Dee2rites Blog

Tag: Healing

  • “Come With Me”

    “Come to me, all of you who are tired and are carrying heavy loads. I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NIRV)

    I was recently asked by a friend to write a short Bible study lesson on love. That was her only directive – just write a short study on love. Wow, that a huge subject. As I prayed about what to write, God kept bringing me back to the directive He had given me years ago when I first started writing. “Tell my daughters how much I love them.”

    You may wonder, doesn’t everyone know God loves everybody? Probably, in their head if they ever been in or near a church. Most people can quote some version or form of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world”, but in their hearts they may wonder if or how He loves them personally, individually. Even Christians who have a real relationship with God can have periods of doubt, they may wonder about God’s love for them.

    This week in our ladies Bible study at church, a lady shared that she was coming out of a period of darkness, she’d been through some struggles with her faith. As I listened to her, I thought about how I’d been through my own periods of darkness and struggle. I knew right then that that was the reason God had led me to write about God’s love for us.

    In 1981 Del Shannon recorded a song originally written and recorded in 1959 by Phil Phillips called “Sea of Love”.

    Come with me my love
    To the sea
    The sea of love
    I want to tell you
    How much I love you

    When I hear that song or read those words, I think of Jesus and what He said in Matthew 11. “Come to me, all you who are tired…” Yes, there was a time when I was very tired, and not just physically but emotionally and spiritually.

    In 2001, about a year after my mother had graduated to heaven, I went through a deep depression. I was angry at God for taking my mother and not preparing me for her leaving. I felt that some of the people in my life had not given me the comfort and support I thought I needed. I was fighting with my sister over care for our dad. Some individuals at church, instead of reaching out to me, judged me because I wasn’t acting right in their opinion. So I dropped out of church for a period and stopped reading my Bible. From there I continued to spiral downward. My husband and I began having problems in our marriage. Sins I’d not struggled with for decades began tempting me. I don’t know what would have happened had God not loved me enough to pull me back. But He did and He did it in through a secular magazine of all things! But since I’d stopped reading my Bible, listening to Christian music, or going to church I hadn’t left Him a lot of options. I opened a Woman’s Day magazine I’d bought that day on a whim and saw these words:

    “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 The Message


    As I read those words, it seemed as if Jesus were sitting right there beside me, speaking directly to me. “Are you tired and worn out?” He asked. Yes, I was very tired and worn out from my hurts, doubts and fears. “Are you burned out on religion?” Yes, I was totally burned out and let down by church members. “Come to Me, not the church, not other people. Just come to Me.” Jesus gently and loving wooed me. There was no condemnation in His words, just love. Tenderly and lovingly God reached out to me when I was at the lowest point in my life.

    I’ve learned about the “unforced rhythms of grace”, I’ve recovered my life. I’m leaning how “to live freely and lightly”. I run to Jesus every day to hear Him tell me how much He loves me. Good circumstances or bad, I rest in His love.

    Jesus calls you to come with Him, come to the sea of His great love and let Him tell you how much He loves you. Wherever you are in your life, He calls “Come to Me. Come learn about my grace. Come with Me and learn how to live. Come receive My love. Come with Me, I want to tell you how much I love you.”

    Jesus loves you, my friend!

    Peace and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,
    Dee

    New International Reader’s Version (NIRV)
    Copyright © 1996, 1998 by Biblica

    The Message (MSG)
    Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

  • Resurrection Power

                “And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength, Which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His [own] right hand in the heavenly [places]…” Ephesians 1:19, 20 Amplified Bible

                 I’ve been fighting a sinus infection/respiratory infection/cough/asthma for several days now. I felt it trying to come on me early in the week, and instead of immediately going to the Word for healing Scripture, I just quoted a few verses from memory and went on studying other things. That was a mistake, no; it was a sin because I know better. And I proceeded to get worse and not healed. I was taking medication, but not really seeking God for healing.

                 This morning I was thinking about how much I hate sickness and disease (especially mine!) and how I hate poverty and lack and how I hate the devil, the author of sickness and disease and lack and poverty. I was thinking, LORD, I’d like to embarrass the devil the same way Jesus and God the Father embarrassed him when Jesus rose from the dead.

                 Satan thought he’d beaten Jesus, the Son of God. When Jesus died and descended into hell, I have a feeling Satan was feeling pretty good about himself. Until that third day when the Father called Jesus to arise just as Jesus had called Lazarus from the grave. Then in front of all the angels of heaven and all the wicked spirits in high places, Jesus arose from the grave, came up out of hell, totally defeating death, the grave and hell. Yeah, that had to be pretty embarrassing.

                 As I was laughing to myself at Satan’s embarrassment, I heard in my spirit, “You know you have that same resurrection power living in you.” What? I had to go look that up and check it out. I trust hearing the voice of God when He speaks to me (Jesus said in John 10 that His sheep know His voice and will not follow the voice of a stranger) and I know God will never say anything that is contrary to His Written Word. But I still had to check it out, go to the source. I found it in Ephesians 1:19, 20.

                 I have read and studied the book of Ephesians many times. Most of it is highlighted or underlined or both in all of my Bibles. But that particular truth had never come alive to me until this morning. The truth that the same power (some Bible translations say “power” and some say “strength”) that God used to raise Jesus from the dead is in me! Praise God!

                 I John 4:4 says that the One (God) Who lives in me is greater than the one (Satan) who only comes to steal, kill and destroy.

                 “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”  1 John 4:4 New King James Version

                “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

                 Jesus and His healing power abide in me. The resurrection power of God is in me. Jesus paid for my healing the same time He paid for my salvation. I am healed by His stripes and that same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in me – healing me, delivering me from sickness and disease.

                 “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.” Isaiah 53:5 Amplified Bible

                 “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits—Who forgives [every one of] all your iniquities, Who heals [each one of] all your diseases” Psalm 103:2, 3 Amplified Bible

                 Bless the LORD my soul, bless His Holy Name. Thank You Father, thank you Jesus for my healing.

    Peace and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,

    Dee

     

  • HAPPY EASTER!

    But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole. (Isaiah 53:5, Amplified Bible)

    I was sick recently so I’ve been meditating on Scriptures that talk about healing. I reread passages in the gospels meditating on them and watching in my mind as Jesus healed all who came to Him. As I dwelt on the verses, my faith was encouraged and built up. Even when I went to the doctor, I was trusting and praising God for my healing.
    It was no surprise this morning when I opened my Bible for my quiet time with God that He directed me to another passage that talked about healing – Isaiah 53. Jesus paid for our salvation and our healing when He was punished and crucified in our place.
    This week we celebrate Easter, remembering Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection on the third day. Let us not take what Jesus did for us lightly. Because of what He did, we have forgiveness of sin, peace in this life, healing in our spirit, soul and body, as well as eternal life with Him. Praise God!

    Isaiah 53:1-12
    1 WHO HAS believed (trusted in, relied upon, and clung to) our message [of that which was revealed to us]? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been disclosed?
    2 For [the Servant of God] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.
    3 He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.
    4 Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].
    5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.
    6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all.
    7 He was oppressed, [yet when] He was afflicted, He was submissive and opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.
    8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living [stricken to His death] for the transgression of my [Isaiah’s] people, to whom the stroke was due?
    9 And they assigned Him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.
    10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief and made Him sick. When You and He make His life an offering for sin [and He has risen from the dead, in time to come], He shall see His [spiritual] offspring, He shall prolong His days, and the will and pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
    11 He shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge of Himself [which He possesses and imparts to others] shall My [uncompromisingly] righteous One, My Servant, justify many and make many righteous (upright and in right standing with God), for He shall bear their iniquities and their guilt [with the consequences, says the Lord].
    12 Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great [kings and rulers], and He shall divide the spoil with the mighty, because He poured out His life unto death, and [He let Himself] be regarded as a criminal and be numbered with the transgressors;
    yet He bore [and took away] the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors (the rebellious).

    Peace and blessings in our Lord Jesus Christ,
    Dee