Healing Rain Series

Healing Rain!

Opening Video Illustration: Healing Rain by Michael W. Smith

Thesis: When God’s time of refreshing comes we need to sit back like a sponge and soak it in. We need to allow a cleansing rain to flow over our lives and our hearts. When we open up our hearts to the Lord a healing rain washes over the wounds of sin and make us whole again.

Illustration:

Pour water on the sponge and the duck. Which one soaks up the water? The sponge or the hard shelled duck?

One is open to receive the water and other has a hard shell that reflects the water away.

What are you like a sponge, or a hard duck?

The story of the quacking duck in the morning time when we where walking!

Opening Scripture Texts:

Zechariah 10:1 (NIV): Ask the LORD for rain in the springtime; it is the LORD who makes the storm clouds. He gives showers of rain to men, and plants of the field to everyone.

1 Kings 17:1-6 (NIV): 1Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 2Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3“Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.” 5So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Introduction: When you stand in the shower the water spills out of the faucet onto our bodies and the majority of it runs off our bodies and down into the drain. The water washes us and then flows away down the drain with the all dirt. But some of the water does soak into our bodies and causes them to be moisturized and I think soothed. I remember the days when I would come home from my construction job filthy dirty. I would feel so much better after I have I showered. I always felt refreshed and energized after my soaking shower. It would ease my aching muscles and help me to relax.

I remember a time when I actually just sat in a rain shower after working in the hot sun all day. The time was in Belize when I was on a Missions trip. We had been laying block all day in the hot sun the temperature was around a 100 and a rainstorm blew in from the Caribbean. It rained for maybe 10 -15 minutes but many of us just sat in the rain and soaked up the coolness and the refreshing flow of the rain on our bodies. After the rain shower we all felt refreshed and renewed because the rain cooled us down. It was refreshing and in a sense a healing to our worn out bodies from all the hard work in the sun.

The Bible speaks about times that come and bring refreshment to those who are parched, tired, weak, depressed, overwhelmed and the like. In many of these instances water comes in to play as that element which refreshes. In the KJV version water is used repeatedly as refreshment actually it is used 567 times in the Bible.

The middle east is a dry hot place so it’s natural that water would be the symbol of refreshment. Jesus himself stated in John 7:37-39:

The Holy Bible, New International Version

John 7:37 (NIV)

37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

John 7:38 (NIV)

38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

John 7:39 (NIV)

39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Other texts like Isaiah 55:1

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

and Rev. 22:17

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”

They all invite us to come if we are thirsty and to experience a time of refreshment.

T.S.- What are you thirsty for today? What area in you life needs refreshment and healing that only Jesus can satisfy and meet? Whatever your answers are to these questions there are a few action steps you need to take to get your desired refreshment and or healing touch.