DAY FIFTEEN - Our healing Father

Read Verses: Psalm 147:1-6

Key Verse: He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

God is a healing God.  And we are a people who need healing.  We need all types of healing.  Some of us need physical healing, some need emotional healing, some need to be healed of memories.  If you could ask God for some king of healing, what would it be?  When Adam and Eve hid from God, they hid because there was an emotional need that they didn't know what to do with.  They experienced anger, and fear, and pain, and guilt and shame.  Their thoughts and feelings were betraying them.  They had sought freedom from God by eating of the tree, but all it produced was bondage and pain.

Sin leaves us all damaged in some degree.  True freedom isn't found in getting away from God, it is found by drawing nearer to Him.  It is for freedom that Christ died.  The Son seeks to set us free, and if he frees us, we are truly free.  Prayer is one of those avenues God uses to bring healing into our lives.  He loves to heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.  Do you want God to heal you?

Let me tell you about a time in my life when I was plagued by emotional pain, gripped with suicidal thoughts, full of shame, fear, hurt.  I thought if I worked harder for God He might heal me.  But healing is not a reward for obedience, healing is an act of grace...something God does for his children in order to bring them out of the darkness and into His light.  His end is not our comfort.  He seeks our freedom.   

Do you want to be free from the past, free from hurtful memories and events?  The answer isn't another self help book.  It's not a new psychologist.  The answer is in Christ.  He is the one who brings true healing to us.  First he frees us from sin, then he begins working in our lives to free us from the effects of those sins.  He works  to guide us into a deep personal relationship with Himself.  Too often we change that idea of a closer walk with him, with the idea of being less sinful.  What God wants is for us to be more like Jesus.   But you ask, isn't getting rid of sin making us more like Christ?  Yes, in one sense...but why are you breaking free from sin?  Are  you trying to earn God's love...you can't.  Are you trying to make a deal, bargain with him...show him you deserve it?   God moves in our heart because he loves us, and because we love him...show him that love in prayer and ask your loving Father to heal.

Lord Jesus, touch my life.  Work in my heart to bring me closer to you.  I want to think more like you, to love more like you, to have emotions like you do.  Bring healing into my soul and heart.  Not because I want comfort, but because I need to be free from the past.  You deal with my past, and I will worry about today and trust you for right now.  Take me on that journey of Christlikeness, and make me more like you.  It is in Your name if pray AMEN.