Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer of thanksgiving reflects the heart of Scripture and it is good to join you in blessing the Lord for all His benefits.
You have rightly lifted up the triune nature of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. Scripture shows that when God said let us make man in our image, He made us in that likeness as body, soul and spirit. As He is a trinity in His perfect and superior way, we bear His image in a lesser way, and He has given us a will by which we can choose, respond to Him and walk in His truth.
You also give thanks for what Psalm 103 describes, that He forgives all our sins, heals all our diseases and renews our youth like the eagles. Those benefits belong together, and Isaiah 53 shows us why. The prophet declared that He bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows, and that by His stripes we are healed. Matthew applies that prophecy to the physical healings Jesus did, healing the leper, the centurion's servant, Peter's mother in law and many others, to show that His suffering on the cross provides for both spiritual and physical restoration. When we come to the table and remember His body broken for us, we remember that provision.
It is important to hold a biblical balance about healing. Scripture shows Jesus healing in many different ways, sometimes instantly with a word or a touch, sometimes gradually, sometimes by going to the person and sometimes from a distance. Even the natural processes of healing in our bodies are from God and are divine in their origin. There is also a kind of faith that knows God can heal, and there is the moment when that faith is released to receive from Him, often through a simple point of contact. At the same time, Scripture is honest that healing does not come in the same way or timing in every case, as we see with Paul who prayed three times concerning his thorn in the flesh and was taught that God's grace was sufficient and His strength was made perfect in weakness. For that reason we can pray for healing with confidence and with submission to His wisdom, knowing that the greatest miracle is always the forgiveness of sins. That is the primary need, because forgiveness settles our eternal standing before God. Everything else, as important as it is, is secondary to being forgiven and justified before Him.
That forgiveness is complete in a way that human forgiveness rarely is. People often say they forgive but keep a way to bring the matter up again. God does not forgive in that partial way. When He forgives through Christ, He fully pardons, cleanses the conscience and declares us righteous. If you have repented and asked Him, you do not need to be hounded by guilt. His forgiveness is total. That is the mercy David sought when he prayed for God to blot out his transgressions according to His tender mercies, and it is the mercy you celebrate from Psalm 86, that the Lord is good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all who call upon Him, and from Exodus 34 where the Lord proclaimed His name as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and sin yet just and holy. The only proper response to such a revelation is what Moses did, to bow and worship, and your prayer does that.
You also rejoice in renewal. The Scripture speaks of a river of life that flows from the throne of God and of leaves for the healing of the nations, pointing to the full restoration God will bring. Even now He renews and restores those who wait on Him, and one day that renewal will be complete.
Your fellowship with God through Jesus the Messiah in the Holy Spirit is the very life described in 1 John, and the benediction you quoted is our prayer for you, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you. And as you go, may you live out the calling of Matthew 28, to make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching obedience to all He commanded, with the assurance that He is with you always.
May the Lord continue to teach you His way so you may walk in His truth with an undivided heart that fears His name, and may you praise Him with all your heart and glorify His name forever, for He is great and does wondrous things. He alone is God.
You have rightly lifted up the triune nature of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. Scripture shows that when God said let us make man in our image, He made us in that likeness as body, soul and spirit. As He is a trinity in His perfect and superior way, we bear His image in a lesser way, and He has given us a will by which we can choose, respond to Him and walk in His truth.
You also give thanks for what Psalm 103 describes, that He forgives all our sins, heals all our diseases and renews our youth like the eagles. Those benefits belong together, and Isaiah 53 shows us why. The prophet declared that He bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows, and that by His stripes we are healed. Matthew applies that prophecy to the physical healings Jesus did, healing the leper, the centurion's servant, Peter's mother in law and many others, to show that His suffering on the cross provides for both spiritual and physical restoration. When we come to the table and remember His body broken for us, we remember that provision.
It is important to hold a biblical balance about healing. Scripture shows Jesus healing in many different ways, sometimes instantly with a word or a touch, sometimes gradually, sometimes by going to the person and sometimes from a distance. Even the natural processes of healing in our bodies are from God and are divine in their origin. There is also a kind of faith that knows God can heal, and there is the moment when that faith is released to receive from Him, often through a simple point of contact. At the same time, Scripture is honest that healing does not come in the same way or timing in every case, as we see with Paul who prayed three times concerning his thorn in the flesh and was taught that God's grace was sufficient and His strength was made perfect in weakness. For that reason we can pray for healing with confidence and with submission to His wisdom, knowing that the greatest miracle is always the forgiveness of sins. That is the primary need, because forgiveness settles our eternal standing before God. Everything else, as important as it is, is secondary to being forgiven and justified before Him.
That forgiveness is complete in a way that human forgiveness rarely is. People often say they forgive but keep a way to bring the matter up again. God does not forgive in that partial way. When He forgives through Christ, He fully pardons, cleanses the conscience and declares us righteous. If you have repented and asked Him, you do not need to be hounded by guilt. His forgiveness is total. That is the mercy David sought when he prayed for God to blot out his transgressions according to His tender mercies, and it is the mercy you celebrate from Psalm 86, that the Lord is good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all who call upon Him, and from Exodus 34 where the Lord proclaimed His name as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and sin yet just and holy. The only proper response to such a revelation is what Moses did, to bow and worship, and your prayer does that.
You also rejoice in renewal. The Scripture speaks of a river of life that flows from the throne of God and of leaves for the healing of the nations, pointing to the full restoration God will bring. Even now He renews and restores those who wait on Him, and one day that renewal will be complete.
Your fellowship with God through Jesus the Messiah in the Holy Spirit is the very life described in 1 John, and the benediction you quoted is our prayer for you, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you. And as you go, may you live out the calling of Matthew 28, to make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching obedience to all He commanded, with the assurance that He is with you always.
May the Lord continue to teach you His way so you may walk in His truth with an undivided heart that fears His name, and may you praise Him with all your heart and glorify His name forever, for He is great and does wondrous things. He alone is God.
