Note before sharing the devotional: I have a lengthy set of thoughts to share that this devotional brought up, but I thought it best that I share it after. I want the Word to come first, for God, for me, and for the reader.
Healed by His Wounds
Brokenness. We see it all around us. We experience it
ourselves: in our relationships, in our dreams, in our bodies. And yet,
something happened over two thousand years ago that still has the power to heal
that brokenness.
1 Peter 2:24 says, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed."
Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, took the weight of our sins upon Himself. He carried them to the cross, giving up His life not because of His own wrongdoing, but because of ours. This is the essence of the Gospel. Through His sacrifice, He offered us a path out of darkness and into His light—a life transformed by His grace.
Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we’ve been given a profound healing of our spirits; new life taking the place of sins and darkness that separate us from God. Through His wounds, we are offered forgiveness and a new relationship with God, healed and whole.
Understanding His sacrifice transforms us. We can’t live in
darkness anymore. Brokenness may surround us, but it is no longer within us.
His righteousness washes over us. His healing wells up within us. Our entire
life shifts as a response to the profound love and sacrifice Jesus showed us,
and the healing that He alone can provide.
Prayer: Jesus, thank You for forgiveness from my sins. For righteousness through faith. For healing. The only way was through Your sacrifice on the cross. You gave everything so I could be made whole and have life with You. Thank You! Help me live with that truth as the foundation of everything I am and do. In Your name I pray, Amen.
Note after sharing the devotional:
I want to begin this post-devotional note with a couple of Bible verses (I’m using them as disclaimers to help buffer the content which is below):
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9, NKJV
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 1 Peter 2:24, NKJV
Although I do preach The Truth (i.e. the Word of God) over “my truth,” etc., sometimes including “my truth” in the discussion is critical for then allowing The Truth to minister. My intent is not to self-indulge, but rather by being transparent, shed some light on how the Bible can speak – and does speak – to others who might wrestle with some of the things I still currently wrestle. If you wish, read on below. Otherwise, consider this your final warning to exit this post if you do not wish to continue reading.
I alluded to it a few days ago, but this note will be more
of a deep-dive on the following topic as inspired from today’s devotional: the
truth is, I am a man of much brokenness and much sin, even still to this day. I
previously mentioned that I worked hard on myself in therapy for about a decade
(as well as outside of it before and since). I credit God for the healing and
growth that He has given me, as well as the blessings I currently am able to
enjoy (marriage, independent living, and financial independence, to name a few)
because of it. But as I’ve learned over the last few years, there are quite a
few things that, for one reason or another, I didn’t get addressed in therapy.
Aside from meeting my love and eventually marrying her,
changing jobs and careers a couple times, changing churches, and leaving
therapy (all big things and, except for my wedding, happened a few years ago
now), two of the biggest personal events/situations recently included dealing with
the baggage of a couple of my now-former housemates, and the end of a major friendship
in my life.
I’ll tackle each item in order: first, dealing with issues
at the place I called “home” for three years exposed a lot of gaps I still have
in dealing with difficult people, which I am beginning to understand the
criticality of handling this well as it pertains to being able to have and
maintain friendships with people in general; second, the end of my longest
friendship to date during this time exposed the reality that, growing up, I
didn’t really have friends aside from this particular person. Experiencing and
processing the two in concert further exposed wounds I incurred and decisions I
made in my story that contributed to a long, still-continuing pattern of broken
friendships.
Thanks to my learning experiences in therapy, and thanks to a small group of friends from the Vineyard with whom I still maintain fellowship, as well as one or two men I befriended in college, I am not left utterly friendless. (Of course, anyone who has received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior also has Him as their friend! I myself attest to this.) In fact, a week-and-a-half ago (and again in the last week) my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a few friends from the Vineyard which resulted in much connection, joy, and laughter. I was sad to leave them too soon for the night, out of necessity of course.
But if I’m honest, I’ve been extremely hesitant to make new
friends at my current church, Good News Christian Center. The people there are
overall very nice, but the vast majority of the fellowship I experience there
is more of a business-like “fellow workers in the faith” type of fellowship.
Which isn’t wrong or bad, per se. But for someone who cherishes deep friendships
where we each can be real with one another (despite my outward appearances)
while also challenging and encouraging each other, I don’t get the sense that
this church is the place for that. I just don’t see the capacity for it among
the majority of their members. If I somehow happen to be very wrong on this, I
apologize for missing whatever it is that I am missing. I do know that a couple
years ago I held monthly Bible studies where I was living, and by the time we wrapped
up those meetings 10 months later, we had begun to develop a nice small cohesive
group, but that was about it.
But the real reason for my hesitation is also due to my history
of blindly trusting that friendships that I did make with others (especially
believers, interestingly) would last. In each case, I cherished every moment that
I did get to have with them while the fellowship was still warm – until it got abruptly
cut off. A recent intentional (private) deep-dive regarding all the many broken
friendships that I could recall through the years finally allowed me to see the
issues (and the patterns thereof) as to what happened that would have caused
the drift. In many of these cases (though not all), it was because the other
person cut me out of their lives, very likely due to something stupid I said or
something stupid I did.
[The reason I’ve not gone to those specific individuals and
asked why our connection drifted in the manner that I described above is that I
didn’t realize that their view of me had changed until far later. I was truly that clueless
when I was younger, because no one had taught me anything about socializing
with others, aside from “don’t hit,” “don’t kick,” “don’t fight,” “don’t call
them names,” “don’t hurt their feelings,” (whatever that meant) – by high
school I truly learned to follow all these things by the letter. I learned the
obvious things not to do and got myself somehow to abstain. But there was so
much I had to learn by fire, and even that took getting burned repeatedly
because it simply took me as long as it did to understand. So, unless someone
tells me directly what I did wrong and how I could fix it, I’m not likely going
to know that there is anything wrong until much later when I look back and begin
to see that something happened at all.]
In terms of lessons to be learned, based on the above, my
guess is that there are times to be truthful, and there are times to withdraw
from speaking the truth. My years in therapy, both inside and out, helped give
me a model for learning when to speak and what, and when not to speak. It wasn’t
a perfect model, but it was at least something. And between living with my
former housemates and my church (as much as I do still appreciate it for other
things), I’m sorry to say that I’ve successfully unlearned this lesson. As far
as I’m concerned, I believe that I unlearned this particular lesson because with
I often found myself contending with those that were close to me in life over
the last few years (not my love, thankfully) and seeing them model a severe
lack of wisdom and maturity on this principle (and then defend their words or actions when confronted).
Prior to therapy, I truly believed I had no voice. Up until
that point, I had had a lifetime of experiences which had conspired for years
upon years to silence my voice and silence my confidence. With God’s help and
the use of therapy, I got my voice back. But I did have to fight for it along
the way, along with everything else that God allowed me to gain during those
years. And over the last few years I had to fight with everything I had to not
lose it again. I still have my voice, but barely. I believe fervently in using
it, but what currently trips me up is a condition that others tried to put in
front of me as a stumbling block, but is in fact in the Bible:
Yet do it with gentleness and respect. 1 Peter 3:15 ESV (doing ESV this time as I like this wording far better)
As of this point, I lack the ability to do the above, to speak with gentleness and respect, because I had to fight the message that if I couldn’t speak in this manner, then I shouldn’t speak at all. I’m not going to come into disagreement with the Word of God, but I am still continuing to fight the notion that I shouldn’t speak at all if I can’t do it “correctly,” and this is something that I suspect has seeped into my current church’s culture. But I don’t want my understanding to trump God’s Word. So without further ado, and as not to mislead the reader, here is the full Scriptural context:
14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. 1 Peter 3:14-17, ESV
The context is for me to defend my faith not only to
non-believers but also those who may come down on me, attack me, etc because I
choose to believe in Jesus as my Lord. It is good and necessary to learn how to
speak with gentleness and respect, as well as in love, in truth, with mercy and
grace, and so on. But while I believe, I’m not there yet. And many of the cases
where I lost friendships over the many years due to something stupid I did or
said was due to times when I spoke what I called truth (or even what was truth)
but without the gentleness or respect that might have made a difference.
Sometimes, the way faith comes into the picture is to believe not only that Jesus Christ paid the price for my sins on the cross, but that by His wounds I am indeed healed, and that there is nothing He cannot heal, regardless of whether the wounds are spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, or even relational. As such, today’s devotional verse resonates that much more, now that there’s a story to which I can tie this verse.
who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 1 Peter 2:24, NKJV
Furthermore:
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5, NKJV
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