Servants and Sons Part 2

As you read the Gospels it is impossible to have an understanding of Jesus that is separate from Him healing the sick.  And as we read we ought to consider the ramifications of what it means for God to put on flesh and to have His primary actions to be healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out demons.  So often what was meant to be understood as an revelation of God's compassion upon mankind in regards to the effects of the fallen world that we find ourselves in has been reduced to these acts as being considered just signs of Jesus' Divinity.  Yes they are signs that Jesus is God, but theoretically when God put on flesh He could have done anything He wanted -- He could have made the signs that accompanied Him to be bolts of lightning that crashed upon His enemies or caused earthquakes to happen in the cities that rejected His Word, but because He chose to heal the sick it reveals something about the way He views the struggles that we face in our lives.

As a Father has Compassion on His Sons
It shows us that God doesn't want us sick.  He doesn't want us filled with mental torment.  And He doesn't want us poor.  Just as a father would not want to see any of these things in his children so it is God's Will to free us from these conditions.  Obviously this will have its complete fulfillment in Heaven, but to take it further than that -- God wants to change our current circumstances.  The posture of heart that it takes to get to a place where we understand that God actually cares about our current circumstances and that we aren't to tolerate sickness in our body is just as much of a demand upon the soul as Jesus' call to die to self.  Learning to be selfless and to consider God's Will before our own is ultimately an exercise in priorities and while it does take God's Grace to touch our soul to bring us to a place where we want choose to daily make Him first in our lives, the execution of such is still within the power of our will.  I see this as being part of the dignity of man that we have the ability to choose to place God first in our lives. 

But trusting God for healing is very different.  To trust God to free you from a condition that is oppressing you requires that you find a place of faith in Jesus that is able to squarely look at your condition and then to consider God's Promises and know that He is faithful to perform His Word by the Power of the Holy Spirit.  Unlike when it comes to choosing to put God first in our lives, healing doesn't happen simply because we desire it, nor can we make it come about because we want it.  Healing, rather requires that we trust God to set us free from something that we cannot get free from on our own.  Trusting God is learning to abandon our own strength and trust Him for His.

Finding a Balance

So on one hand we are to not consider our lives as meaningful in comparison to following Jesus and we should not possess any attachments in this world that hold a greater value to us than our relationship with God; but then on the other hand we are to know that God cares about our struggles and wants to set us free from them.  I find it so interesting that not only did Jesus not shy away from both truths, He actively walked them both out.  He told people to be loyal to Him unto death but then raised people from the dead, He told people to be on guard against every form of greed (Luke 12:15) -- even telling a parable that condemned a man who had a very plentiful harvest and stored up treasure for himself and not God, but at the same time He made Peter's fishing business experience prosperous fishing trips as He told them to cast out their nets in certain places (Luke 5:4-7).  Peter remembered it so well that in John 21:5-7 when Jesus had risen from the dead and did that to them again that Peter immediately knew it was the Lord and jumped out of the boat and started swimming towards Him.

I think ultimately though it is very important to understand that these 2 truths keep each other in a healthy tension.  To know that God wants you healthy, full of peace and prosperous but to not also have established that He wants you selfless, non-materialistic, generous and loyal to Him above all else is to ultimately put you on a path where you will have a spirituality that is driven by your own comfort and greed.  An inner drive that is not only very dangerous for your life in God (see 1 Timothy 6:9) but can cause you to lose sight of compassion and in hopes of seeing God answer your prayer to be wealthy result in you stepping on other people to get what you want, not considering the pain that you've caused and celebrating when things go your way even if it was at their expense.  Something that I see sometimes far too often with those who seem to only embrace the "God wills your good" aspect of the Gospel.

The healthy middle would be to pursue the blessing of God for the sake of the Kingdom.  Acknowledging that when He blesses us financially it would be for the benefit of others, that when He gives us a clean bill of health that we can use that to serve Him, that should He give us favor and popularity that we could use that as a platform to declare the Gospel from.

So in total we should embrace the life of a servant with the faith of a son.  Laying our entire life down at His feet, while also knowing that He cares for us and wants us free from the troubles of this fallen world.  Father help us to walk in the healthy middle of these Truths.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.