more than the healing.  We hope to see the hopeless situations of our lives turned into testimonies of God's greatness.   We hope for cancer to be dissolved.  We pray for the money to come in from wherever so we can make it to next pay period.  We believe God will take away our stigma that prevents us from confidently walking in His ways.  God can and he does still remove disease.  He still solves situations that seem insurmountable.  He can give boldness and confidence where none existed.  He can do all this and more.  However, God is looking to do more in our lives than just perform in the realm of events in our lives.  He's looking to transform our lives to where we live every moment fulfilled.

God wants to restore our health, finances and other situations, but he also wants to restore our families-His family.  God loves to take a wayward son or daughter and turn them into the comeback story of the year.  In all of his parables, God didn't have a parable directed at healing.  However, he had three that dealt with bringing people back into the Kingdom of God.  This reveals to us the importance God place on mending the lives of people.  Are we focused on reaching for the lost and wayward in our lives and communities?  Do we have a passion for the sons and daughters doomed to spend an eternity in hell?  How can we help to reach for them and bring them to their place of healing?

By passionately reaching for them as Christ did.  He didn't wait for the man with Legion to come to him.  Christ sailed through a storm to get to him.  He didn't shrug off Bartimeus as another loud beggar.  He had him brought right before him and made sure the first thing Bartimeus saw was God Incarnate when he was able to see.  God didn't say a prayer from the fields of Nazareth for Lazarus.  He went right up to the tomb and called out death in front of everyone.  It's up to us to go beyond what others would do to reach someone.  Will you meet the drug addict that was your friend at their home or in jail?  Will you set your spiritually blinded son who is desperate for something to happen in his life before you and let him pour his heart out?  Will you call out the devil, the world and sin in front of everyone for one soul?  If we'll go beyond, we'll become healers just like Jesus Christ.

Who do you personally know that needs Jesus Christ to be brought back into their lives or into their lives for the first time?  Go to them within the next seven days and engage them in loving conversation.  Ask them how they have been doing and what's been going on in their life.  Finally, tell them how much you love them and miss them being connected spiritually.  Do this from a place of love but let them know how much you want them to be back in relationship with God.  You miss your brother/sister in Christ and can't wait to have them back.