This is Where the Healing Begins

Emotional healing is there. But, in order for healing to begin, the one in need of it has to make a choice.

Remember the woman with the issue of blood (Matthew 9:20-22)? She had searched everywhere for healing for years. She spent all of her money on "healing". It was not until she made a choice to go the Healer that her healing occurred.

Imagine what was going through her mind. She had probably heard about this Healer, Jesus, sometime before. But I imagine that she had come to the point in life that she had given up hope on healing for herself. Healing wasn't in the cards for her. She had done everything that she could do.

But then she heard that Jesus was in town...What if...No, he couldn't or wouldn't help her. But...what if?

What would it hurt? It wouldn't cost any money-time and embarrassment-yes, but that wasn't anything she hadn't had to deal with before. The more she thought about it, the more that the possibility of healing began to flicker a flame of hope deep down in a place that she thought was shut off for good.

So, when she heard that he was close to her place, she new it was now or never. Unfortunately for her, not only was she a woman, she had this unforgivable issue. This issue was the source of shame for some 12 years.

Let's pause here and think of the the man blind from birth (John 9:1-12). The pharisees tried to pen his life-long condition as punishment for a sin his parents or he and had committed. But what did Jesus say was the reason? "but for the works of God to be made manifest in him." (John 9:3) In other words, so when the healing finally did come, God would get the glory!

Go back with me to the woman with the issue of blood.

Here it is. This is big, are you ready?

12 years she lived with the shame and isolation of this...condition...something that she probably had not caused her self and had no control over.

Why?

For that day. For the day when Jesus came. For the choice she made that said to the generations, "My issue and my healing is for GOD'S glory."

That day she had an inside out healing. Not just physical, but emotional. But she had to take the first step. She had to make a choice to go to Jesus. Bust up through the chaos and take the healing that He wanted to give.

What's your condition? Not just physical, but the deep down condition that draws a shadow over you and your life? Be honest with yourself. It's tough, believe me, I know. Here are a few of mine: guilt, resentment, caring too much about what others think about me, PRIDE (my biggie), loneliness, fear, etc. That's just a few.

So here's my choice: Keep carrying my issues around, or bust through the chaos of my life and touch the Healer. Let him do the work in me that He's been waiting to do and then LIVE ABUNDANTLY. And each and every time Satan tries to bring my issues up again, I chose to remember what Jeremiah said in Lamentations Chapter 3 about remembering hope and choosing to keep a grip on hope. I'm choosing holding on to hope and let go of issues.