“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he waswounded for our transgressions, he
w asbruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace wasupon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5
“For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Heb 12:3-4
Healing people with mental diseases and struggles may take time but this is part of the ministry which the Lord has even devoted Himself such as to the two Gadarenes. His mission on crossing the lake was to look for and set the captives free. Though a tempestuous sea arose to thwart His mission, He remains determined like a stone. He calmed the raging wind and waves. Then on disembarking, He was immediately met by the two demoniacs running for mercy towards Him. With love in His eyes and compassion that are not often seen on the eyes and neighbors of the demon possessed and mentally ill, He cast out the demons and healed them. Casting out demons and spiritual deliverance is part and parcel of the ministry of the Shepherd. It is not only for certain gifted people. Jesus has all authority in Heaven and on earth because by His sufferings He became the Son of Man and by His Lordship over all, He was the Son of God, so that through His Body today, He can exercise them once more just like when He was walking on this earth.
“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ “Heal thesick, raise thedead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” Matt 10:7-8 (NASB)
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt 28:18-20 (NASB)
“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak…”
Romans 15:1
Your neighbor and family
I once read a story about a young man who was devastated to find his home and his village wipe out by a huge wave from the sea. He was young, he was strong but the waves were stronger than him and it took all their belongings into the sea. One week after the incident, he went out not knowing where to go but this time he just wanted to see the coastline, the waves of the sea. He was found rolled across the beach, unconscious when a big wave swamped their area. He was only one of the few who were found alive. Then he tried to remember the spot where their house stood before. He stood looking at the stumped of bamboo still standing on the way. He now remembered, he was playing with his neighboring children when suddenly a gush of water came upon them. They were wading on it then it left them, only to come back with a mighty and violent force. He looked once more to the sea, shall he be afraid of the sea? It was their source of livelihood. Many times he went with his elder brother and father to fish in the nearby islands and get some Lapu-Lapu. At other times they just go to the beach near the mangroves and pick shells from there as the tide recedes. This was life for him. Waves come to and from but he has never seen such a big wave before. He never saw his mother and father again. Not even his brother. He wondered if his other playmates were still alive. He looked into the other side, but he can only see a wide swath of open space with bamboos and nipas strewn all over. The Red Cross and the government workers have been working all week to clean the town and the villages but there are still a lot of things to clean up. With face resolute though grieving inside, he again thought of his future. Shall the future be as bleak as the dark blue seas? Or shall it be as bright as the sun? He had heard a few of the children were brought to a catholic orphanage; others will be brought next week to an Evangelical orphanage while others more will be given adoption papers. He looked at the sky. Now it’s sunny and hot, the wide barren village looks like a dense aggregation of shells scattered all over the beach. But now he has to go back to the hospital. His old uncle will be waiting for him.
Your neighbor can be your family. Or your family can be your relatives. When God instituted marriage, He also ordained with it the building of a family. Family is not just the foundation of the society but the revelation of the Father’s glory. He sent Jesus Christ to assemble and bring all His children back at home to Heaven. His sacrificial death as payment for the sin of man marks the end of strife between good and evil. It settled forever the question of life and destiny for every person living on earth. The only thing everyone needs to answer is whether they are willing to obey the voice of God through His servants and through His Body on earth. When Pilate saw Jesus, he asked, what is truth? (Jn 18:38)Truth or principles can only be discerned and applied but it cannot be questioned once it is revealed. The Jews looked for a Messiah and the Greeks looked for wisdom but both stumbled not knowing who the Truth is and what is the truth (1 Peter 2:6). Jesus asked the following questions that we need to answer ourselves, “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother (Matt 12:48-50). Jesus emphasized the Fatherhood of God in every preaching He did to make it lucid to everyone that the Kingdom of God is like one big extended family. God is the father of all because everyone becomes His children. He has no grandchildren. Everyone must believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior to do so. This is why even the very Son of God taught the Lord’s Prayer and addressed it as “Our Father”.
He wanted everyone to know that God can be as near as anyone’s father. In fact He even said that we should, “call no
ma nyour father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” (Matt 23:9). Even Paul the Apostle realized that it was the Father’s idea that there should be families so that he wrote, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the 15). The phrase, “Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,” speaks that God is the source of all our names because He is our origin. Luke documents this fact by saying Adam was the son of God (Luke 3:38) making all mankind trace back their ancestry to Adam and ultimately to God, Our Father. Where does this leave us? As member of the Body of Christ, and of the Father’s Kingdom, we ought to be our brother’s keeper. Those who are sick and struggling should not be always thought of us weak and therefore without use. We ought to take care of one another being brothers and sisters in Christ. But most often times, we hear of backbiting, unfounded accusations, divorce, abuse and lack of clear vision among many Christians. Paul wrote, “do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” But if you bite anddevour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another (Gal 5:13-15). When the Lord walked the earth and gave a lecture how can one be a good neighbor, He gave a poignant example of caring for those who are in need regardless if you are preoccupied with a task at hand or it is your enemy. To be a good neighbor requires that we abandon our self seeking and give priority to helping others who are more in need than us. That includes helping those who are in mental anguish because of fear, trauma, torment, despair, delusion and depression. Let not your everyday task prevent you in being your brother’s keeper because as you give water to the thirsty, revive, mend, bind and heal, the wounded and the broken hearted the Lord sees that too. It does not matter if it gets rewarded now or published. Like Abraham and Moses, we must be resolute to put our eyes on eternity, towards the City of God where our Great Reward awaits us.
“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Hebrews 11:8-10 (NASB)
“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.” Hebrews 11:24-26 (NASB)
Finding your familyMan cannot be an island to himself alone. Like the boy who
was thrown by the waves on the seashore and picked by a Good Samaritan, each of us needs to have a family. The afflicted will heal faster in an atmosphere of cheer, joy and love but not in isolation. There are many cases of retirees who die immediately after their retirement because of lack of work and people who often surrounded them. Isolation can only be good when one is seeking God for a season such as when Jesus sought the Father’s anointing and will in the wilderness and when Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of stone. Man’s life was created to be a fellowship first with God and with men. Our fellowship with God fulfills our spiritual needs while our fellowship with others fulfills the social aspect of our being. When the Lord made Adam, He also saw that though he was surrounded with love and bounty in the Paradise, still he was lonely. The Lord saw first that it was not good for man to be alone, so He made him a family. He brought Eve. If you look around you, even the simple lichens growing on tree barks and stones have a need for other organisms. It is made of mutual union between a symbiotic alga and fungi. The alga makes the food while the fungi provide habitat and protection for the alga. All living things and including the non-living materials and processes that we see at work on earth are interconnected with one another and what keeps the balance of all these processes to happen precisely without much error is the Lord (Job 38:4).
“The earth isthe LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.” Psalms 24:1-2
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
And marked off the heavens by the span,
And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?” Isaiah 40:12 (NASB)
Man’s worth and value loses its significance without others. It is by having fellowship with our families, friends, and societies that we learn to value what it really means to have a family, a support frame. We cannot really live in relative isolation. With mobile phones, internet and netbooks, it is hard not to be connected these days wherever you are. True communication with others however does not only mean that we email each once in a while and view their photos or videos in a social networking service. It still means the old fashioned face to face communication and chatting with each other because man was made a tactile and sensible being. Although many have fashioned robotic and virtual worlds as a way to communicate with others, true fellowship is still enjoyed best when we are with each other. Man’s power and usefulness come, not in isolation, but through union and cooperation with others. Our lives can even be more significant when we become a member of the Lord’s Family. No one can truly be a member of His family who does not receive Jesus Christ first as His Savior and Lord. We need Him, just as every member of our body needs to be attached to it, if it’s going to be of any value. We also need fellowship with other believers who are attached to Christ. A soldier fighting a battle alone or a single man working with pick and shovel trying to dig a Panama Canal, would scarcely be more effectual than a Christian trying to establish God’s Kingdom all by himself. Apart from these, one way of walking in God’s protection is by having fellowship with our Brethren which in the process cleanses all from sin because God’s covering on His local family and body is extended upon us.
“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:6-7
Good foundation is necessaryWe may already be part of a family but when we do not have
the right foundation, it is altogether faulty. An architect is a master builder but when he builds a superstructure or any great house, he first considers the foundation. If it would last for a thousand years, then it must be a solid foundation. Without a proper foundation the superstructure will not last or even stand. To overcome attacks on our minds, we need to steel it. The very first way is to check is whether we are in the faith. One cannot be a Christian because he has been attending church. That is churchianity. Neither can we be a Christian because we have a mother or father who believes in Christ Jesus. We have to believe ourselves and this must be a personal experience. Like Pilate, how can we know truth if we do not believe in it? The Scriptures say,
“No one is righteous— not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.
All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” Romans 3:10-12 (NLT)
“For the wages of sin isdeath; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23 “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:6-8 (NLT)
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
Apart from the support of a cheerful family and friends, a personal foundation of peace is a sure way to overcome any struggles in life. By making peace with our Maker, we ensure a true lasting foundation for a sound mind and perspective. When you make the Lord truly your personal Savior, He will grant you a spirit of power, love and sound mind (2 Tim 1:7). “Thou wilt keep himin perfect peace, whosemind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength…” Isaiah 26:3-4
“Thereisno peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.” Isaiah 48:22