The Healing We All Need

July 22, 2021

Pastor Ken Brown Jr

Hi, this is Pastor Ken and these are my thoughts on a Thursday…The healing we all need. This weekend my wife Lynn and I will be presenting a marriage conference we developed for our church. We have been preparing for the conference, seemingly with every available moment for the past several weeks, as a result as we enter the final days of countdown, the conference and its content are consuming my every thought. Bearing that in mind, it would be quite difficult to talk about much else today, so I won’t even try. One of the things that has been on my mind the past few weeks is that after the conference is over I want to expand my podcasting. I plan to continue to offer my thoughts on a Thursday as usual, I have come to enjoy sharing them with you and would miss it if I stopped, but there will be a new addition as well. On Mondays I will now be offering a Monday Marriage Message. I thought I might offer the first installment of that here this week. The Healing We All Need Matthew 19:1-3 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” When I meet with a couple for premarital counseling, early on in the process I shock them with this foundational truth. With tongue-in-cheek I tell them, “Your marriage would be perfect except the two of you are going to be a part of it.” I know that can seem humorous at first glance, but it is true. Marriage is God’s idea. It is His invention. It is His arena. Everything God thinks, creates or does is perfect. So why isn’t your marriage or the marriages of anyone else you know perfect? Here’s why: every marriage is made up of profoundly fallen beings…you and your spouse happen to be the two in yours. Profoundly fallen people do profoundly fallen things. As a result, every marriage has been injured and is broken on some level, and if we’re honest, most are broken on multiple levels. So why this scripture reference for the opening week of my new podcast? Because we all need healing in our marriages. The sooner you admit it the sooner it can begin. I think it is crucial to see that Jesus, when encountering broken, hurting people, has a common practice. He wants to heal broken people who follow Him. The scripture above is not the first nor the last reference - we could go to in the Gospels where Jesus healed the multitudes that followed Him. It is but one of many such scriptures. I have never read where Jesus was asked for a healing touch by someone in need, and responded that He just wasn’t feeling it that day. This is never His response. His response is always to move to heal. In fact, the only time we read that He did not heal those who needed healing was in His hometown of Nazareth. There it was not for a lack of desire on His part, but rather a lack of belief on the part of the people. Essentially, the people of Nazareth could not be healed because they thought themselves too familiar with Jesus. Their perceived knowledge of who He was, (just a carpenter from down the street) kept them from discovering who He truly was, and the power that He had that He desperately wanted to use to heal them. As a marriage counselor, I find some of the Christians who come to my office seeking counsel have much the same problem. They think they know who Jesus is. He is the Son of God (that celestial grandpa in the sky). He is that guy they say they believe is alive, but they live their lives as if He died 2000 years ago…and remained in the tomb. They are essentially Nazarenes. If we want to experience miraculous healing for our marriages, we need to approach Jesus with the faith that He can, and wants to do miraculous things in our marriage. I said a moment ago that I never read where Jesus denied healing someone because He didn’t care to do so. What He did almost always ask however was…”Do you believe?” We have to approach Him with belief, belief that He can and wants to move in miraculous ways in our marriages. After we agree that he can…we have to let Him. Jesus wants to get busy healing the brokenness in your marriage…and in your life, but you must believe that he desires to heal, and still has the power to heal. Each week I will pose some questions for you to ponder and answer. No worries there won’t be an exam. Often the answers will not be found in the content of the podcast, but rather in your own heart of hearts. If you are listening with your spouse, share your answers with each other. If you are listening alone, share your answers with your sweet, sweet savior, He has asked you to share your cares with Him because He cares about you! I will also be suggesting some actions to take, these will be designed to increase the oneness between you and your spouse as well as the oneness Christ desires to experience with you. Laugh at yourselves and cry with each other as you begin to believe and experience His awesome healing. Questions to Answer: 1. What hurts have you encountered in your marriage that you want to see Jesus heal? 2. Do you believe that you can trust Him to heal those hurts in the way that is best for both you and your marriage? Actions to Take: 1. Pray together that God will increase your faith in Him as the two of you seek Him together. 2. Seek forgiveness from your spouse for the specific things that you have been responsible for that have caused hurt for them and your marriage. I will continue with these Monday Marriage Messages beginning next week. Additionally, I will be back with next Thursday to share my thoughts with you as I regularly do. So now, seeking the emotional healing you need in your marriages or elsewhere in your life with a thorough belief that Jesus can and wants to give it to you…go be awesome!