Monday, April 22, 2013

Oh Lord Heal Me...

We humans are pretty incredible creatures. We are the only part of God's creation that is made in the image of God. That means we have God's imprint upon us and that God has hard-wired us to seek relationships, primarily a relationship with Him. Many people think the first crisis in the Bible came when sin entered the world in Genesis 3 but that idea is not correct. Now before you call your spouse to say the preacher is a heretic, let me explain. You see even before the fall of man when sin entered the world, there was a major crisis. A problem so great God declared it was not good! I am not saying that God's creation was flawed. God's declaration was not because there was a flaw in His perfect world that He made by speaking it into existence. God did not forget a detail that led to this declaration of something not being good. It was part of God's design and this declaration was for our benefit. In Genesis 2:18, God's declaration went like this: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper comparable to him.” The crisis was man's aloneness. You see God made us in His image and God is a relational being and so are we. God never intended for man (or woman) to go through life alone.

When sin entered the world, a myriad of problems entered the world including fractured relationships and people end up going through life all alone. It can be that they are married, but emotionally, they are going through life alone. It could be they are members of a church and they go to worship, but emotionally, they are going through life alone. They have children, grandchildren, but somehow there is a disconnection and a part of us where we feel like we're all alone. Often we'll have many acquaintance “friends” but no one we're really connected to and we feel we're all alone. Satan actually likes this condition in man and does all he can to make sure we're isolated so he fights to destroy our relationships with others and ultimately keep us from having a relationship with God. God declared this condition to be “not good.” Of course we know God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ to make provision for us to have a relationship with Him through faith. But why do we feel so alone?

The sad part is we know something is broken within us, but we don't what it is. We can be devoted followers of Jesus Christ but we ache with aloneness because no one knows how we feel and it’s hard to be vulnerable and share how we really feel. It's about like how you sense something in your body isn't quite right and you know you are starting to get sick, but you don't know exactly what it is. I believe we never stop to consider it's our aloneness that is causing this condition and why we're broken emotionally - and I think it's safe to say we would agree with God that “it is not good”! Because we don't what to do about this problem, we go “looking for love in all the wrong places.” We try to get satisfaction in all kinds of superficial relationships, fantasies, pursuits, pleasures, activity, technology, accumulating stuff and there is still this major problem of aloneness. We thought our spouse, our kids, our boyfriend or girlfriend or our buddies, would meet this need but they say or do things that bring us heartache and Satan has a field day driving us away from one another. So we recoil into the private world of aloneness and we wonder if anyone cares.

I think this how David felt when he wrote Psalm 6:2 “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.” David felt aloneness to the extent that his ache was so deep his bones were troubled by it. But David recognized the only person who had the resources to meet his needs so he asked the Lord to heal him. He even said in vs. 4 of that same chapter “return Oh Lord.” David felt alone.

The other day, I was wiped out. Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, I was just beat and I collapsed into bed and passed out quickly from fatigue.  I woke up around 0230 tossing and turning with much on my heart and mind. I was feeling really alone even though my precious wife was sound asleep in bed next to me. I felt and thought to myself: “Man something is really broken within me.” Since I couldn't sleep, I went and sat on the couch, got out my Bible and just randomly picked out a Psalm to read and ended up in Ps. 6. When I read verse 2, I cried. I thought that's me Lord. That's my prayer to you this morning, “Oh Lord heal me.” I spent the next hour just asking God to fix and heal whatever was broken in me. I asked the Lord who is the Great Physician to diagnose and fix my problem. What a blessing to know we’re not alone! The Lord Jesus wants to rescue you from aloneness and He wants to be your source of healing, no matter who or what has hurt or is hurting you.

Are you hurting today? Are you feeling like you are alone and wondering if anyone cares? I am here to tell you Jesus cares. We all know the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). I think sometimes we simply look at that as a historical fact of Jesus’ response at the tomb of His friend Lazarus. We don’t think of Jesus as weeping over our hurts today. Maybe something happened to you a long, long time ago that you’ve buried but that ache is deep and you are hurting. As you read this, I want you to picture your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; with His nail scarred hands open to you, tears streaming down His face on your behalf over your hurt. Will you cry out to Jesus like David: “Oh Lord heal me!” Jesus weeps for your hurts, and He weeps you don’t come to Him to ask for healing. What is keeping you from asking Jesus’ to heal you? You’ll be amazed at what Jesus will do if you ask Him to come along side you and minister to those hurts; but you still have to ask.

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com 

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Posted via email from Pastor Ralph