It may be true that laughter is the best medicine, but it’s not always easy to laugh when illness or pain hit us. Pain concentrates the mind and it’s difficult to think of anything else. On Sunday night, Mark began the first of four sermons in July looking at the topic of healing.
We can need healing in different areas: physical, mental or spiritual. The good news is that Jesus is our healer. Matt 4:23-24 TNIV tells us ‘Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.’
Jesus’s first priority was to teach and to preach the gospel. He wanted men to know the salvation offered by God. Salvation is the gateway to our perfect healing. He healed people out of His love for them and was able to heal ‘every disease and sickness’. Nothing is too difficult for Him. He healed out of His love for people and out of a desire for God to get the glory in every situation.
One of the things which prevent us from receiving healing from God is a stiff-necked and stubborn attitude (see Acts 7:51 TNIV). A literal stiff neck is incredibly painful and does not allow us to move our heads freely; it narrows our vision and prevents us from having a whole view of GOd. God has, sadly, often found His people – the recipients of His blessing and grace – to be stiff-necked, stubborn, deaf (see Ex 32:9 TNIV.) It is a dangerous place to be when we resist God. All of us can be incredibly stubborn and can resist Him, but there is, as Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 TNIV reminds us, a time for everything, including a time to heal.
Mark concluded with three searching questions:
1) Do we believe God can heal?
2) Do we need healing?
3) What are we going to do about that?
The service ended with prayer for healing, as it will each Sunday night during July. It is too important a topic to ignore and we can pray not only for those in the meeting but also for our friends, families, neighbours and work colleagues who need to know that our God heals.