Okay! I’m back! I look forward to writing again and I’m going to take a little break to write on some thoughts that came to me on the trip that I’d like to dig a little deeper into. The one I wish to write on tonight is a bumper stick I saw as I was driving. It just struck me immediately how odd it was because this driver wished to have one that simply said “Jesus Heals.”
Now I’m not a disbeliever in miracles. I do believe Jesus does heal. I don’t believe it’s miracles on demand however. Instead, it’s miracles based on the will of God. It’s not a guarantee, but if you ask, you really have nothing to lose. If God heals, we should be thankful. If he doesn’t, we should be thankful. I also think one of God’s ways of healing has been through giving us minds that we can treat many of the symptoms. I thank God he created a method whereby someone could perform scoleosis surgery so I can walk today. (Although I do have to wonder, and maybe I’ll look into this, about the first guy who was told, “Hey. We’d like to cut your back open and attach a steel rod to your spinal cord and sew you up again.”)
So it isn’t Jesus healing that strikes me as odd. It’s that someone chose to emphasize that out of all things. Why? Well consider someone driving down the road who is in perfect health and sees that and thinks something like “Good for Jesus and those people he heals. I just don’t need that stuff in my life at all. I take care of myself well and I’m a specimen of health.”
I think the same could be said about Jesus blessing us financially. I do believe he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and can open up the floodgates of Heaven and bless us if he so desires. Again consider if someone saw a corresponding message and thought “I’m very well-off financially. If others are getting money, good for them. I just don’t need that stuff in my life.”
Health is good and being healthy is definitely a good way to be. However, you can be in perfect health, as Christ indicated on the Sermon on the Mount, and still be tossed into Hell. Being in perfect health does not mean that you are forgiven.
The same goes with money. You can have money like Bill Gates or a rich CEO and still be lost. I must give a word of caution here. While I believe money is a tool that can be used for good or evil, it can be tempting in our day and age to see money as an indication that we are entirely self-sufficient and don’t need God. Possessing money is not the proble but rather, being possessed by it.
Let’s suppose instead that we had “Jesus Saves,” the usual thing people put on the back. Now some people I know are unaware of their state or dispute the claim or dispute the truthfulness of Christianity, but the message is one that does apply to everyone.
To some who did not think they really needed salvation, I would simply say “As you look back on your life, are you telling me you are pleased with everything you ever did? There’s not one thing you look back on and say “That was really stupid to have done that. I wish I hadn’t.” If you are, the second thing I am tempted to say is “Congrats.” The first I am tempted to say is “Liar.”
You see, health is something secondary. If we bring people to Jesus the healer and he heals them, but their souls are still sick, we really haven’t done much for them. Of course, if he heals them, he does have a good reason for it. However, if we bring them to Jesus the savior, and they get saved, then we have brought about much rejoicing in Heaven.
I’m sure this guy meant well with what he was doing, but as I thought about it, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind that the real message could easily be lost. We can get so delighted in what we want God to do for us that we lose sight of what he wants to do for us.
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