Jesus And Our Inner Healing

 Daily Devotion: John 3:17 — SoulThirst Church

THU Evening Prayer Reflection 022421 (John 3: 16-21)

John 3 has at its center the very good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It displays elaborately the regeneration process and its relationship to our healing. It is not easy to notice how the two are connected until we read this verse 17: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world would be saved through him” The word used for saved is [sotheí]. Just so I don’t mix the meanings here, I want to define healing, so we can understand its relationship with salvation: Healing means the restoration of wholeness to the person and restoration to the life of the community. That’s why Jesus' typical words to those who were healed was: “Your faith has saved you; go into peace” (Luke 8: 48). Healing here means salvation and peace. The Hebrew word [Shalom] comes close to this definition. Its meaning conveys peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility.

Why the use of the verb to condemn? Could it be that the coming of Christ could be perceived as condemning because it shines true righteousness while the eyes of the beholder knows very well that he/she does not measure up? I think the problem here resides with us. We generally don’t like anything better than ourselves, which was well observed by Susan Krauss a Belgian expert in psychology:

 “…most people do prefer to see themselves as “better” than the average person which, of course, is an impossibility…One reason we don’t like hearing others brag in relative terms about their qualities is that, as the Belgian team notes, we are always processing information about other people through the somewhat egocentric eyes of our own self-images. If your best friend’s mother is constantly trying to show how much better a cook, she is than everyone else, you won’t go over there for dinner, no matter how good the food actually is. Her tendency to self-promote puts your own mother, or perhaps you, in the position of seeming inferior. For her part, she won’t see how much she’s offended you and will be puzzled when you turn down invitations that seem so well-intentioned.”[1]

Why did I give this example? Because it might be true that most people react negatively to anyone with an attitude of ‘holier than thou’. Could it be that some of Jesus audience was facing this same issue? If so, we are more likely to understand this behavior even in our own day. The point of the verse though is not superiority. I am assuming that it can be perceived as so. The point of the coming of the Son of God into the world was to save it through Him. What a surprise! It is said that we often judge people before we get to know them. The real purpose of Christ was to heal us, to restore us to wholeness, peace, tranquility.

It is clear that restoration is needed when there is brokenness. There is no need to deny that our lives are broken, mainly by sin in our worlds (both inner and outer worlds). Sin creates a wound in us. I watched the movie the “Shack” with great interest. It appears that the way we treat our children can have long lasting repercussions. The more rough or adverse you are with the kids, the rougher they could be in their adulthood relationships. Sin is the worst! It can wiggle itself into the next generation, the wounded the parents, the wounded the children and grandchildren. This is a sad affair that unfortunately is a reality now as well as it was in the Bible stories.

The Good News of Chapter 3 of the Gospel according to John, is the regeneration process that Jesus explained to Nicodemus: “You must be born again!” That is, first, we must live a new life. Birth is the beginning of life; to be born again is to begin anew. Secondly, we must have a new nature, new principles, new affections, new aims… We must be born from above says Jesus! Paul says in 1 Tim. 1: 15 that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the children of men from death, and recover them to life. My Bible Commentary Matthew Henry says that as sinners, we are mortally wounded, or as sick of an incurable disease, so Jesus Christ came to save us, by healing us, just like in the Old testament story where Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness to heal the poisoned Israelites, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (v. 14, 15). Inner healing is possible through Christ. Believe in Him, focus on Him, the poison of the world’s serpent ways will come out of us.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201703/why-some-people-think-theyre-superior

 

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