Monday: Healing

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.

Good Monday morning, my dear brothers and sisters. I was up very, very early this morning; however, God had not really talked to me yet about the message and how to get started on it. Yesterday in church we were singing "The Healer" when our Lord God spoke to me loud and clear. It is time to write and preach on healing. Next Sunday I will be honoring God and preaching on the subject I just will call "Healing and Communion". I, over the years, have seen the Lord's healing hand work on many, many people and have had that healing myself. I HAD cancer three years ago ... it is gone. I also had Rheumatic fever as a child, and it is gone with no side effects ever. God is still in control and he still heals and this week we are going to talk about it, and we are going to pray about it and on Friday we are going to have communion. Folks, this is going to be an exciting week on this line. So let's get jumping. I am so excited it is hard to contain myself. GOD IS GOOD, and all glory for the healing goes to Him, be it direct, through the hands of a pastor praying for the sick, or through all the great doctors, nurses, and others in the medical fields. ALL GLORY GOES TO GOD ... LET US NOT FORGET IT THIS WEEK.

It is Monday and the day we pray for our leaders, our military, our state and local police, and all others in the protect-us business. And we also pray for all those who help to keep us well. We also need to pray for Pastor Charles Idler, for Don Saylor, who last night was taken back to the hospital, for his family. For Vicki and her family, and there is so much good news coming from her.

Isaiah 53: 3 - He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. 4 Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. 5 But He WAS PIERCED for our transgressions. He was CRUSHED for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and BY HIS WOUNDS WE ARE HEALED. (NIV)

Folks, sometimes we wonder why God heals one person direct, another through the hands of doctors, still others by the hands of people that God gave healing power to, and some who we might think do not get healed at all.

Let me get right to this, from the very start of man, from the very, very start, God in His wisdom built into us a system of checks and balances that help us fight off sickness all the time. We have been given an autoimmune system that will fight off most all diseases and there are a ton of them. If it were not for this God-given autoimmune system built into our systems at birth, the world would have stopped with Adam and Eve. The truth is that we all have had the healing hand of God upon us and it is daily and we most often or never stop to really think about it or give thanks for it. We tend to think of healing as something that happens after we get sick. Oh yes, we have been healed so many times that we could not count them. It is when the autoimmune system gets out of shape when we get sick, and all so often we are the ones who put it out of shape because of our life styles ... not always mind you, but a lot of times. Think of this, we tax our livers with booze, pills, and junk. We put stress on our heart and the piping that God put in place by eating way too much fat. I know, I like bacon and eggs and eat them also, but I am just stating facts here. We have beat ourselves up over and over again and again. So let us pause right now and thank God for the system of checks and balances that we have called AUTOIMMUNE.

Dear Father in Heaven, as I write on Healing, and I want to get it right and get it out the way You want me to, I want to pause and thank You for the system You built into us while we were in the womb. Thanks for the protection of caring mothers and the autoimmune system you made for us. We are also thankful that You have loaned doctors and medical people the talent to understand this system and when it does get out of shape, they can help us, through Your hands, get it back into shape. Thanks for this very special gift you gave each of us at birth. In Jesus name, Amen.

Ok, let's look a little at the very first attack on our systems. It could well come by a dad who had himself been diseased and he spread it to a baby in his donation of sperm to the mother. And we also need to look at a mother who drinks, smokes, and lives a life that is not good for the baby in her womb. Today so many women invite men "INTO THEIR BODIES" without knowing a thing about their past and where that man's little warrior had been planted before. Straight talk folks, but it is a fact.

And men, have we always checked the landing spot of our little warrior before we PARKED IT? And out of this so often a child is made, and folks once the seed has been planted, you know how I feel about abortion. We need to bring the child into the world and take care of them. Most often, God has already protected our stupid behavior, and has healed those mistakes for us, in body and in mind and in soul.

So as we break for this day, let us look at some of the healings that we may already have been protected from even today. Swine flu, colds, fever, cancer, and heart problems ... face it folks, it is only by the healing hand of Jesus and his protection system that we are even here today. Ok, tomorrow we will get down to "what if we got it" and does God really then take it away? I guess it would be healing as you and I most often think about it ... Just a sneak look ... Have you ever broken a bone, your leg, your arm, your wrist, your hip? The docs might line it up, but God heals it. A great example of God's healing hand in front of us as the bones knit back together again. Oh and one more that is so simple. We all have run and fallen, we get a scrape, a brush burn, some road rash as bikers call it ... and we might put some stuff on it, but who applies the scab and really heals it and most often in a few days or a week you cannot even see where the old hurt was. Later in the week we will talk about some of the harder things to heal, the broken heart from a bad marriage, or a child gone bad, or depression. I am telling you, God has His healing hand on you even as we speak. Let's thank Him and ask Him to really start healing those things we know that are wrong within us.

Dear Father in Heaven, I pray a prayer of praise today, thanking You for all things good. From the air we breathe to the food we eat to the clothes we wear and to the abundance of things You have given over to us. Thanks, Lord, for our leaders, be they in Washington, in our state houses or our local governments. The biggest thing we ask for them, Lord, is that first they have You in their hearts and then that You are first in the business at hand. Lord, I pray for our military, past and present, who have worked so hard to keep us safe and free. And I pray that the reporters would tell the truth about their work in the war zones. I pray also for our state and local police and ask Your protection over them. I pray for firefighters, most who work for free, and ask that You also protect them, and for the fire police standing directing traffic, I ask You put a wall between them and the cars and trucks. And Lord, for all the people in the Medical field, please keep Your hand upon them. And for those doctors to whom You have loaned talent who now use it to destroy babies, I do pray that You recall the talent and man recalls the license to kill. Lord, thanks again for this line and the growth that goes on day-to-day. Protect it, Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Tomorrow, healings from the Bible, and a reminder that Jesus is the same today as He was back then, and He will be the same tomorrow also. Now go forth sharing your blessings, and living large for Jesus ... HEY, I love ya, dan.