Do you want to be Healed(changed)
Theme: We are all broken people, living in a broken world in need of healing. Both salvation and physical healing come through Gods grace, not by our own efforts, magic, or an appeal to religion. The question before all is: Do you want to be healed or changed. 1. We must choose to change, 2. I must choose to avoid making excuses, 3, we must choose to act, 4. we choose to stop sinning. A quick glance at religious history reveals that it is not difficult to gather people around reports of the miraculous. The shrines and holy places from Lourdes to Salt Lake City bear eloquent testimony to this. I have personally seen it happen. A housewife in California, near my former home, claimed to have had revelations from St. Joseph.
This Gospel stresses both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, and here we see both Jesus’ sovereign approach to this man and the importance of the man’s own will. What would we say to Jesus if he asked us whether we wanted to be healed of our own illnesses, physical or otherwise? Do we want to be rid of our addictions and other sins?
I believe that is the question Christ asks all of us. I believe it summarizes the great problem in our lives. Do you want to be well? Few things hamper the gracious work of Christ in our lives more than our response to this question. Do you want to get well? Do you really want to be healed? Do you truly want to be forgiven and made new? Because if you want to, you can be healed right now. , two marvelous verses, tell us: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he had found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” To Jesus, the paralytic was the pearl of great value. We are the pearl of great price. Was that paralytic really a pearl? Maybe he was the beginning of one, a bit of sand, an irritation, an ignoble, faltering irritant to many people. But what happens to a bit of sand within an oyster? In the confines of its environment it is smoothed over with mother of pearl. In fact, I think the bigger and more irregular the irritation, the more chance the mother of pearl will surround that bit of sand until finally it becomes smooth. We are pearls of great price. We may be in a rough state now, but one day we are going to be the bride of Christ—beautiful, wonderful to the eye, pleasing to God in every way. The pearl of great price.
Matthew 13:45–46, two marvelous verses, tell us: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he had found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” To Jesus, the paralytic was the pearl of great value. We are the pearl of great price. Was that paralytic really a pearl? Maybe he was the beginning of one, a bit of sand, an irritation, an ignoble, faltering irritant to many people. But what happens to a bit of sand within an oyster? In the confines of its environment it is smoothed over with mother of pearl. In fact, I think the bigger and more irregular the irritation, the more chance the mother of pearl will surround that bit of sand until finally it becomes smooth. We are pearls of great price. We may be in a rough state now, but one day we are going to be the bride of Christ—beautiful, wonderful to the eye, pleasing to God in every way. The pearl of great price.
This Gospel stresses both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, and here we see both Jesus’ sovereign approach to this man and the importance of the man’s own will