Sunday 18th March Morning

Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 1 Unlike the healing of the soul and the spirit sometimes there is no reason people get sick, it is a part of being in an unperfect world. Accidents happen, virus get caught and there is no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes our bodies just need healing because they are broken and then need attention. Healing of the body is where medicine comes in, for millennia we have been using plants for this ailment or for this condition because the body needs healing. To some degree you can say that God is all for it for we seem to have plants and minerals that help for all kinds of things in nature and in the way our bodies are designed to heal themselves. You could also say that our bodies are designed to encounter faith for it is not uncommon for people to be made well with a placebo effect. Where they take nothing but sugar but believe they have taken a miracle drug and this belief heals them. The downside to having a body that wants to heal itself and nature that provides ingredients for our healing is that we rely on them solely instead of also Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 2 bringing things to God. Usually we wait until every other avenue is pursued and with no results before we come to God, but I think it is important to come to him with whatever our physical concerns are and keep asking him for healing. It is our job to ask, it is his job to answer. We see stories of Jesus being concerned about the physical health of people. Mark 7:31-37 31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. 33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. 36 Jesus commanded them not to tell Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 3 anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” Here we have a man who for some reason had lost his hearing and his ability to speak, they could have been related but most likely this man got a virus or had an accident. Jesus’ compassion is just as evident now for any other reason people are unwell, he wants to do something. We should never doubt God’s desire to help us with our physical issues, and so should come to him with all that ales us. His heart is shown in this passage, his heart to pull the man to one side and touch his ailment and bring health and healing to his life. This heart is the same heart he has for you. Last weekend I went to a training day in Geelong for a group called Healing Rooms, they have rooms all over the world set up to help people receive healing from God whether they believe in him or not. During this time they reinforce that it’s not if God wants to heal but when. They keep asking people to come into the presence of God until they receive what they believe God wants for them. I would say the same, keep coming until you see God breakthrough. The healing of things that stopped working is one way that God heals physically. The other is the re-creation of things that have Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 4 been lost or not originally there. We can see it as a big ask to seek God to recreate something that was not there but this is what he does in this story in John: John 9:1-7 9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. Here we saw a man who was born blind, his eyes have never worked. If you like, his eyes had not developed the way they should. Here we see Jesus, God in flesh, declare that it is not a soul issue, an issue of sin and not a spiritual issue but one of nature. But here Jesus doesn’t say oh bad luck you were born that way I can’t help you, he sets about remaking the man’s eyes. Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 5 From dust we are made it is put in the book of Genesis and this is why Jesus spits in the mud and puts it on the man’s eyes, it was a work of re-creation. He doesn’t need the mud but it is a symbol of who he is and what he can do. If God is bigger, if God is who he says he is why would we limit him in this area? Sure it seems big, it seems really big to say someone born without working eyes to have them healed, or without a body part that part reformed. It almost seems too big, but if God is the creator, then he can also be the recreator. Is this giving people a false hope, a unrealistic expectation about God, again it is our job to ask and God’s job to answer, so I would say if you need it then ask for it. What parent when their child asks for bread would give them a stone. God is a giving God so keep asking. I have a friend with cerebral palsy he doesn’t want to be healed. He is happy how he is. I have no issues with this, but if he wasn’t I would encourage him to keep asking. Keep seeking God for a miracle because that is what a re-creation is, it is a miracle. In the gifts of the spirit there is healing and there is miraculous gifts and these include re-creation. So if you are happy with your bung leg, your sore back, your decaying eye sight then don’t ask, its ok, I have been asking to not where glasses for some time, I didn’t wear them until I was Barry Littleford Jesus Heals our Body Page 6 in my 20’s and I would like to not wear them again. Seems silly but I bet if you could take a pill that would give you a 20% chance of not wearing glasses if you took it every day for a year, you would do it. Yet we struggle coming before God every chance we get to see if he will do what we need. So here it is, keep coming, keep asking, keep seeking his voice and keep believing not in his miracles but in his heart to heal, his heart to restore.