Spirit Soul and Body

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[1 Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV]

How often do we cry out to The Lord for healing? There is a perpetual need in us for healing, for we are so often in a place of dis-ease, and looking to be made whole and restored to a place of rightness. We see sickness all around us and our prayer lives are filled with intercessions for ourselves or family and friends, or others whose story has moved us.

But where is our healing needed? In our verse today, Paul identifies three areas to be made whole — spirit, soul and body. In which area is our dis-ease? When we pray, we should let the Holy Spirit guide our discernment, whether we pray for ourselves or intercede for another, or others. Is the matter a sickness of the body, of the soul, or in the spirit, and is the problem in one affecting the others?

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
[Isaiah 61:1 NKJV]

Jesus quoted these lines from Isaiah in His first recorded proclamation of who He was and is. In this He stated three things that God had anointed Him for ...

1. To preach good tidings to the poor
2. To heal the broken-hearted
3. To proclaim liberty to the captives

Jesus came to preach, heal and proclaim, and we can see from the healings that the gospels reveal, that Jesus’ method of healing differed in each case. He did not have a single approach. He wasn’t a specialist in leprosy or paralysis; He was special, and treated each person He came across as special also. He looked at the heart and not the manifestation of illness.

When we fall ill, we can be sick in body, soul or spirit. Modern medicine can often deal with the body, sometimes the soul, but rarely if ever the spirit. Jesus is the authority in all three, by He is the undoubted specialist in spiritual broken-ness.

The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?
[Proverbs 18:14 NKJV]

The answer is always Jesus Christ, whatever the question.

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ROBIN MARK — “There’s A Cry”

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OSWALD CHAMBERS — RUN TODAY’S RACE
Thursday 10th September 2020
Worry is nothing in the world but personal irritation with God because I cannot see what He is after—only I don’t call it that, I talk about “an overwhelming burden of care.”

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