The cry goes up from a sickbed to the throne of the heavenly Physician, and He delights to hear it. There is an abundance of healing power in Jesus Christ and His salvation; not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but the leaves, the little things, as it were, about Christ, are full of healing virtue. He took Peter’s wife’s mother by the hand and lifted her up, there was a contact established, and in that touch lay all the medicine of the Incarnation! So shall He stretch out His hand upon you, for His power is not diminished, nor His ear grown heavy. Healing and forgiveness are placed in happy conjunction, and when the Lord draws near, the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings. Pardon and healing were one when He dealt with the palsied man, and so they remain for every soul that trusts Him.
Yet mark this: healing must come before serving, and your Lord must begin with you before you can begin with Him. Lay yourself before Him as one prostrate with a fever, unable to rise until He lifts you. The healing power was conspicuously present when Christ was teaching, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, so let your heart attend to Him even while your body lies still. There are days of visitation, acceptable days, days of salvation, and who knows but that this very trial shall become such a season for your soul? The Lord has begun to heal us, and the healing virtue which His grace has infused will work us health and cure till we shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. His salvation will also perfectly heal our bodies, whether in this world by a merciful recovery or in the better country where the inhabitant shall no more say, “I am sick.”
Be of good courage. If you have backslidden ever so far, yet He says, “Return! Return! Return!” The work of Jesus, our heavenly Physician, is not so much to point out disease as to apply the remedy. Calvary is the place for the healing balm rather than for the lancet and the knife. He is able to heal utterly, and He is no miser with His mercies. These healing leaves change the lifeblood, affect the spirits, and make the nature other than it was before. Yonder in heaven, those faces which look so bright and comely, fresher than newborn babes, owe their freshness to these healing leaves! May that same virtue flow into you, forgiving every sin and soothing every fear, until tomorrow’s work in the surgeon’s hands becomes but the shadow of a deeper cure already wrought. God bless you, and may you rise from that bed to minister unto Him who first ministered unto you.