Withered
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
OPENING: When we talk of our wellness we are talking about our entire wellbeing, it is more than just our physical health but encompassing our total health. Understand wellness is not only being free of disease, illness, or stress but it involves having a purpose in life, being emotionally healthy, spiritual secure, taking an active involvement in your work as well as in your leisure time, having joyful relationships and being happy. According to Grand Rapid Community College of Health Care Professionals there are Seven Dimensions of Health, some list 8 and other 9 I am going to mention the seven because 7 represents perfection. The Seven Dimensions of Wellness are:-
Physical wellness which encompasses a variety of healthy behaviors including adequate exercise, proper nutrition and abstaining from harmful habits such as drug use and alcohol abuse.
Emotional wellness is a dynamic state that fluctuates frequently with your other six dimensions of wellness. Being emotionally well is typically defined as possessing the ability to feel and express human emotions such as happiness, sadness, joy, grief, and anger. It means having the ability to love and be loved and achieving a sense of fulfillment in life. Emotional wellness encompasses optimism, self-esteem, self-acceptance, and the ability to share feelings
Intellectual wellness involves and encourages creative and stimulating mental activities. Our minds need to be continually inspired and exercised just as our bodies do. People who possess a high level of intellectual wellness have an active mind and continue to learn. An intellectually well person uses the resources available to expand one's knowledge and improve skills.
Spiritual wellness involves possessing a set of guiding beliefs, principles, or values that help give direction to one's life. It encompasses a high level of faith, hope and commitment to your individual beliefs that provide a sense of meaning and purpose. It is willingness to seek meaning and purpose in human existence, to question everything and to appreciate the things which cannot be readily explained or understood
Social wellness refers to our ability to interact successfully in our global community and to live up to the expectations and demands of our personal roles. This means learning good communication skills, developing intimacy with others, and creating a support network of friends and family members
Environmental wellness is an awareness of the unstable state of the earth and the effects of your daily habits on the physical environment. It consists of maintaining a way of life that maximizes harmony with the earth and minimizes harm to the environment. It includes being involved in socially responsible activities to protect the environment
Occupational /Vocational wellness involves preparing and making use of your gifts, skills, and talents in order to gain purpose, happiness, and enrichment in your life. The development of occupational satisfaction and wellness is related to your attitude about your work. Achieving optimal occupational wellness allows you to maintain a positive attitude and experience satisfaction/pleasure in your employment. Occupational wellness means successfully integrating a commitment to your occupation into a total lifestyle that is satisfying and rewarding
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 12: 10&13-14 says “And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered, And they asked Him saying, is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? That they might accuse him. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.”
PRAYER:
You have heard me teach lately about leaving religion and entering Kingdom. Religion is dangerous because it causes people to wither and shrivel up and become of no use in the Kingdom of God. When we look at the Pharisees and see how they were staunch with holding to their religious observances and rituals and compare it to what is going on in many churches today we understand how easily it is for people to be in the church to do church and yet be withered.
Just stick with me for a little while because I know where I am going, and we are going to get to the destination God desires for us to be but there is a little scenery we must take in first.
In our text we find a man who was in the synagogue with a withered hand. The Bible doesn’t let us know his name because his name is not of importance here, but his condition is. WATCH THIS: Sometimes in life because of sin we become recognized and known more by our condition than our names. EXAMPLE: His name was Bartimaeus, but he was known by his condition “Blind Bartimaeus” “The woman with the issue of blood is known by her condition, but Jesus calls her DAUGHTER.
UNDERSTAND: When the Bible mentions the condition and not the name there is something about that person character and actions that God wants to understand. This man with the withered hand was in the synagogue. Now the Bible doesn’t let us know if he was there out of tradition or if he was asked to come rather invited by a friend or to try to entrap Jesus. The Bible doesn’t say that he was there expecting a miracle or if he just came in from the cold for a while. Understand it doesn’t matter the reason he was there, but I want you to understand more the reason why he was there is the condition of him as well as the place where he was. He was in the synagogue the place where the people of the synagogue supposedly knew scripture, they knew prayers, they knew protocol, religious rhetoric, they knew religious garb and hierarchy. Yet they did not know Jesus, sure they knew his name, but they didn’t know his character, they didn’t understand his love and compassion. They literally asked Jesus is it lawful to heal on the sabbath and waited to see and entrap Jesus in some religious kafuffle instead of understanding Kingdom and having love. For all the religion they had in this synagogue they had no healing power. All their dos and don’ts, traditions, and religious pomp they had no capacity to help the man with the withered hand. WATCH THIS: Religion has no capacity to fix you. Man regardless of how religious they maybe are incapable of fixing you Bishop Maughmer can’t fix you but I can help you get in contact with the One who can. Sitting in every synagogue, church building, running to every conference and so-called prophetic meeting trying fix you is not going to work. This man couldn’t improve his hand no matter how much religion he did. He couldn’t improve his hand regardless of how many religious people were around. Only Jesus Christ can fix you. Only Jesus can heal you.
Look at this religious crowd here in the synagogue these religious people in the synagogue would’ve killed you if you said they were fakes. They claimed to worship God, yet they felt they were more holy than Jesus Christ according to themselves. Jesus was considered the sinner while they themselves felt privileged and superior because they were the children of Abraham. They were zealous for what they thought was right but they withered and dead in their sin of religiosity.
They didn’t truly understand the scripture. They had no grasp or a total misunderstanding on what the sabbath day meant. Jesus said vs 11 “And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? See you can be religious and not know Jesus at all. They had no idea who he was. They couldn’t see him for all the religion they had. So often we are so used to doing Church/Christianity, but we have never walked by faith, we have never been born again, we are not being led by the Holy Ghost. We are just going through motions, there is no spiritual reality to it at all, we’re just doing what we’re supposed to do because that’s what we do and let me say this right here that simply is being withered. We are just like the ma’s withered hand there but useless.
MEANING OF THE WITHERED HAND. The mans withered hand was not a disease like the palsy, or a fever but there was a spirit of infirmity upon him. A spirit of infirmity is a demonic presence that attaches itself to an individual and causes a seemingly incurable condition. This infirmity destroyed his power of and ability for doing anything well. Understand - The hand of person is one of those physical features which distinguish us from the beast. The hand represents human skill, power, and usefulness. This man’s hand was withered. When something is withered, it’s dried up, it’s dead. The life source has been drained out of it. If you don’t water your plants, they wither up. In the book of John chapter 15, Jesus said he is the vine, and we are the branches. If you and I are a branch, and we are cut off from the vine, what’s going to happen? We are going to wither up and die and it doesn’t matter how much religion you know or how many religious people you hang around when a branch is disconnected from the life source, it dies. There is no sap, no energy, no water flowing through it. It is cut off, and it withers up and dies.
THE HEALING OF THE WITHERED HAND. UNDERSTAND: Christ came into this world not mainly to set men free from the bondage of sin, but as Luke 4:18 say “because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” to emancipate all our faculties for His service that’s why the scripture says in Romans 6:13-23. “yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God”.
Now let’s look at the man with the withered hand for a minute. This man literally was hopelessly incapable of moving his hand. Physically he was incapacitated limited to perform some of the most-simple of task.
Emotionally he probably felt less than a man being unable to do for himself like he should. Spiritually he felt emasculated and may have even been questioning God asking why me. Socially he was outcast in society because of his condition he couldn’t make a living by doing is trade as a stone mason, so he had to beg and ask for handout, and he felt that people looked down upon him because of his withered hand. Therefore, his occupational wellness was incapacitated which effected his environmental wellness also. His hand was a withered, wilted, and useless thing, with which he could do nothing. Imagine a life where everything you do, everything you hoped for, everything in your life is withered up. You are hopelessly existing but not truly living. Yet it was to this man to whom Jesus said, “Stretch forth thine hand.” Understand there is no condition, no state of being, no situation so dead that God can’t speak to and command to stretch forth. Someone may be burdened down and incapacitated and may, feel like what is the use. I need you to understand today there is nothing that is of such utter hopelessness and helplessness that God cannot speak to.
Jesus told this man to stretch his hand out. No doubt his hand may have been hidden under his clothes or by a cover up or maybe he had it in a sling. I can imagine that maybe it was all dried up, wrinkly, and even ugly to look at and he felt ashamed to have it seen. Maybe you see your dry, dead life for what it is, and you may have been trying to cover it up. There may be a situation that you feel shamed about, sure you been in the midst of religious people but still that withered condition has you living far beneath your potential. When the man stretched out his hand there was an acknowledgement and ownership of the problem that he had. Whenever we own our issue and call it for what it is, we put ourselves in the position for Christ to heal it.
This man with the withered hand believed and obeyed Jesus, if he didn’t believe Christ, he wouldn’t have stretched it out. So many times, people talk about believing God, but there is no evidence in our belief of what we actually do. True belief is verified by action.
It amazes me when I think about it that the people in the synagogue didn’t want the man with the withered hand healed. They didn’t want what was best for him. They only wanted to accuse Jesus and find fault in him. They didn’t rejoice when he was healed. They didn’t give God praise for the man being healed. There was no Hallelujah shout or Thanksgiving in the synagogue just the desire to come together and find a way to destroy Jesus. Religion will be biggest opponents your salvation will have! Fake Christians or rather Religious people don’t want to see you healed, they don’t want you to develop your relationship with God mainly because it will endanger their religiosity, it will expose it and show the truth exposing them as being fake, dead and withered. That’s why I said in the beginning that religion is dangerous.
The amazing fact about this is how the people who were in the synagogue (the Religious Folk) can be so morally bankrupt yet are so quick to make moral judgments about Jesus Christ in this case and so many others today. Jesus was sinless, and Jesus was the one who truly cared about this man and his condition. This man with the withered hand was surrounded by people who didn’t truly care for him neither could they nor would they help him. They were using him to get at Jesus. So often we are around people who don’t truly care for us, they are more interested in our wallets, our names on the church roster, and our voices in the choir than they are for our souls and well-being. Yet we put our membership there anyway. This is why I said religion is dangerous.
This man with the withered hand would find complete healing and restoration in obeying the word of God. All he had to do was believe and obey. It was Jesus that healed his withered hand not a religious system. It was Jesus and his faith in Jesus. He didn’t think he couldn’t do it, he didn’t say my hand is fine. He didn’t say, can’t you heal it another way, in a less public way? He didn’t say wait for the sabbath to be over. He immediately stretched out his hand.
When he stretched forth his hand, he was aligning himself with Jesus Christ. For all the people there, only he would get the blessing. He believed and obeyed. He knew the religious people hated Jesus, he knew that they were looking to destroy him. But this man wanted to be healed, and who cares what everyone else sees and thinks. I am sure without a doubt that many other people in that synagogue needed healing especially a spiritual healing from religion but only one got healed. Everyone could see his withered hand, but they couldn’t realize their own withered hearts. They thought their problem was hidden behind the veil of religion and superficial rituals. They thought if they knew scripture and attended services that they were ok, but God knew their hearts nothing is ever not hidden from God.
CLOSING: Do you have a withered hand problem? Everything you do in life is withered. Everything you have to offer is withered. Physically withered. Emotionally withered? Occupationally withered? Your thoughts are withered. Your imaginations are withered. Is your power withered? Ability withered? Praise withered? Worship withered? Service withered? Prayer withered? Life withered? That withered hand was ruining this man’s life and your withered condition is ruining your life.
So many so-called Christians are withered up. They’re so dry. There’s so much deadness there. No amount of religion can cover for having a withered hand. This man was in the middle of religion, but still had his withered hand problem. You must ask yourself the question why do I want to stay for so long at religion that has no capacity to help me, heal me and save me?
You may be suffering from any of the 7 dimensions of wellness a Physical withered condition, an Emotional withered condition, an intellectual withered condition, a Spiritual withered condition, a Social withered condition, environmental and occupational withered condition.
Understand it’s not a crime to have a withered condition because of sin there are withered conditions, but Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly John 10:10. You don’t have to remain withered.
This man with the withered hand needed help, he’s in the synagogue, and cannot be helped by their rules and traditions and self-righteousness and condemnation. The rituals are useless, the hierarchy is useless, understanding and practicing all the obligations are useless. You see remaining in a withered condition when you don’t have to will cost you everything.
Vickie Winans had a song out called Stretch Out some of the words are “When troubles come and storms begin to rise Hold on and learn to stretch out
Oh keep on fasting keep on praying Hold on and learn to stretch out
When Satan gets on your track and tries to turn me back, I won? t worry, I won’t fret I just stretch out Stretch out, oh stretch out
When days are dark and cloudy hold on and learn to stretch out
Oh keep on fasting, keep on believing Hold on and learn to stretch out”.
Whatever your withered condition is Do as Jesus said and Stretch Out and align it with Jesus and be ye healed completely.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer Jr.
