OUR SPIRITUAL HEALING

“He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.”  1 Peter 2:24 NLT

       The prophet Isaiah laid out Christ’s penalty very vividly in vv. 5-6 (chapter 53): “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.  He was beaten so we could be whole.  He was whipped so we could be healed.  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.  We have left God’s paths to follow our own.  Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”  The words themselves are painful to hear; pierced, crushed, beaten and whipped.  All endured willingly as payment for our sin.  “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21New King James Version -NKJV)  One who never sinned took on all he sins of mankind to heal us from the disease of sin.       

       Many take the portion “By His stripes you are healed” to represent the healing power of Christ to cure us of all our sicknesses.  He can certainly do that; however, doesn’t it make more sense that the healing we would experience would be a spiritual healing thru the elimination of sin?  We are then and only then made a new creation.  The physical healing of an unregenerate soul restores the body but does nothing for the soul.  The spirit remains untouched.  What good is a healed body in hell?

       If you have been made dead to sin, than at that moment you have become more alive then you’ve have before in your life.  You need to take the mercy and forgiveness of God seriously.  You need to begin the cultivation process.  Reacquaint yourself with Christ’s sufferings regularly, not just during the Passion Week, so that you never forget them.  He died for you.  He allowed His wrists and His feet to be pierced by 5-6” iron spikes.  He did that for you and me.  We must never forget the price that was paid for our freedom as if it were a trivial thing.  In reality, it’s the most important thing in the world.  Until next time, walk with the King and be a blessing!

Resource: The Reformation Study Bible; P & R Publishing; 2010; Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2012.