The Training Table: On Holistic Healing
Welcome to the Training Table where you can depend on a feast for the born-again heart, carefully prepared, to help you run the Godly and good race (Hebrews 12:3)!
“Today, if you hear God’s voice, no not harden your heart…” (Psalm 95:7-8)
There’s healing; and then there’s holistic, thorough, eternal healing. “Got Healing?”
Following is a letter from a young man by the name of Shane who had contracted AIDS. Shane was writing a letter to a dear friend (Bishop Michael Marshall) whom had brought Shane the Good News of Jesus Christ while he served in Shane’s church and while Shane lay terminally ill… and trying desperately to be healed by way of various physicians and medicines.
I had the blessing to sit under the preaching and teaching of Bishop Marshall on numerous occasions.
Shane writes about a medicine he was blessed with that healed him… at last!
“I will probably be in the hospital for at least another week. I am confident I will recover from this illness. I am blessed with many good friends. Their love and support sustained me. I have had from four to 10 visitors each day as well as phone calls and I know I am in their prayers. Father Carlos came today and served communion. God has many hands.
As you are keeping me in your prayers, each day you are in mine as well. The mission you lead at my church was the most significant event in my life. I thank God for the work you are doing.
I never thought of AIDS as a blessing, but now I have chosen to respond in that way because my faith is growing and deepening most certainly every day. I believe my faith is the most important thing now.
My doctor can cure my infection possibly, but my faith and the love of Christ alone can heal me. Even if my AIDS is not healed in this life I know that my transform spiritual body will be whole and healthy forever. I look forward to our continued correspondence. God bless you, Michael.
My love to you, in Christ, Shane.”
Shane died the following day…
Please allow me to respectfully ask you something:
What do you believe is the greatest, most dire infection, malady, or “dis-ease” any person can have? Terminal cancer or being eternally separated from God?
In what ways have you experienced disease and healing… or found your greatest dis-eases… to be your greatest blessings?
In light of the fact that most people you see everyday look so fit and relatively healthy, how do you maintain a sense of urgency about talking to others about our shared infection of Inherited Sin and habitual sinning… and the only True Physician that offers hope and complete, eternal healing?
Do you, like me, get a great deal of joy out of being with people and hearing any or all of their story… And yet have a “still small yet resounding voice inside” asking, “That’s great, but have you been born again?”
None of us have any guarantee for a tomorrow. TODAY… is the only day we’re given to offer another a word of timeless healing and hope.
If you’re withholding a word hope and holistic, eternal, Christ-centered healing when your heart is pricked by circumstances and the Spirit to be a witness of Christ, please consider asking the Holy Spirit, yourself, and a trusted, faithful friend, WHY.
In reality, there is only one REALLY and TRULY TERMINAL sickness; and there is only one WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE thAT heals. Praise God He has provided The Great Physician:
Exodus 23:25 You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you..
Psalms 103:2-5 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalms 107:20-22 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Jeremiah 30:17 For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the LORD, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’
Matthew 4:23-25 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Matthew 9:12 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.
Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
Mark 16:16-17 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Acts 10:36-43 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
James 5:13-16 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
1 Peter 2:20-25 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
“Today… Choose this day (Joshua 24:5) to begin again to embrace the radical blessings of God’s grace in Christ, and by the Spirit… And know that God providentially puts every person in your life and path in order to impart some sort of blessing that reflects this reality.
If you have been born again and are in Christ, that’s why God is keeping you here; if you have not been born again and live outside of Christ… that’s why God’s keeping you here: So that you will be born again before it’s too late, Christ returns to judge all mankind, and usher in a New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21).
Period.
“Today, if you hear God’s voice, no not harden your heart…” (Psalm 95:7-8)
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13, emphasis added)!
In love and truth,
JohnDoz
Resources
What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?
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