00:00 Intro music and voice over.
Welcome to jesus loves the world podcast. For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!
00:20 Speaker
Since that time in human history, when humanity chose to become one with both good and evil, all of creation has been corrupted. Power has been given by humanity to selfish desires, evil and death. Disease and disasters became intertwined with health and well being. Good and evil co exists in what was once God’s perfect world of only good.
Yet the good news is that the eternal one who created the heavens and the earth and all things good, is also the deliver from evil and saviour of all His creation. He is not only the deliverer and saviour but the healer. The healer of individuals, people groups and nations.
So let us go back to a time when kings ruled over the Ancient Israelites. To the time of the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
Hezekiah had sent letters out to all Israel and Judah to come to the house of the LORD God of Israel. For it had been a long time since they celebrated the most significant festival of their people. The time when the Eternal, Existing One delivered them from the bondage of slavery to the Egyptians. The feast was called the Passover.
In response to the king’s letter, many people had gathered at Jerusalem. So let us pickup the story.
2 Chronicles 30:17-20 For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites had charge of the slaughter of the Passover lambs for everyone who was not clean, to sanctify them to the LORD. For a multitude of the people, many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the good LORD provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek God, the LORD God of his fathers, though he is not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.” And the LORD listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.
This is a beautiful moment in God’s love story, the Bible. Many from different tribes of Israel had not cleansed themselves according to the law. The law given to them by God, through His servant Moses. So they participated in the sacred Passover contrary to the way God had set out for them.
But Hezekiah, whose name means the Jehovah has made me strong, communes with God. He prays to God out of a personal revelation of God’s heart for all people. Hezekiah states, ‘May the good LORD provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek God…’
God’s heart and will is that no one should perish. Yet His love is so great for every individual, people group and nation, that He never imposes His will on anyone. As that is an abuse of power. God gives free choice. He is never one with evil and is only good.
God is never controlling or manipulating as there is no selfishness in Him. For He is the Existing, Eternal One who is and was and is to come. He has no need of anything or anyone for He is the Great I AM!
Yet out of His great love, He so desires us. To be personal and relational, close and intimate, faithful and true. For that is who God is.
What happened next was a beautiful reflection of God and His character. ‘…the LORD listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.’
First God listened to Hezekiah. This is beautiful, honouring and intimate. The creator of heaven and earth and all things good listened to Hezekiah. God did not close His ears, eyes or heart from Hezekiah or the people.
So God listened and healed the people. For God is the healer of individuals, people groups and nations.
Let us now go to another passage of scripture that links God’s healing with peace. That is complete peace. A peace that is a place and state of complete wellness. That is physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. A place that is safe and tranquil. Where relationships of equality and respect are there.
A time that was linked to a prophesy hundreds of years before Jesus’ sacrifice of His human life.
Isaiah 53:4-5 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
The prophet Isaiah emphatically states of Jesus’ sacrifice of His human life, that surely, that is absolutely 100%, Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
That is an absolute truth that transcends time. The truth is this. That no matter when we are born in the timeline of human history, Jesus’ sacrifice has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. So that means Jesus’ sacrifice and finished work in His life, death, resurrection and ascension is for all humanity throughout the ages.
So those like Isaiah, who received God’s right to rule and reign and were alive 100s of years or even 1000’s of years before that time in human history when the eternal Son of God became the Son of Man, they too received the eternal truth. That is Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Borne is bear up, take away, carry. Griefs is sickness of body and or mind. Which is linked with deliverance from the fear and anxiety that is associated with judgement.
Borne our griefs means Jesus has taken away our guilt and shame. No longer does death and the fear associated with it has any power over us. For we are passed from judgement and transferred into His kingdom of eternal innocence and honour.
Carried is to bear all the load. Sorrows in the context of Jesus’ sacrifice is pain or anguish and affliction. Pain experienced both in our physical bodies and the mental anguish of our thoughts and emotions. Jesus carried it all. He heals the broken hearts that have resulted from relationships of inequality. The healer of individuals, people groups and nations.
In Jesus’ sacrifice He has done all this. When Jesus returns, all those who have received God’s right to rule and reign throughout the ages, will receive their perfect, resurrected, gloried, eternal human bodies. Bodies that never get sick, never get old and never die. This is our inheritance of Jesus’ resurrection. He rose from physical death and received His resurrected glorified human body. However His scars remain just for us. To tell the story of God’s great love and help us believe and receive.
As we are born of the corrupted seed of humanity, that is with both good and evil in us, we find it hard to receive and believe all that our healer has done for us. In the hurt and pain of this life, there can be blockages from us living in the reality of all that God has done for us.
Knowing this about humanity, God through His prophet Isaiah, explains that we would look at Jesus on the cross and put the blame of His death onto God. We would perceive Jesus was smitten, afflicted and stricken by God for our sakes.
Yet Isaiah goes on to say that the truth is this. He was wounded for our transgressions by the very ones He came to save, humanity.
Wounded in this context means to dishonour, to profane that is have contempt for God, to be unholy. As we know Jesus was never any of those things, yet humanity is. Humanity demands that someone has to pay the cost for all the injustices done to us and all those we have done to others.
By refusing to accept God’s sacrifice of Himself in Jesus, that is effectively profaning God. The Ancient Israelites who were the first hearers of God’s words through His prophet Isaiah profaned God. The majority rejected God and His right to rule and reign.
When Jesus was presented by the Roman ruler as an innocent man, it was the religious leaders from the bloodline of the Ancient Israelites who cried out, crucify Jesus, crucify Him.
Jesus, an innocent man, holy, blameless, born of a woman in the bloodline of the Ancient Israelites. He was born of the seed of the Holy Spirit of God therefore was only good. Unlike all humanity who is both good and evil.
Knowing our need for a saviour and our need for someone to pay the cost, God in Jesus became that someone. He placed Himself upon the altar of humanity, to die at the hands of humanity. The very ones He came to save.
As Jesus’ human flesh was ripped apart, His blood dripped down into the dirt and pain of humanity. So that we could choose to receive and believe that by His stripes we are healed.
The same stripes that were inflicted by the hands of humanity. That are a visible and physical expression of humanity’s selfishness, injustices, offences, anger, hurt and pain. They are also the visible and physical expression of God’s unconditional love. For He did not need the sacrifice to forgive us. For God is in an eternal state of forgiveness.
Yet God in His great love through the prophet Isaiah states, it is true. Jesus has taken away our sickness, judgement, guilt, shame, anguish and pain. Upon receiving God and His right to rule and reign, we receive Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, by His stripes we are healed. Salvation is assured and our eternity sealed.
Jesus’ scars tell the story of both humanity’s need for someone to pay the cost and God’s great love in becoming that someone. These scars remain on Jesus’ glorified body, so that we can believe and receive.
The resurrected Jesus explained.
Luke 24:39-48 Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?” So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.
Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.
John 20:26-29 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
We live in that moment that Jesus declares. We have not physical seen yet we believe. Through the precious Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth testifies that Jesus heals. The Holy Bible, God’s love story to us testifies of divine healing to individuals, people groups and nations. Healing of those who know God and those who do not know God. Divine healing is for all to receive. There is no pattern or magic formula. However their is the one constant.
God is the healer of individuals, people groups and nations. By His stripes we are healed.
>>>If you have never received Jesus, never received His eternal sacrifice and free gift of salvation now is the time. Simply say yes to Jesus, yes to God and His right to rule and reign. Surrender to Him.
Our righteous Father in heaven, we say thank you. Thank you for the sacrifice of yourself in Jesus so that we can believe and receive. By your Spirit lead us into the fullness of the truth And live in your victory of a heart mind condition of surrender. In Jesus name, to the glory of you Father amen.
19:40 Outro music and voice over.
For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!