CHRIST, THE GREAT HEALER

How do we preach Jesus Christ, the Healer, to the young people we serve?  Do we preach Him as the God of the Universe, who can truly heal their brokenness, or do we teach Jesus as the ultimate tool in pain management?

I know the expression is "Put your money where your mouth is" but often we are afraid to put our mouths where God's money is.  Simply, we are afraid to preach about an all-powerful God who can heal.

I mean truly heal.

The kind of healing we see in the Bible where one second your blind, the next you see.

One second your lame, now you are dancing.

We can encourage kids with Scriptures like "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  (Philippians 4:13)  But we have to be sure we are not saying, "God can give you the strength to keep limping through life.  God can help you deal with your troubles, through your sin, through your addictions, through your brokenness, but He can't fix you.  He can teach you how to use a seeing eye dog but he cannot heal your blindness.  He can teach you to use crutches but He can't heal your legs."

But God can heal and He wants to.  Do we believe He can?  Are we willing to trust in the power of Christ to the point where we will look a young person in the eye and say, "Christ can heal your deepest pain!"  "Christ can heal your addiction!"  "Christ can help you see the truth!"  "Christ can heal your family!"

Christ is the great healer.  We need to believe in this fact.  We are not preaching the great coping device.  We are not preaching Christ the Great Enabler.  We are preaching the One who in every physical healing revealed how He could heal us not only physically but spiritually, as well.

Pray that God Strengthens our faith in His ability to truly heal our brokenness and pray that God gives us the faith and courage to preach the true power of Jesus Christ to all we serve.

May God bless you abundantly.  Peace.