Healer

Hello again, friends.  I know.  Don't fall over dead.  It's only been like 3 weeks since I last blogged instead of 1 1/2 years.  I know.  Don't let the shock blow you over.

I'm still in the same book:  Lord, I Want to Know You by the gifted Kay Arthur.  I'm actually still in the same section as last time:  Jehovah-rapha, the LORD who heals.  You're probably wondering when I'm going to be finished blogging about this, and the answer is I don't know.  God being a healer is where I need to be.

I've been a Christian since I was a teenager.  I can't remember exactly how old I was.  I want to say somewhere around 14 or 15.  However, I knew who Jesus was long before I decided to walk with Him.  One afternoon, I walked down to my church and sat in pastor's office, pleading with Jesus to be a Savior to me, and He was.  In that moment, the Cross became real in my life.  In that moment, Jesus came and saved me from sin and from myself.  Ezekiel says that He takes away our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh.

Today, I was reading the book, yet again convinced that nothing would be applicable to me because I had learned everything from the healer chapter that I could.  No, that was not the case.  Listen to what Kay writes:

For some time I had realized my lifestyle was unacceptable to God.  I knew that if I were to stand before Him, I would hear Him justly say, "Depart from Me."  My sins were obvious.  Even I could not excuse them.  For the first time in my life, I had seen my poverty of spirit.  Although I had tried, I could not quit sinning.  Nothing good dwelt in my flesh, and I knew it.  I had made resolution after resolution to be good, to stop being immoral.  Yet I gave in again and again.  I finally concluded that there was no way I could ever be set free.  I just wasn't strong enough spiritually to change.  I knew I was sick--sick of soul.  As a registered nurse I was an active participant in the healing of many bodies, but I didn't know of any doctor who could heal my soul.  And heal myself?  Well, it was impossible.  I had tried.

Kay was talking about her life before she met Jesus, but, believer, do you ever feel like that?  Do you ever feel like you're too damaged?  Do you ever feel like what you are can never really be fixed?  Do you ever feel like you're too dirty to be cleaned, too guilty to be freed?

My sin stared me in the face today, and it won the staring contest hands down.  I felt so detestable, despicable, tarnished.  I cried out to God, "Lord, I'm sorry!"  Yet my guilt continued to grow.  I flipped to Romans 7--yep, Kay had recommended it.  However, I read past what Kay recommended.  Beloved, there is a reason that Scripture is the healing balm we need.  There is a reason we need it because it is our life support.  Read this.  It's long, but I can't leave out a single word of what God inspired Paul to write.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work:  When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.  Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.  You, however, [side note:  As far as I'm concerned, after hearing that a sinful nature can't please God, "You, however" are the best words ever] You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.  And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.  Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by Him we cry, "Abba, Father."  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.  Romans 7:18-8:16, NIV

Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.

Please don't get lost in all the spirit talk and do's and don't do's.  If you do, you're going to get really confused and miss the point.  I know that theologians would probably tear my analysis apart, but I'm sharing what I learned today.  So here's what I got:

Before I chose to follow Jesus, I had an ugly nature in me.  I had a sinful nature, a sinful spirit.  However (See?  It's the best word, isn't it?), when I came to know Jesus, He gave me Him.  I know, people.  This is elementary, and you're thinking, "Yeah, I knew that.  What is the great epiphany in that?"  The point is that it's not really an epiphany.  It's really my Lover reminding me that He loves me and telling me our love story all over again.  It's my Jesus watching me walk away, and I turn back for that final glance and He comes running.  It's me wearing filthy rags, and His locking me in an embrace so tightly anyway that I never want to leave to protection of His arms, that the filth no longer matters.  People, do you hear the gift He gave us?  He gave us Himself.  Let me say it one more time:  He gave us Himself.  Romans 8 says He gave Himself as the sin offering we could never give.  It says that not only did He give Himself as a sin offering, but that He gives us His Spirit and He gives us a "Spirit of sonship".  I mean, come on.  I have the spirit of Christ living in me at all times.  I have His Spirit; not because of anything I did, but because God loves me and knew I was powerless against sin without Him.  "For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, GOD DID by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering" (Romans 8:3).

I can't get that thought out of my head:  "God did."  God did that all for me.  "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"  God did.  He made a way for me long before I walked this planet.  God had paid for me, healed me before I even knew I needed it.  I'm sorry if this is a long blog, if it seems simple.  I am just blown away by the power, by the sweetness, by the healing of my Jesus.  This morning when my heart cried out, He heard and answered.  He said, "Beloved, you don't have to be a slave to that.  I'm giving you freedom.  I'm giving you life.  I'm giving you complete healing.  I am the peace maker and joy giver.  Drop it and let my Spirit invade yours."

"Where do you run when you need healing?  Jehovah-rapha is there--waiting with outstretched arms, Calvary arms."