Behold, I will bring it (the city) health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth. Jeremiah 33:6.
Dear Heavenly Parent, You are such a God of completeness! When You created us, we were perfect! After we became marred by sin, You offered us complete restoration! Please help us not to settle for less. We pray this in the matchless name of our Wonderful Savior Jesus Christ! Amen.
In our passage today, the promise of restoration that God makes to His people is that of health and healing, accompanied by a revelation of abundance of peace and truth! It is important that we not lose sight of the fact, that it was Israel’s sin that caused them to be taken into captivity in the first place.
Therefore, in fulfilling His promise of bringing His people back, to the place from which they were taken, God begins the process with health and healing! He, who is the Alpha, and the Omega, as well as the Great I Am, knows that no one can be truly and fully restored until healing takes place! And God does not treat symptoms. He gets to the core of the disease of sin, so that He can completely heal and restore us!
Let us initiate our study by trying to gain an understanding, however minimal, of the cause and effect that exists between sin and sickness. I believe that when we realize that we were created to be in an intimate relationship with our Creator, more intimate than a husband and wife; more intimate than that of a mother and child, or of a father and child; more intimate than any relationship that could possibly exist; then, we will begin to understand why separation from God, which constitutes the basis of sin, can cause sickness.
Jesus said that the first and great commandment is that we “Love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, and with all [our] mind” (Matthew 22:37)! That should give us an idea of how intimate the bond between God and His children ought to be!
So sin came in. We became separated from God, and the rest is the tenebrous history of lost humanity!! All around us are the signs of a human race father and farther from God, and closer and closer to the grave!
Stress, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, distress, low self-esteem, and an endless list of human woes fill our world with despair! Israel of old also had her share of woes as a consequence of her separation from God. Constant disobedience and rebellion caused Israel to be led into Babylonian captivity.
In the twenty-first century the people of God have also been separated from Him by our unwillingness to walk in His will, much like Israel of old! And, like Israel of old, we have been led into the captivity of our passions, and cravings, and lusts!
Because of this, more or less, some two thousand years ago, God set up a cross on a hill called Mount Calvary, and there He began His complete work of restoration which had been prepared from before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20)!
Through His suffering and the shedding of His blood, the innocent Lamb of God brought us the cure for the disease of sin! With His stripes we are healed, if we accept the remedy He offers!
And when the Son of God wrapped His divinity in humanity and became the God-Man, He revealed to us, the face of the Father, and brought us an abundance of peace and truth we had never known before, nor could have known any other way!
Therefore, let us rejoice! We are blessed!
Note: Some corrections have been made to today’s devotional.