In our time of need we need to know the source of all blessing and comfort, the only One able to heal us of our infirmity or disability and we all have some deficiency that makes us imperfect--we all need improvement and have flaws and can get worse off. Jesus gave a few commands that illustrate the abundant life in Him: come to Him, follow Him, obey Him, serve Him, abide in Him, know Him, and even love Him. These are interconnected or linked to the successful walk with Christ by faith in fellowship, obedience, and good works.
To Christ there is no barrier to His love and outreach, we are within the boundaries of His grace and never at a distance or removed from grace. We have all the resources we need if we know the Lord, but we must never get a big head that we are favored in some special way or that God is respecting us or showing partiality. We all come to God under the same conditions: He has leveled the playing field.
What we need is a great God who can meet all our needs and this knowledge will give us great faith. If your faith is small, get a bigger God! If you think of just the humanity of Jesus, your thoughts of Him are too human. Jesus desires to get down and dirty with us to get intimate, sharing our sorrows and weaknesses. Jesus knew how to get up close and personal with men and to see where they were coming from, identifying with them in their infirmities. Jesus does care and we can know this by His infinite compassion towards us. God's mercy towards us has no bounds! We all come to Him on the same conditions of being sin-sick and beyond cure without His grace.
God doesn't have to heal us or to have mercy, then it would be justice! God is bound to save no one! But no one is ever the same after encountering Christ, He has some impact, good or bad either to soften their heart or to harden it, but change will inevitably happen. When we are transformed by grace, we cannot but talk of it: we get the "can't-help-its," like the apostles did in Acts 4:20, NIV, saying, "... we cannot help speaking of what we have seen and heard." This was the effect on the multitudes after Christ would heal someone--though He admonished them not to spread the news, they couldn't help themselves to this wonderful event that they couldn't help but praise.
Jesus praised and recognized great faith when He saw it and would tell them that it wasn't superstition but their faith in Him that healed them. But Christ didn't want to be known just as a miracle worker--that would not be a reputation that would change the world or save mankind. He first came to be our Savior and His miracles were only signs of His deity and emphasized His attributes in particular, like being the resurrection and the life, so He raised Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus was the kind who believed in doing it right or not doing it at all and everything He did, He did well and it was of good report. Anything well worth doing is worth doing well! He was known for going about doing good. "Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jer. 13:23, NIV). But it is impossible for man to do good apart from God (cf. John 15:5; cf. Psalm 14:3; Isaiah 64:6) but we are only vessels of honor being used by God for His glory to do His works. We are to be a godly people zealous of good works and we are saved unto good works (cf. Titus 2;14; Eph. 2:10)!
We can only venture to speak of what Christ has accomplished through us (cf. Romans 15:18; Amos 6:13; Hosea 14:8 Isaiah 26:12). God is not impressed with our self-righteous do-goodery. As much as we tend to believe we can be good without God, it's impossible The good news is that we can be ambassadors of Christ's goodness and mercy to spread the good word to the lost. As Christ promised: "Come unto Me all ye who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (cf. Matt. 11:28). "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, I do not give as the world gives. Your heart must no be troubled or fearful" (cf. John 14:27, HCSB).
In sum, we must acknowledge Christ as having sole authority to make us whole, complete, and free from any spiritual malady or defect: i.e., we must defer to His power and lordship for this to be effectual, whom alone to know is eternal life! Soli Deo Gloria!
About Me
- Karl Broberg
- I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.