Healing Power? Or Healing Compassion?
In the last post, found here, I talked about releasing God’s glory through our lives. I also used Jesus’s example of releasing God’s glory in His environment and the impact of that—deliverance, healing, freedom, and peace. This is because when God’s grace and truth are released into our environments, transformation occurs. Alignment to God’s way occurs. In the last post, I also mentioned that Jesus shared His secret for operating in God’s authority to release His glory—complete, surrendered obedience backed up by His choices. If God told Him to tell someone to pick up their mat and go home, He did. If God told Him to mix spit and dirt and smear it on someone’s face, He did. Whatever God told Jesus to do, the way He told Him to do it, Jesus did it. Period. If we want to see God’s power working in our lives THAT is what we need to do.
But…there’s another secret to operating in God’s power. I think so often we seek God’s power for bigger, better, and more miraculous works. We pray for His power. We hunger for it. But, do we love for it? I think so many times we get caught up in the idea of God’s power and correlate it with feeling strong and mighty. I always imagined myself with huge spiritual muscles that could win an arm wrestling match with any devil or illness that dared defy God. Then I read something in the Bible that challenged my spiritual bench-pressing theory.
In Mark 1, Jesus is approached by a leper. An outcast. Someone who was unclean and dangerously contagious. This leper approaches Jesus (a social no-no of the day) and begs Him for healing. Jesus looks at him, reaches out, and heals him. That’s awesome! But it wasn’t what Jesus said or did that challenged my theory as to how to develop spiritual power. It was a description of what happened inside of Jesus. Mark 1:41 says that Jesus was “moved with compassion.” This meant that He felt something in the deepest parts of Him, in His guts. THIS is what compelled Him to reach out and heal the unnamed leper. It wasn’t brute spiritual strength. It was love. Jesus healed out of a love so deep it literally drove Him to do so.
It all makes sense. God is love (1 John 4:16), and it was because of love that God healed the divide between Himself and all of humanity (John 3:16). In that same act on the cross, He also purchased our physical healing (Isaiah 53:5). No wonder God tells us that love is the greatest of all (see 1 Corinthians 13 and 14:1)! We are encouraged to pursue ALL of God’s spiritual gifts, including healing and prophecy, so we can reveal who God is and give everyone a tangible glimpse at an invisible God (see 1 Corinthians 12 and 14:1). But above ALL of the gifts, which are ways we see His power at work, we are to pursue…LOVE. If the gifts are to give us a glimpse of God, and God is love, then…the gifts are to REVEAL HIS LOVE! In a real way. In a way we can see, hear, touch, and experience within our human existence the love of a God who is invisible to us on this Earth.
In other words, LOVE is the driving force of the gifts. If we are prophesying without love, all we’re doing is trying to gain attention and fame for ourselves. I mean, we can do that in Hollywood, right? Maybe that’s harsh, but…if I’m not after releasing the love in God’s heart to build someone else up, to impart to them the hope, freedom, and deliverance that God paid so dearly for, then what am I after? Me? To pump myself up? To let everyone see how amazing and awesome of a Christian I am? YIKES!! If that’s the motivation, then we’ve missed the whole point!
If our motivation in speaking or reaching out to heal isn’t rooted in love, then…what is it? If it isn’t to come alongside and breathe God’s life-giving love, then…what is it? Jesus wasn’t driven to heal and deliver for the purpose of gathering crowds or flexing some spiritual muscles. He was driven by love. Love is something every single person on this planet literally needs. Love will draw, and God’s love will work miracles!
So, my takeaway challenge from this one phrase from this particular verse was…don’t seek God’s power for power. Don’t do spiritual bench-presses to flex spiritual muscles. Learn instead how to receive deeper revelations of God’s love. Ask God to help us see others the way He sees them. Ask God to enlarge our capacity for love and compassion. Ask God to lead us in His love so we can reach out and let His love work the miracles.