A Ministry Of Healing Series

"A Ministry of Healing"-Rev. A. L. Torrence, Pastor of Cross of Life Lutheran Church.

I yet believe that the word of God is a prescription for the world’s ills today. Our brokenness can be mended by God’s holy word. Our sorrows can be turned into joy through his word. Our hunger can be satisfied by every word spoken by his voice. Whatever is our condition, God has the remedy. Whatever is our complaint, God has the solution. The answer to our soul’s question, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” – is this, yes there is and it is Jesus. Jesus is our hope, our objective, our mission, and our destiny. He is our all and all. In him we move and have our being. And as his people- his body incarnated- we should want to become more and more like him every second of the day. We want our minds stayed on him. We want our souls filled with his spirit. We want our hearts overflowing with his grace. Jesus is what we desire to become. He is a deliverer. And whatever Jesus did in his earthly ministry; we want emulate his life in ours. So, we want to deliver. He is healer, so we want to heal. He is the bread of life and living water- so we want to feed the hungry, and quench the thirst of a dry and disillusioned world. To be more like Christ is our desire.

That’s why it is imperative for us to consider our ministry of healing. This ministry we have includes the touch of healing. To be an effective body of believers we must become agents of healing. We must be willing to restore those who are ill and filled with disease back to a healthy relationship with Christ and with their love ones. We must become healers. Now, I’m not talking about becoming hocus pocus magicians. I’m not saying to become faith healers binding up cancerous cells and casting them into the pit. Everyone can’t be a Benny Hinn or Creflo Dollar. But what I am saying is that we are to make ourselves available to God to be used as agents of restoration. That’s what a healer is. He is an agent of restoration. A healer restores those who in a ‘dis’-ease position back to a correct position. We want to be healers. We want to capture the attitude of William Daniel Hale and the intuitiveness of a Madam Curie. We want to bring wholistic care into our lives. We want to treat the feverish anguish of our society.

And whether we realize it or not, our society is burning with a fever. Temperatures are running hot. People are living with anxiety and we are overcome with stress. We have hypertension and hypotension; high blood pressure and low pressure. We are physically overweight and mentality overworked. We are ill. Our temperatures are running hot. We are sweating each other to get our voices heard and our needs met. Lobbyists and politicians are sweating congress with concerns for the environmental control, gun control, and birth control. Police and investigators are sweating foreigners for the threat of terrorism and minorities for the threat of guns. We are sweating our government for more social security, unemployment benefits, and safety measures. We have mothers sweating the fathers of their children for more financial support and contribution of time; sons and daughters are sweating parents for lessons in adulthood and independence. Our world is sweating with the potentials of nuclear holocaust and genocide. Temperatures are running hot. We are a world running with fever.

And yet that fever is not the cause of our condition. After all, a fever is never the cause but it is the symptom of something else going on deep inside of us. And we as the church cannot afford to just treat the symptom, but we must address the cause. We cannot afford to live our lives reacting to the symptoms of a larger illness. True healing addresses the cause. You see, we are use to just treating the symptoms of an ailing world. We treat the symptom of homelessness with our feeding ministry at the YMCA. We treat the symptom of drug addiction with providing space for NA meetings here at the church. We treat the symptom of teens at risk, with our various activities for young people. But to heal a world, we must now address the cause. And if you have been living your life in the shadows, the cause is sin and destructive behavior of Satan’s kingdom against God’s kingdom. Or come on now. You do know that we are in warfare. You do know that your biggest enemy is not Bin Laden or Haddam Hussein. You know that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, and principalities, and rulers in high places. We are dealing with Satan and his kingdom. And as healers, it is our task to reclaim territory he has taken for God’s kingdom. We have to reclaim our homes, reclaim our children, reclaim our community, and reclaim our finances from the enemy.