Healing: A Touch Of Love Part 1 Series

Healing: A Touch of Love - Part 1

Scriptures: Ephesians 4:32-5:2; Luke 13:10-17

Introduction

“Years ago some of England’s orphanages ran an experiment. One director made it the duty of the nurses in charge to make sure each baby was held at least 30 minutes a day. Amazingly, as this directive was carried out, many babies and children who were ill made a significant recovery. It was further learned that babies who are not touched get sick and sometimes even die. Are babies the only ones who benefit so remarkably from touching? Or do we all enjoy being touched and find it wonderful therapy?”

Quoted from “A Touch of Love” by Eric Kreye

We have talked previously about what it means to walk in love. I told you that love was an action, meaning that in order to exhibit it, you must do something. When you read the Scriptures you find that everything that Jesus did pertained to love. He was sent to us because of love. All of His actions on earth were motivated by love. Often we read in the Scriptures when Jesus exhibited love, He touched the person he was focusing in on. As you know from what I just read, a touch can bring about a whole lot of changes in a person’s life. Because Jesus represented love, we as Christians being His representatives here on earth must operate with love as our foundation. This morning I want to focus your attention on the subject “Healing – A Touch of Love.”

Even though Jesus has purchased our complete redemption from Satan’s kingdom, Satan has a way of trying to make us feel as if we still belong to him. He brings us into situations that confuse us and gets our focus off of the deliverance that now belongs to us as sons and daughters of God. Why do I say “confuse us”? Our born again spirits (which overflow with love) want to respond to those situations one way while our souls (our minds and flesh which often does not operate in love) want to respond in a different way. This morning I want to focus on how Christians are often blind to the needs of other members of the body of Christ due to our being so focused on our own needs. And because of this, when we come under attack both physically and emotionally, from a spiritual perspective, they often go unchallenged. We’re going to examine how Jesus dealt with one of Satan’s attacks that had gone unchallenged for 18 years. We’ll see how He put Satan on notice by showing those present at the church service that day what it meant to belong to His Father. Next week we will look at how the religious leaders responded to Jesus healing the woman.

One thing you must grasp in this message is that responding to the needs of others is an expectation of all Christians. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:32-5:2 “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” The Greek word for “kind” means to “furnish what is needed”. This goes way beyond just meeting someone’s material needs as we often think of this, but it also includes meeting those needs that cannot be “purchased” in a store. Turn with me to Luke chapter 13. Today we will focus on verses 10 thru 13.

I. Jesus Touch and Heals a Woman

Verses 10 & 11: “And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for eighteen years had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all.”

Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching. During the service, a woman who was crippled entered. The scripture does not tell us how old this woman was but only that she had been in this condition for eighteen years. Her description suggests that the bones of her spine were rigidly fused together. Although she had been coming to the church for years, no one had reached out to her to pray for her healing. The Amplified bible describes her condition as “bent completely forward and utterly unable to straighten herself up or to look forward.” This woman had a spirit of infirmity which means “a weakness in the body caused by a demon.” The woman was bent over with her face nearly level with her knees. Every time this woman walked into the synagogue, she reminded the congregation how utterly powerless they were and how utterly powerless the religious leaders were. No one even considered that her condition could be changed. For 18 years she came to the services needing to be healed. For 18 years she left the synagogue needing to be healed. Everyone had resigned themselves to the fact that this was the way it was, she would never be healed. For 18 years Satan had deceived the congregation and the religious leaders into believing that there was nothing that could be done for her. I can hear Satan saying “I’m the real power here – not God!” Now get this … no one expected things to change for this woman or for themselves. Every Sabbath the people came expecting nothing and every Sabbath they received nothing. They came to fulfill their religious obligation, their religious duty.