A beautiful, well dressed, young lady walked into my office. She introduced herself as Sandy.[1] Her doctor had referred her for help lowering her cholesterol. As I listened, it became apparent Sandy had some deeper issues than cholesterol; she was a closet alcoholic. She would turn to the bottle to numb the pain, remorse, and loneliness inside.
Sandy had been reared in a Christian family, but those ideals had become blurred through physical and verbal abuse. Deep down inside, Sandy blamed herself and was full of bitterness and unforgiveness.
God brought Sandy to my office to learn about restoration. True restoration of body, mind and soul will bring peace of mind, quiet fears, and will give power to forgive “the unforgiveable”. Jesus came to this dark world to completely restore mankind back to his original state. Man was created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), possessing the same attributes (likeness) of God. God describes Himself in Exodus 34:6 as “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity (rebellion), and transgression and sin.” It is these attributes that He desires to restore in mankind. God is also our faithful judge, reading our hearts and healing those who choose to cooperate with Him. Through cooperation with the natural laws He has created, we can achieve our best health. Unfortunately, there will be those who will refuse His restorative healing; these He must leave to their own choosing, which will result in their own demise. This is the risk God took when He endowed us with the power of choice.
God loves you so much that He was willing to do whatever it takes to restore us in totality as if we had never sinned. He demonstrated this love by sending His Son to show how you can be restored back into the character or likeness of God, in body, mind and soul - for health, peace and perfection of character. He takes our infirmities and diseases (Matthew 8:17) and in exchange gives us a vital current of life and joy (John 10:10); His saving health (Psalm 67:2). This is His mission; and was His entire focus while on this earth. None who came to Jesus were turned away or went away unhelped. Jesus’ compassion was poured out onto everyone. It was Heaven to be in His presence.
What was the secret to His success? Jesus held all His wishes and desires into strict abeyance to His Mission, the restoration of Man and the revelation of the true character of God, His Father. His Father’s character had been marred and misrepresented by Lucifer, now called the devil (Isaiah 14:12; Revelation 12:9). Mankind at large is still believing the lies of the devil, but God is love, and what He offers is infinitely better than the lies and fleeting pleasures of sin (see Hebrews 11:25).
Jesus is our example of what God can do through us. He has shown us we can overcome just as He overcame where Adam fell. His hand is stretched out to pick us up from the miry clay we find ourselves. He lifts us higher and higher until we have the heart and mind of Christ and have become, like Jesus, the light of the world, sharing the message of total and complete restoration through Jesus Christ now and for all eternity!
How did Jesus hold His wishes and desires into strict abeyance to His mission? He accomplished this through submission to His Father’s Will. And His Father’s business was the restoration of man (Luke 2:48-49). He did not plan His own way, but moment by moment, He communed with the Father, Who gave Him what He needed to fulfill His purpose of the restoration of man into the image and likeness of God. This required constant self-denial, self-sacrifice, on the part of Jesus. If we are to be restored, it will require the same of us.
“He imparted earthly blessings that He might incline the hearts of men to receive the gospel of His grace. Jesus made each work of healing an occasion for implanting divine principles in the mind and soul. To show that by receiving power from on high, man can live a holy, right, and righteous life.”[2]
How can we live this “holy, right and righteous life”? Through the same means of success that Jesus used: submission to God, self-denial, and self-sacrifice. Do these terms pile up negative connotations in your mind? As we put them into practice, we will eventually see them as they really are: inestimable blessings! God says in 3 John 2, “I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.” God wants to heal us spiritually as well as physically. It is only through healing us in totality that true restoration happens.
Christ knew unless there was a decided change in the principles and purposes of humanity, all would be lost. This was the motivating burden of His soul. He loved us so much He was willing to make a decided change; to leave Heaven and all the admiration of the heavenly hosts; to humble Himself, to come to this dark, dreary, sin-infested world, as a man, to be despised and rejected by those He came to save, to be scorned, derided and totally misunderstood, and eventually killed, for the sole purpose and hope of saving you and me from the deceptions and counter plays that the enemy of our souls throws at us.
The cross revealed the true character of God as the self-sacrificing Lover of our souls willing to heal and forgive even when we do not ask (Luke 23:34); willing to shower upon us day by day His saving grace even when we spit in His face (Matthew 26:67).
The cross also revealed the character of God’s arch enemy, Lucifer, now call the devil and satan. By murdering innocent, tender, loving Jesus, the devil revealed his own true character as the one who is the vengeful and vindictive enemy and thief (John 10:10).
When Christ died, the host of Heaven cried out, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night…therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. [But] Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time,” Revelation 12:10-12. At the cross, Christ won the war. The devil’s doom is sure. Now the battle that remains is to convince us, “the inhabiters of the earth,” of the truth of God and His restorative health and salvation, versus the devil’s destroying, deadly deceptions and allurements and misrepresentations of the character of the God of Heaven.
Learning to trust God to do for Sandy what she could not do for herself; learning to cooperate with God; and learning it was the enemy of her soul that was planting ill thoughts in her mind, keeping her in an addictive state and out of control, Sandy was able to reach out her hand to God’s hand that was stretched out to her. As Sandy accepted the true restoration of God, the physical healing came as well. She was able to forgive others and herself. God gently helped Sandy leave alcohol as a thing of the past. At the time of this writing, Sandy has not had any alcohol for over seven years, she has a steady job; every time I see her, she has a beautiful, radiant smile on her face.
By making some lifestyle and thought-pattern changes, Sandy’s cholesterol level came down to normal range. In fact, when her doctor saw her total cholesterol level of 149 mg/dl, six months after taking her off her medication, he told her, “If I didn’t know better, I would tell you, you need to eat a steak!” But he was quick to add, “Keep doing what you are doing, because it is working, and I will see you in six months.”
We can learn to look beyond ourselves to God for forgiveness and healing. Often the hardest one to forgive is ourselves. We can learn to let go and allow God to do His restorative work in each of us, individually; the wonderful, restorative work of forgiving both ourselves and others. And this restorative work will bring true healing and restoration.
Are you willing to let Jesus do this restorative work in you?
Would you like to learn more about God?
Join us Wednesday evenings at 5:30 pm CT at
Abundant Health Wellness Center, 240 Huntsville Rd., Eureka Springs, AR 72632
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