Mark 1:40-42 “ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.” Today's episode talks about some possible blocks to healing. It also talks about how important and powerful forgiveness can be. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
“If You Choose, You Can Make Me Clean”
Mark 1:40-42 “ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”
I choose this verse today because I think this leper asks a question that we all ask at one point or another. When we need something from God, or when we need a healing for ourselves or for a loved one, we probably say to Jesus, if you choose to give me this, or if you choose to heal this person, you can. We know that Jesus can do anything. There isn’t anything He can’t do, so when we say this it is more for our benefit then for His. When we add “if you choose to” when we pray it is as if we are giving Jesus a way out. We are building in an out for Him and for us. Why I say for us is because if we don’t see the desired outcome we can just decide that Jesus didn’t choose to heal them this time. That is not always the case.
There are things that can get in the way of a healing, things that can block a healing. Unbelief can get in the way of healing. You don’t have to have belief to be healed. Jesus brought people back from the dead and how much belief can you have when you are dead? This is proof you can be headed even if you don’t have faith and yet unbelief can be a block at other times. For instance, Jesus could not heal in Nazareth because that was his hometown. That is where he grew up. It says in Matthew 13:58, “ And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.” The people that knew him as a child could not believe that he could be anything more than a carpenter’s son, so he was unable to do signs and wonders there.
Another thing that can be a block to healing can be unforgiveness. This can be a big block at times. Jesus wants to heal us, he wants us all to be free from our pain and suffering. And also, Jesus wants us to forgive. He taught us, right in the Our Father prayer, that we will be forgiven to the extent we forgive others. If we can’t forgive others God won’t forgive us. I know I have mentioned this before and I will keep mentioning it because this is huge. I know that some of you listening are dealing with some pretty big betrayals. I know some of you listening have had people hurt you in unimaginable ways. I know that the last thing you probably want to do is to forgive that person, or those people. And yet, that is exactly what God is asking you to do.
One thing I have learned and I want to pass on to you in case you were never told this, is that forgiveness is an act of will, it is a choice. It is not a feeling. You can forgive someone even if you don’t feel like it. You can forgive someone even when you don’t really want to. The only thing that is required for you to forgive someone is taking that brave first step to say the words, “I forgive _______ for _______.” It’s even better if you can do it in the name of Jesus. For instance, “ In the name of Jesus I forgive _________ for ____________.” It is totally ok if you say this and yet you don’t really feel it yet, even if you aren’t sure if you believe it yet. You are letting God know you are open to trying to forgive this person and you are inviting God in to do all the heavy lifting.
Forgiveness is hard and we can’t do it on our own. Only God can go in and heal our wounds and help us to forgive. However, God is a perfect gentleman and He will not come in where He has not been invited. He values our free will so much that He will sit by and watch, no matter how much it hurts him to see us like that, He will let us hold onto our anger and hurt if we choose too. However, He doesn’t like to see it and He is always right there waiting to take our pain and sorrow from us, we just have to ask Him. We just have to let Him know we want His help and invite Him into our mess so He can start to clean it up again.
God is asking us to forgive for two reasons. First, he wants to free us from the pain and suffering we are going through. I want to briefly touch on what forgiveness is and is not because I am not sure we all understand forgiveness completely. Forgiveness is not telling someone that what they did is ok. Forgiveness is not necessarily reconnecting with that person and letting them back into your life. Forgiveness is not saying they didn’t hurt you. Forgiveness is simply saying this thing happened, I can’t change the fact that it happened and yet I am not going to keep thinking about it. I am not going to keep replaying what happened over and over again in my head. I am letting it go. I am going to stop letting this terrible thing have a hold over me any more. I am breaking any hold it has over me. You are not saying what happened is ok, because it wasn’t. You can forgive someone and yet, never want to be around them again. That is totally find. Forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.
When we refuse to forgive we are holding on to all that pain, anger, resentment, sadness and many other emotions and it slowly eats away at us from the inside. However, it is not hurting the other person. They are likely not holding on to any emotions from the incident and are merrily going throughout their day. I have heard that when we refuse to forgive it is as if we are drinking a little poison every single day and expecting the other person to die. It just doesn’t happen like that as you are the one taking the poison. The thing that happened was traumatic enough, why let that unforgiveness eat you up inside too? God does not want that for you. That is the first reason He wants us to forgive, to free us from that.
The second reason is because the other person who did that to you is God’s child too. I know you probably could care less about the other person and God gets that. He knows what you went through and He is not asking you to care about the other person. He is asking you to forgive that person though. You never know what your forgiveness could do for that person. I remember the story of Saint Maria Goretti. She was a young woman, a girl really, and she loved the Lord so much. One day a friend of hers, an older boy who lived where she lived, tried to rape her. She refused and kept telling the boy that this was not what God wanted. He had a knife and was so angry that he stabbed her several times. She was rushed to the hospital where she died, I am not sure how long she stayed a live for but I know she forgave her attacker before she died. This boy was so moved by her ability to forgive him that while he was in jail he decided to become a priest. His whole life was changed by this one girl’s ability to forgive. Forgiveness is powerful.
If you are not sure if you are holding onto any unresolved unforgiveness then ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind anyone you might have unforgiveness towards. Another thing I have learned about forgiveness is that unfortunately it is not a one and done. You may have forgiven someone, you may have turned it over to the Lord and then one day you may feel that unforgiveness, that anger, sadness, or whatever it is again. This is normal. I am letting you know this so you don’t get discouraged with yourself. Sometimes it can be frustrating and we can think, “Really, I thought I dealt with this already?” It’s ok, just turn it back over to God and forgive the person again if you need to. It will get easier each time you do it. When you are first trying to forgive someone you may need to say it 100 time, 1000 times, who knows, it depends how deep the wound is. However many times you have to say it, just know that God is proud of you each time you are able to say it. He is smiling down on you and then going to work on your heart, on the wounds caused by that person, by that situation. God is releasing you a little more each time. He loves you and wants you to be free. Back to the verse above, Yes Jesus chooses to heal you!!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening today. We thank you for wanting to heal us. We thank you for encouraging us to forgive and for being patient with us while we figure out how to forgive our own time line. We know it can’t be easy for you to watch us holding on to all of that. Lord, we thank you for doing all the heavy lifting, for doing the hard part. We know all we have to do is say that we forgive the person and then you come in and do the actual forgiving. You heal the wounds, you heal the scars, you make it possible for us to forgive. Thank you Lord. You are truly amazing. We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I wanted to take a minute to let you know that if you have clicked on the link and put your name and email address in and yet you have not received my audio training or the newsletter I sent out on Wednesday, the please email me catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com (Click Here) and I will try to figure out why the email did not go through. Thank you for subscribing. If you have not given me your email address so I can send my audio training (Click Here). I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a very blessed day!