I have healed you
January 1, 2025
The door opened and I was about to step off the bus when God spoke to me:
"I have healed you."
I paused in wonder for a moment, and then becoming aware that the bus driver was impatiently waiting, I stepped down and walked towards the high school where I was the Physics teacher. As I walked, I reflected on what God had said and realized that what He was telling me was that I was no longer an insecure adolescent like the students I was teaching. I was now an adult — I was then in my early 30s and had been married several years — and though I could still remember what it felt like to be a teenager, there was now a healthy distance between myself and my students.
I felt that God was affirming my manhood by these words, and this made me feel happy inside. But then a few days later, and again while I was on the bus to work, God spoke to me once more:
"I will heal your manhood."
Argh, I don't understand, Lord! You told me I was healed, and now you promise that you're going
to heal me??
I struggled for several weeks over these two seemingly contradictory divine utterances, but then slowly I began to understand what God was saying to me. He was indeed affirming me, but He was also saying that I still had some way to go before I reached mature manhood.
It's now several decades after these early experiences, and I'm thankful that I'm now a lot closer to being fully mature. But I'm not quite there yet; I'm still learning and growing as my Heavenly Father continues to father me.
My prayer for you today is what Paul prayed for the Ephesians: that with the Father's help you may reach "mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13).
Be blessed and filled with the Father's love for you.
—Mitch
Share this post with others on social media!
You can also subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest updates about what's new on our website!
For those of you who would like to know a bit more about us, we've updated the About Us page on our website with some info about the business that Ingrid and I ran together and also some other personal stuff. Enjoy and let us know if you have any questions. (Image by Maria Doina Mareggini - on Pexels - Public Domain)
In Mark chapter 6 we have the story of how Jesus sent the Twelve out on a ministry trip to proclaim and demonstrate the arrival of the kingdom of God: Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. (Mark 6:7-13 NIV) I was always puzzled why Jesus instructed the disciples not to take along any provisions or money for their journey. And then one day it struck me that Jesus was preparing them for the enormous task they would face after he had ascended to heaven: to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). They would need faith to trust that Jesus was truly “with them always, to the very end of the age” (see Matt 28:20). And the way to develop faith is simply to start trusting God, here and now. Once you see that God can indeed be trusted, you’re willing to trust him even more. I think it was John Wimber who used the analogy of diving into an empty swimming pool to illustrate what having faith (trusting God) is like. You’re standing on the diving board over an empty swimming pool, and the manager of the facility promises to turn the faucet on and fill the pool as soon as you’ve jumped off the diving board and are headed down towards the concrete bottom of the pool. Is the faucet big enough to quickly fill the pool? Can the smiling pool manager really be trusted to open the faucet in time before my face hits the concrete? Well I certainly wouldn’t trust another human being in such a situation! But I would — and have many times — trust God like this., because God can always be trusted. And his faucet (power) is big enough to do anything, because nothing is impossible for him (Mark 10:27). Of course you shouldn't try to jump like this unless God actually says "Jump." But you don't need to wait for a voice from heaven before you step off the diving board — there's lots of places in Scripture where Jesus tells his followers to jump. Training for ministry, any form of ministry, can — and should — involve risk. Again, I think it was Wimber who once said that “faith” is spelled R-I-S-K. This understanding brings a different perspective to the Mark 6 passage above, showing us that Jesus was not just sending the Twelve out to do a share of his work, he was training them so they would be ready for carrying on his mission to the world. Think of it as their first training exercise, sort of like boot camp — but with live ammunition. I’ll visit this passage in Mark again in my next post. —Mitch (Image found somewhere on Reddit)
In chapter 10 of the Book of Acts, Peter proclaims the good news about Jesus to a Gentile named Cornelius and his relatives and friends. As Peter is doing this, the Holy Spirit falls on them, and Peter immediately has them baptized. Then in chapter 11 Peter has returned to Jerusalem and is explaining to the church why he had baptized uncircumcised Gentiles. Peter answered them by telling them about the vision he had, how Cornelius had been visited by an angel, and how the Spirit of God had fallen on them in the same way as it had on them at Pentecost. Then Peter concludes by saying: “So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17) “Who am I, Lord?” What humility to say that! And this from a man who had experienced Christ in so many ways! I think Peter probably learned humility after he had denied Christ three times. He had been outspoken and bold before, but now he knew the true measure of himself. This is the kind of rock that Christ built his church on. It’s also the kind of rock Christ wants to use today for building his church: men and women with no ego, obedient to God and dismissive of themselves. I’ve known a few great men and women who have had such humility. But only a few. It reminds me of a song from way back in the days of the Charismatic Renewal, it’s based on James 4:10 and goes like this: Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord And He shall lift you up higher and higher And He shall lift you up Blessings everyone. -Ingrid (Image: Claude Vignon - The Repentant Saint Peter - 1643)