If you have ever seen many of the Hollywood depictions of Jesus in years gone by, you might notice a common thread that runs through most of them.  In most of these movies that span decades, Jesus always seems to be somewhat sad or somber and is barely affected by what is going on around him.  Philip Yancey called this the Prozac Jesuswho had little emotional reaction to the world around him, as if he were perpetually medicated.  I suppose the film directors thought that demeanor made him look spiritual or “other worldly.”  One of my favorite depictions, however, was the Gospel of Matthew with Bruce Marchiano. First of all, Marchiano looked Jewish instead of being tall with blond hair and blue eyes.  But more than that, he was emotional.  He was alive and animated. When someone hurt, he hurt with that person.  When someone laughed, he laughed.  When someone was healed, he was just as excited as the person who suddenly saw colors and shapes for the first time.

I like that because when we see someone set free or healed, we get excited.  I love to see someone experience Jesus in that way.  What we need to remember is that it is important for individuals to experience Jesus rather than simply experiencing healing or the one through whom Jesus healed the person.

When it comes to healing, I believe that the more we point people to Jesus, the more healings we will see.  Paul declared, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom.1:16). There is power in the gospel and the gospel directs our faith to the one who heals.

Healing is obviously a great evangelistic tool. We always hear reports about great revivals in third world countries where hundreds or thousands are healed and come to Jesus, but healing should be even more available to God’s people than to the lost in those nations.  Faith is the currency of heaven and faith resides in believers.  Spiritual gifts were given to build up the body of Christ including the gifts of healing. The psalmist declares that God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases (Psm.103:3).  Speaking of Jesus, Isaiah wrote, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Isa.53:4-5).  Isaiah is clear that Jesus died and bore not only our sins, but our infirmities and diseases as well. James also promises healing to God’s people.  “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (Ja.5:14-16).

I think that sometimes we believe God is more willing to heal the lost, so that they might come to Jesus, than he is willing to heal the saved.  But the principle is that God’s gifts are reserved for his people first and, then, for those outside the family. We are told, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Gal.6:10).  Remember when the Gentile woman came to Jesus asking for him to cast a demon from her daughter? His reply was that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel and that is wasn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs (Matt.15).  Of course, she replied that even the dogs get the crumbs and, because of her faith, Jesus healed the daughter.  The point is, however, that God reserves his gifts first for his children like any good father.

As the gospel is shared and people are pointed to Jesus, faith has the opportunity to rise in that person and as they accept Jesus, the gift of healing becomes more available to them that before because it is part of our New Covenant with God.  A fair question then is, “Why does it seem that more unbelievers are healed in great crusades than believers in churches?”  I believe it is because, by and large, we have not taught the full gospel to the church.  The gospel should promise not only the forgiveness of sins, but the healing of infirmities and sickness as well since Jesus bore all of that on the cross for his people.  Strictly speaking, we should believe in healing every bit as much as forgiveness. Both are promised as a result of the sacrifice of Messiah. A biblical study of “salvation” indicates that salvation does not just provide blessings after the funeral but on this side of the grave as well and includes not only forgiveness but provision, protection, freedom, and healing.

The power of the gospel is that it produces faith for all the things the blood of Christ purchases for us.  Pointing people to Jesus – his love, his sacrifice, and his intercession – is a great prelude to healing.  So…as we get excited about healing or any of the other gifts, we should not forget the giver of the gifts but clearly point people to him before they ever unwrap what he is giving them.

We are continuing to work through the “beatitudes” of Christ as presented in Matthew 5.  We’re doing so because Jesus taught these things over and over as essential qualities in the life of a believer.  These qualities are really fruits of the Spirit that increase our intimacy with God which, in turn, increases our authority and anointing for ministry.  The declarations of Jesus that I want to consider this week is…

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

 We need to notice that blessedness comes from developing qualities that belong first to the Father and making them our own. Mercyis one of those qualities that is almost wholly assigned to the Father in the Old Testament.  “For the Lord your God is a merciful God” (Dt. 4:31). Mercy carries with it the idea of having empathy for the plight of a person and not requiring perfection in order to continue a relationship.  Related to mercy is the realization that men are but flesh and blood and will all stumble at times – even the best. Because we are imperfect we cannot require perfection of others.  That constitutes judgment rather than mercy. Righteous judgment sees to it that s person gets what he or she deserves.  It is the opposite of grace through which we receive underserved favor. I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to get what I deserve but rather grace and mercy that overlooks my great imperfections and failings. Jesus is saying that God will extend mercy to us in the same proportion we extended it to others.

A definitive illustration of mercy is found in Matthew 18. You know the story.  Jesus tells of a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. These were servants to whom he had entrusted money for investment or to whom he had loaned money. One of his servants owed the king ten thousand talents and, when the time came, was unable to repay the king. The king ordered that the servant, his wife, and his children to all be sold as bond servants to pay off part of the debt. The text says, “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the enormous debt, and let him go.”

The king recognized the servant’s inability to keep his financial commitment and that he would never be able to pay back the debt with his own earnings. The servant had taken the money, promised to pay it back, and then had made foolish or even unethical decisions that caused him to loose much. If not all,  of the money. The king had every right to jail him or sell him into slavery but decided to forgive the servant for his immense shortcomings. The twist comes when the forgiven servant goes out immediately and demands that another servant, who owes him a small amount, pay him immediately.  When the servant couldn’t pay, the forgiven servant had him jailed.  When the king discovered what had happened, he called the forgiven servant, and rebuked him saying, “You wicked servant…I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”  He then revoked the mercy he had originally shown and turned the man over to the “tormentors” until he could repay the debt. Jesus went on to say that that is how God will treat us if we do not forgive others from our hearts – not just the words but sincerely.  The story illustrates the connection between forgiveness and mercy.

The parable reveals that forgiveness flows out of the mercy we extend to the imperfections of others.  We are to extend mercy to others because God has had great mercy on us.  The psalmist said, “The Lordis compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities…As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lordhas compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (Psm.103:8-14).

We tend to reserve our mercy, our forgiveness, our charity, or our empathy for those that we believe ”deserve it.”  James tells us that mercy triumphs over judgment (Ja.2:14).  The truth is that when we withhold mercy, we  have judged another person as unworthy of our care and concern.   Jesus warns us when he says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Mt.7:1-2). Mercy triumphs over judgment because when we show mercy, God withholds judgment from us.  There are two aspects of God that must always be satisfied – holiness and love.  Judgment relates to his holiness that demands payment for wrongs.  Mercy relates to love and is considered a higher virtue than even righteous judgment because the greatest of qualities is love.  The cross has satisfied judgment so that I;n love he can extend mercy.  He fully expects us to do the same.

There is a true blessedness when we give up the role of judge and release all of that to the Father for his perfect judgment. When we judge others we always fall into the trap of comparisons.  We judge that we are more righteous, more deserving, smarter, etc. so that we somehow have the right to condemn or point out faults that we presumably don’t share. As we do, we will always be measuring ourselves against others and either feel “less than” or we will have to justify our shortcomings in order to judge another. Both of those options leave us in a bad place with God. Blessedness comes from our freedom from comparison, judging, and justifying.  We simply extend mercy because God extends it to us and there is a blessedness and peace in knowing that we live under the grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father who does not treat us as our sins deserve. Jesus has covered our weaknesses and failings. Like the forgiven servant in Matthew 18, we should be quick to extend that mercy to all who cross our paths.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s…The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:1-5, 8-14

This section of the Psalms should be a great encouragement to every believer because it reveals the heart of God towards his people. Too many of us doubt the answers to our prayers and godly desires because we feel as if we don’t measure up or because some failing from our past haunts us. On top of that, many of us still see God as a distant father whom we must somehow beg or persuade to answer a prayer.   Too many of us imagine that God hasn’t immediately answered a prayer because our ‘spiritual performance” has not been up to par and, therefore, quickly give up on the prayer. Too often we focus on our performance rather than the heart of God and the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus.   When we do that, our faith easily gives way to discouragement.

Notice that David says nothing about his spiritual prowess or personal righteousness in this section. Even when David failed catastrophically in his sin with Bathsheba, he trusted in the heart of God for forgiveness and restoration. Real faith rests on our confidence in the character and faithfulness of God, not on our own righteousness. It stands on our belief that God is always good and always wants good things for his children. If David was confident of that goodness, how much more confident should we be as we live under a better covenant, drenched in the blood of Christ, as well as hosting the Holy Spirit within us.

According to this Psalm, here are some things in which we can have complete confidence. God is always ready and willing to forgive and heal. It is his nature. When we trust in his love rather than our own righteousness, we can easily own our weaknesses and sins and confess them – which brings immediate forgiveness and blessings. We can also trust in the heart of God to pull us out of the pits we so often dig for ourselves and to be eager to restore us to full standing in his house. The prodigal comes to mind.

David also declares that it is the heart of God to fulfill the desires of his children with good things. When God isn’t answering our desire for a certain relationship or for a big lottery win, we can be assured that that those would not produce good things in our lives in the long run. Trusting God to sort through our desires and grant us only those that will ultimately bless us may be the ultimate test of our faith. Contentment is the fruit of that trust as we ask for our desires but then take no offense at God when he does not say yes to every desire of our heart.

Finally, David sums up the most amazing thing about God when he declares that God does not treat us as our sins deserve. He recognizes our inherit weaknesses. James wrote that mercy triumphs over judgment (Ja.2:13) and that was David’s hope. Remember, David wrote these words hundreds of years before the cross but still received a revelation that God’s immense love for us prompts him to remove our transgressions from us. David’s claim to this grace of God reveals that the blood of Christ must have flowed backward as well as forward from the cross for those who had faith even under a covenant of law. Although David had only a prophetic glimpse of God’s answer for sin, he was convinced that the love of God and the goodness of God would find a solution to the problem of our alienation. Even after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, David found hope in the heart of God. Psalm 51 is his lament after that sin and he begins with, “Have mercy on me O God, according to your unfailing love.” His hope was never in his ability to do enough good to cover his sin or in convincing God that someone else actually had caused him to sin. He made no attempt to rationalize or minimize his sin or to declare that he just wasn’t himself that day. His trust was in the unfailing love of God for his people and a belief that somehow God would be willing to forgive his worst sins and take away his transgressions.

We need to live by that same confident expectation. Too many of us doubt that God’s blessings are for us because of past mistakes or present stumbles. Too many of us doubt that God will work through us because we are still trying to unravel the issues in our lives. James tells us that we “have not because we ask not.” We ask not because we do not live with an assurance of God’s unfailing love, his relentless desire to bless his children, and his eternal willingness to remove our sins as far as the east is from the west through the perfect sacrifice of his Son.

Satan fuels those doubts in each of us because doubt prevents is from moving in the power and provision of heaven. As long as we feel that we don’t qualify for the best of heaven, we will have no faith for those things. We must remember that God has qualified us through his Son. We will never qualify ourselves except through a simple faith in God’s unwavering love for us, his constant goodness, and his desire to bless us in every way through Jesus. That was the foundation of David’s life and must be the foundation of ours as well. If you struggle with that assurance, spending time soaking in Psalm 103 on a regular basis would be well spent as you focus on the unwavering heart of the Father for you.

From time to time, having faith for healing is still a challenge to me. Sometimes my prayers for healing have the flavor of   “I hope this works” rather than “I fully expect God to heal this person.” My issue is continuing to believe for healing when I have not seen my prayers for healing answered on a regular basis. Much of the contemporary church has interpreted scripture through their own experiences rather than maintaining a commitment to bring our experiences up to the biblical standard. So…if a certain fellowship has not personally witnessed miraculous healing for a few decades, it is easier to declare that God no longer heals in such ways rather than asking what is wrong with us that we are not witnessing what we clearly see in scripture.

For those who believe in God’s healing today, there are also two general camps. One camp says that God is still willing to heal through supernatural means occasionally. For that segment, sporadic healings are simply windows into heaven that let us know what life will eventually be like after Jesus returns. For them, illness can and does come from God as a means to build faith, purify a person spiritually, or to bring glory to himself through the person who, though suffering terribly, still praises God. If healing doesn’t occur it is either because there was not sufficient faith or that it is God’s continuing will for the person to be ill or disabled and that his ways are simply beyond understanding.

The second group of those who believe in God’s healing today will state that sickness never comes from God and that it is always God’s will to heal. If he doesn’t heal, it is simply because there is something in the spiritual realm that we don’t yet perceive or understand that is blocking the healing. The problem is on our end rather than His. This group points to Jesus who healed all who came to him as the standard form the church. Not only did he heal but he never visited sickness or disability on anyone to make that person more holy. Jesus said that if we have seen him then we have seen the Father. Therefore, what we see in Jesus is what we can expect from the Father as well.

For this group, the fact that Jesus taught us to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven clearly implies that illness is never God’s primary will for man because there is no illness in heaven. This group will also point out that those who believe it is always God’s will to heal experience many more healings than the group that is never sure about whether or not God wants to heal the person they are praying. I know that observation is accurate.

The question, however, is not what we believe but what the Bible teaches. One of the things that helps my faith in God’s healing for today is to see what God’s will has always been in this area. Let me point out a few texts on this that are helpful to me. The more convinced I am that the Bible promises healing, the more faith I can bring to a prayer for healing.

First of all, I doubt if any of us believe that Adam and Eve had to deal with sickness and disability in the Garden of Eden. Part of God’s primary will for his children then was health. Sin and the curse it brought on the earth changed the environment but did not change God’s will for his children. I believe we can say that God always wants to bless his children. Our sin and rebellion may get in the way of that blessing but it is still what he wants to do. That was true even under the Old Testament and the Law of Moses. Notice the following verses:

If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you. Ex. 15:26

Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. Exodus 23:23-26.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases. Ps. 103:2-3

He brought them forth also with silver and gold: And there was not one feeble person

among their tribes. Psm. 105:37

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. Isa. 53:4-5. KJV

These verses and many more make it clear that healing and health are blessings that come from the Lord. God often calls for Israel to repent so that he can heal their wounds and bless them. Illness came into the world as a result of sin. It is always an expression of a world cursed by the actions of men. It is an expression of a curse not an expression of the blessing of God. It comes as a consequence of unrepented sin and rebellion but as soon as repentance comes, God wants to heal. Illness, under the Old Covenant, was a curse that came on the heels of persistent disobedience. A state of blessing always brought with it healing, health, and prosperity. This reality is consistent with the nature of God who reveals himself and “the God who heals you.”

Since God is the life-giver and illness wars against life, then it is the very nature of God to heal and to oppose illness. That will always be his first choice. From the scriptures above you can see his desire to heal if his people will let him. More than that, healing and health was a covenant promise under the Old Covenant. How much more should it be so under the New Covenant which is a better covenant?

The Isaiah 53 passage above highlights God’s intent for his people under the New Covenant. This is a Messianic Prophecy. Notice what the Messiah will do for those who have faith in him. This is the prophecy that declares what the suffering Messiah would bear on our behalf so that we would not have to. Of course we are aware that he died and took on our sins – our transgressions and iniquities. That is a familiar part of the gospel. But he also took on our infirmities and diseases. The same gospel that declares that Jesus took our sins away also affirms that he bore the curse of illness so that we would not have too. It is summarized in Psalm 103 where we are told he forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases.

So why do faithful Christians experience illness? To some degree we experience illness for the same reasons that we experience sin. We live in a fallen world with a fallen nature which also means our physical bodies come with defects. Sometimes we just get sick. In the New Testament we are not promised that we will never get sick but that if we do, healing is part of our covenant. “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (Ja.5:14-15).

Notice that James does not say that Christians only get sick when they sin but rather if one has sinned and opened himself up to illness, that person will be forgiven so that healing can occur. Persistent, unrepented sin can still open the door to illness coming in as a natural consequence of sin even for believers. It can also block healing if there is no repentance. Remember Psalm 103. He forgives our sins and heals our diseases. There is an order to the process. Sin opens the door to illness. Repentance opens the door to forgiveness. Forgiveness opens the door to healing. Sometimes the sin lies not in what we are doing but in what we are failing to do…like failing to forgive.

Sometimes we get sick because we ignore God’s directives for healthy living. We eat junk, fail to exercise, abuse our bodies with sugar and alcohol, etc. We can’t ignore God’s wisdom without consequence. God has given us bodies over which we are to exercise good stewardship. Poor stewardship invites disease.

Sometimes, illness comes as a result of demonic attack. Spirits of infirmity show up often in the gospels and deliverance was needed before healing could occur. If you are part of a fellowship that doesn’t believe in the demonic or in deliverance, you may go for years with symptoms that are never quite healed or diagnosed because the source is spiritual not physical.

Healing does not come for many because they have been taught that God no longer heals in supernatural ways. They receive the best the medical field has to offer and if that is not enough they simply resign themselves to death. James said that we have not because we ask not. I have been amazed at the number of believers I have known who have not asked because they were taught that there was no point in doing so. I have been more amazed at the number of elders I have seen come to pray for a quick and peaceful passing rather than the healing they are commanded to pray for. Unbelief never gets it done.

Regardless of the source of illness, God has provided for our healing because it is his desire for all of his children to walk in strength and health. Through Christ he has given us forgiveness, promises of healing, healing gifts in the church, deliverance and wisdom. All those things work toward our health and healing because Jesus has purchased our healing with his blood as well as our forgiveness.

Does that explain every incidence of illness and premature death for Christians? No. I must admit that there are still situations that puzzle me because it seems we did everything needed to open the door to God’s healing and still did not see it come. I then fall in with those who believe God heals and desires to heal but that there are some things in the spirit realm that still get in the way. Those things have not yet been revealed to us. It is certainly better to look at Jesus and his standard of healing (all those who came to him) and ask for a greater revelation of keys to healing than to assign unhealed illnesses to God’s will and resigning ourselves to whatever medicine can do.

Whatever is promised in scripture is God’s heart and will for his people. Healing is definitely promised. So as I sometimes struggle to have faith for healing, I go back to Word and see it all over again. When I know it is God’s desire for his people, part of my covenant with him, and my inheritance in Jesus … I can begin to pray with faith again.

Easter is only days away. In a very real sense, Easter is the most significant day of all days for without the resurrection the entire life of Jesus would have been only a gesture of holy living and a presentation of philosophy of life. But, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: (Rom.1:4). In other words, it was the resurrection of Christ that established without doubt that he is the Son of God and that he will make good on every promise. Easter does not celebrate the cross but an empty tomb.

The account of the last hours of the life of Jesus is so significant that John gives Chapters 13-20 to those hours. While the other gospels race past the Lord’s Supper and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in two or three chapters, John slows the camera to a slow motion version of the story which essentially begins in an upper room where the twelve plus Jesus are gathered for Passover. Jesus expressed that he had longed to share that Passover meal with them. I find that hard to grasp because the conclusion of that meal would launch a brutal evening of betrayal, arrest, abandonment, abuse, perjury, beatings, and insults ending with being spiked to a rough hewn timber full of splinters and hoisted into the air to suffer for the next six hours and then to die.

Yet in the middle of the Passover seder, according to the other gospels, Jesus takes some of the unleavened bread that was commanded for the meal, breaks it, and hands it to the twelve saying that it represented his body which he was about to be given for them. He then took a cup of wine for them to sip and told them that the wine would represent the new covenant in his blood. He indicated that his followers were to take these elements on a regular basis until his return because by dong so they would remember him.

If I put myself in the shoes or rather sandals of the apostles, I think both of those statements would have been very confusing. I’m not sure that they yet grasped that this man who had walked on water and commanded storms would be killed in a few hours. Why eat broken bread to represent this physical body and what is this talk about a new covenant when so may of the prophets had already died defending the covenant God had given to Moses for Israel? After all, wasn’t that what Passover pointed to in the first place – the Exodus, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the Law?

I am convinced that most of us as followers of Jesus still do not fully understand the depths of communion which the Lord established at a simple Passover meal 2000 years ago. I’m certain I don’t and yet it was at the heart of the Christian church and their life together for centuries. The early church came together for fellowship and communion rather than preaching and elaborate praise services. They came together on the first day of the week to share a common meal (the agape meal) in which those who had plenty brought plenty to share with those who had little. That was a practical expression of “Love one another as I have loved you.” Then they would take bread and wine to remember the Lord’s sacrifice until his return.

For them, the cup of the New Covenant must have been a breath of fresh air – especially for the Jewish believers who were suddenly out from under the weight of the Law of Moses with its sacrifices and hundreds of laws defining every move of their lives. Covenants were often established by the shedding of innocent blood (animals) in those days and that was a familiar reference point for those believers. The bread that was broken to represent the body of Christ is more of a puzzle. Of course, it represents the physical suffering he went through for each of us but is there more?

Peter may give us some insight into the “more” of his broken body when he says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25, emphasis added). The Greek word that is translated “wounds” in this text speaks of the welts, the swelling, and the injuries that would come from a slave being beaten or whipped. That certainly describes the scourging that Jesus endured at the hands of the Romans.

Peter’s words were surely lifted from Isaiah’s writings when the prophet spoke of Messiah saying, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa.53:4).

Isaiah discussed two things that Messiah carried for us at his death – sin and sickness. Many modern translations make “diseases” into “sorrows” but the word consistently means disease or sickness or infirmity throughout the Bible. When one and a half million Israelites came out of Egypt the Bible tells us that no one of them was sick or lame because God’s grace had provided health and healing for the journey. One of the major marks of Christ’s ministry was healing. Through his Spirit he gives gifts of healing to the church and a special command to call for the elders of the church, if anyone is sick, for their prayer of faith and that prayer is promised to bring healing (James 5).

In modern times we have tended to confine the blessings of Christ’s death to the forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing. But God is interested not just in our spiritual life but also in our physical well-being. The wounds or the bruises of Jesus not only purchased our forgiveness but our healing. Because of contemporary theology, we tend to have faith for the forgiveness but not for the healing. David tied those two blessings together when he said, “Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all my benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psm. 103:2). In Matthew 9, we are told of a paralytic that Jesus healed. He began by telling him that his sins were forgiven. When the teachers of the law questioned his right to forgive sins, Jesus said, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk.’ He then healed the man. The link between forgiveness and healing is seen all through scripture so it should not surprise is that they are linked in the New Covenant as well.

As we take communion, we should reflect not only on the love of Christ demonstrated by the cross and the covenantal forgiveness we have in Jesus, but also the healing that has been purchased for us by his suffering as well. Each time you take the bread, you may want to receive healing in the name of Jesus as part of your inheritance for his world as well as celebrating your forgiveness. Blessings in this life as well as the life to come.

Most of us are acquainted with the “Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” from Matthew 18. It is set in the context of principles about the kingdom of heaven. At the beginning of the chapter, his disciples asked Jesus who is greatest in the kingdom. Jesus answered that those who walk in a childlike humility are great in the kingdom. He then talked about those who would go after a lamb that had wandered from the flock and the excitement of heaven when that lost sheep is restored. Next he taught about forgiving a brother who sins against you. Peter, in his impulsive way, immediately asked how many times we are expected to forgive the knuckleheads in our lives (Peter always said what the rest of us were thinking but would never say out loud). Jesus responded with the lengthy parable I mentioned above.

In the parable, a king had loaned differing amounts to his servants and decided that it was time to call in the loans. He called in a certain servant who had borrowed huge amounts of money and apparently had lost it all. When he could not repay the loan, the king ordered him and his family to be cast into a debtor’s prison until friends and extended family might bail them out. The servant fell to his knees and begged, “ Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything!” The problem was that the king knew he would never be able to repay the enormous debt he owed. However, unexpectedly the king took pity on him, forgave the entire debt, and let him go.

The twist in the story comes when the servant who has just received an incredible gift of mercy, goes out immediately to collect a small debt from another servant. When the other servant could not pay, the “unmerciful servant” had him put in jail until his family could repay the small loan. When the king heard about what had happened, he revoked his forgiveness of the huge debt owed by the first servant and did have him cast into debtor’s prison.

The question of the day is why the man who had just received so much mercy was not willing to dispense a little on his own. Some simply believe he was selfish and hard- hearted with a bit of an entitlement attitude to boot. But I think the key is found in his plea for the king to give him more time to pay the debt. He did not believe that his debt was fully and freely forgiven. He left the presence of the king with the thought that he had only been given more time to come up with the money… like a loan shark giving his mark a few more weeks to pay while the interest accumulates.

Let me pose another question that I believe is related to this parable. Why do so many Christians find it so hard to forgive themselves for past mistakes when the Master has declared our debt fully and freely forgiven? Through the years, I have met with countless believers who do not walk in joy or confidence because they have not forgiven themselves for past mistakes. Their inability to forgive themselves creates an atmosphere of self-condemnation that makes it almost impossible to pray with faith because they constantly feel unworthy of receiving anything from the Lord.

At the core of that inability to forgive one’s self, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the fullness of the forgiveness that has come to them. If you ask these strugglers if they know that God has forgiven them, they will certainly say yes. But, it’s as if that person adds their own bit of fine print to the covenant that says, “I will forgive you once I am convinced that you loath yourself for these past sins and are filled with enough shame and regret long enough for what you have done.” There seems to still be a “works” mentality that says I must somehow eventually pay the debt by punishing myself, even if God will not. Like the unmerciful servant, some may believe that God has just given them more time to work off their sin.

At the core of this is a subtle unbelief in the unconditional love of God and the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s blood to eradicate the record of any sin in our past, present, or future. To say that God has forgiven me but that I can’t, seems to say that my standards for righteousness are higher than God’s. However, I know it’s more than that. I believe it is the same shame that Adam and Eve felt seconds after their sin in the Garden. We seem to be more able to get over our guilt – the idea that we have done something wrong, than to jettison our shame – the idea that there is something wrong with us.

The solution is in faith, but not so much the faith that I am forgiven as much as the faith that, in Christ, I am a new creation – the old is gone and new has come. The faith that I am born again and am not the same person I used to be is essential to forgiving ourselves. We keep thinking it is about something we have done but, in truth, it is about who we believe we are – defective and unacceptable. Only by taking on our new identity in Christ can we reckon the old man dead and walk in the joy of knowing that we have been made new. Only when we believe by faith that our spiritual and physical DNA has actually been changed can we have faith for the transforming power of God.

God is not asking for more. It has all been done by Jesus. He is not asking us to continue to punish ourselves for who we are or what we have done. Christ has taken on all of our punishment. What God wants is for us to believe him when he says that the past has been dealt with at every level and for us to begin to joyfully walk in the new life we have been given as a new creation in Christ. If you have been finding it hard to forgive yourself, spend a lot of time thinking about who you are in Christ now, not who you used to be then. In Christ, you are worth it and you are amazing.

Fifteen years ago, I asked a faithful Christian woman, we will call Mary Ellen, when she was going to forgive her former husband. It was a hard question. She had been physically and emotionally abused even beyond what most abused women have had to endure. She had fled from that husband five years earlier, moved far away from him, and had started over with a new marriage. The problem was that her new marriage wasn’t going well either. She had come in seeking answers and, after three sessions, I felt compelled to ask the question. In fifteen years I haven’t forgotten her response. With her hands clenched into fists, the veins on her neck popping out, and her jaws tightened, she snarled, “Forgive him? Forgive him? I hope he burns in hell for what de did to me!” In her heart there was no impulse to forgive and in her mind she felt totally justified in hoping for his eternal damnation.

Although this was a woman who had grown up in church faithfully serving in various ministries, she was in bondage to bitterness, rage, and unforgiveness. She was the poster child for the old saying that “unforgiveness is like drinking poison, believing that it will make the other person sick.” She was aware of the multiple verses in which Jesus was very clear that if we don’t forgive those who have sinned against us, then our heavenly Father will not forgive our sins against him (Mt.6:14-15, Mt. 18, etc.). She simply felt that her case was exceptional so that those verses did not apply to her. The truth was that the toxic bitterness and rage she still felt against her first husband was spilling over into this new marriage and poisoning it.

Of all the sins that Christian men and women are in bondage to, I believe that unforgiveness is the most common and, in the long run, the most destructive. It is also the most common because we have all been wounded and betrayed and have all felt fully justified in our anger or bitterness toward the perpetrator.

In fact, we have likely been truly justified in our feelings. We just haven’t been justified in holding on to those feelings and keeping them alive. Because we are justified in our feelings in the beginning, we feel justified in keeping those feelings alive forever. But the decision not to forgive is where sin begins and when the door swings open for the enemy to enter. It is even where we begin to take offense at God when we discover that he is not hammering the person who wounded us.

Concerning unforgiveness, the apostle Paul counsels us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph.4:26-27, ESV). This verse reveals several things. First of all, we can experience anger and not sin. Perhaps, our anger is a righteous anger such as the anger Jesus demonstrated in the temple when he was turning over the tables of the moneychangers. Perhaps, it is just the normal human experience of anger welling up within us when we feel threatened or betrayed. There is a point, however, in which our failure to manage our anger becomes sin.

Our experience of anger becomes sin when we take the next steps of retaliating against the person who wounded us or when we choose to nurture our anger to keep it alive. We forget that Paul had some experience with the kind of rage that begins to take control of a person. As Saul of Tarsus, he was not just attempting to discourage false doctrines about Jesus of Nazareth from arising within the Jewish community. Rather, he was described as one who was “breathing out threats and slaughter” against the church (see Acts 9:1). He was the one who coordinated the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, without any evidence of remorse. Saul was a man who was full of rage and obsessed with the destruction of Jewish people who simply had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Before his encounter with Jesus, Saul was not a righteous man trying to defend truth, but an angry man filled with rage against people he had never met. He was in bondage to his anger in the same way that Mary Ellen was in bondage to hers.

We are also told that we should not let the sun go down on our anger. In other words, deal with it in short order. Don’t even go to bed until you have dealt with it as Jesus would. Why? Because…any kind of prolonged unforgiveness gives the devil an opportunity to establish a beachhead in our hearts. Some of the older translations say that we must not “give the devil a foothold.” The Greek word is “topos” and means a position, a sanctuary, or some standing in our lives. When we refuse to forgive or keep putting it off, we come into agreement with Satan. All Adam and Eve did was to come into agreement with Satan. Whatever we agree with, we give authority in our lives and you never want Satan to have any authority in your life.

Many Christians are not living a spiritually abundant life nor are they making progress in their faith or their freedom because they have chosen not to extend forgiveness to someone in their life. They unknowingly have given Satan a foothold that has probably become a silent stronghold over the years. A satanic stronghold is not typically the stuff that The Exorcist was made of where the presence of demons is totally weird, extreme, and unmistakable. Typically, strongholds manifest as compelling, persistent thought patterns that, in the case of anger, keep anger alive and provide total justification for continuing in our unforgiveness.

From these strongholds, the devil tells us that our case is the exception to the commands and warnings of Jesus about a refusal to forgive. He convinces us that our case is so extreme that it is not the kind of thing Jesus was talking about when he insisted on forgiving our enemies or he convinces us that we have been hurt so deeply that it is impossible for us to forgive. Because it is impossible, Jesus will give us a pass on that command. He will go on to convince us that our anger is righteous and just because to forgive would let evil people off the hook or excuse their behavior altogether. He will also tell is that our anger and unforgiveness is the very thing that protects us from more hurt and, therefore, is both necessary and justified.

The problem is that Jesus gave no exceptions to the rule and demonstrated the “no exception” clause on the cross when he asked the Father to forgive those who had just betrayed, beaten, and crucified him. What we must understand is that forgiveness is primarily for us, not for those who have wounded us. Forgiveness frees our heart from bitterness, from the past, and from those who would continue to hurt us. Forgiveness keeps the devil out and keeps us from poisoning our own wells. Forgiveness opens the door to God’s blessings in our lives and aligns our hearts with the heart of Jesus. Justice will be done. God will deal with those unrepentant individuals who go through life harming others whether you have forgiven them or not. If they are not right with God, he will deal with them. The bigger question is always whether or not we are right with God.

Forgiveness frees, heals, and makes reconciliation possible when it would bless all parties. It is the ultimate chance to trust God by doing the very thing that seems most risky and trusting him to bless and protect us in our obedience. It is the ultimate measure of how aligned our hearts are with his. The first step to forgiveness is acknowledging that there are no “exception clauses” for us, no justification to ignore his command, and that God only asks us to do those things that bless us. After that, we can receive God’s help in fulfilling his commands.

For most of the Jews, coning into the presence of Gold was a fearful thing that held the expectation of death. Undoubtedly, that expectation was established at Sinai when Jehovah descended on the mountain with smoke, fire, and thunder and declared that no one should touch the mountain lest they die. There were other echoes of that moment such as the moment that Nadab and Abihu offered strange and drunken fire in the tabernacle and fire from the Lord came out and consumed them. There was also the moment when Uzzah tried to steady the Ark of the Covenant when David was attempting to move it to Jerusalem and he was killed for his “irreverent act.” Even a man of God such as Isaiah cried out “Woe is me!” when he received a vision of God on his throne in Isaiah 6.

Many believers today still tend to keep their distance from God because of past sins or shameful moments in their lives that they feel disqualify them from coming joyfully into his presence. They still fear a lightening bolt from heaven or the consuming fire of God’s disapproval so they stay away, pray little, and sit in the back pew as anonymous worshippers who want to keep a low profile in the sanctuary as if God might not see them.

The Jews were fearful because they related to God on the basis of law-keeping and the curse of the law was severe judgment for misdeeds. Many Christians still think that God accepts them or rejects them on the basis of their ability to live a righteous life. And since we all fail daily to measure up to God’s righteousness, those of us who have not fully discovered God’s grace still live with fear and a sense that we cannot and should not come close. What we must grasp is how radically Jesus has changed the spiritual atmosphere for every believer.

The writer of Hebrews spoke of this change when he said, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast, to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded…the sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I am trembling with fear.’ But you have come to Mt. Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God: You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb.12:18-24).

The theme here is open access to heaven for every believer. He is not speaking of access after the funeral but now. The phrase is, “you have come.” In Christ, the presence of God is not a fearful experience but a glorious experience. The atmosphere is one of joy not terror. It is not a mountain that repels but a city that invites. It is not a place where you are a stranger but a city in which your name is written. An interesting detail is that the word “firstborn” in the phrase “church of the firstborn” is plural. It could be translated as “church of the firstborn ones”. That plural suggests that every believer has the status of a firstborn son with God, which in the Jewish culture would mean that you are absolutely the apple of your Father’s eye.

This has all been accomplished by the blood of Christ rather than by your own righteousness. The blood of Abel cried out for justice and vengeance but the blood of Christ cries out for grace. Under the Old Covenant, most men ran away from the presence of God. In Christ, we are invited to run to his presence. The writer of Hebrews made this clear when he said, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb.4:16). The presence that was once terrifying is now comforting, loving, peaceful, joyful, kind, and empowering.

Jesus has made all the difference because his sacrifice satisfied all the demands of holiness and justice and opened the the doors of heaven so that love and mercy could be poured out on earth. Knowing how much we are welcomed into the Father’s presence and how he sees each one of us in Christ is the key to every blessing in the Kingdom. As we begin to grasp his love for us, we cannot help but draw closer, pray with greater faith and expectation, and ignore the accusations and slander of the enemy. As we do that, our capacity to love others and extend grace to them multiplies. Once we grasp what Jesus had done for us, we are compelled to worship in our hearts and as we do we get to join thousand upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.

I love the picture the writer of Hebrews gave us in contrast to the fearful atmosphere of Sinai. I hope you will think about it today and, in doing so, draw closer to the Lord anticipating a very warm welcome.

One of the spiritual gifts I pray for often, or at least for an increase in the gift, is the gift of healing and the associated gift of miracles. There is much I don’t understand about healing but I am learning more and know that there will always be some mystery attached to the supernatural. If we are going to operate in the supernatural, we will have to be at peace with not knowing or understanding everything. I also know this: to move ahead in spiritual things we need to stand on what we do know rather than teetering on what we don’t know.

There is an older book by F.F. Bosworth entitled Christ the Healer that I would recommend to anyone who wants to increase their faith in God’s healing for today. I like Bosworth’s approach to the subject because he doesn’t appeal to experience for faith in healing but appeals to the Word of God. His position is that healing has always been a benefit of any covenant God has established with his people and once we are convinced of that by scripture, we will have faith for healing since faith comes by hearing the word.

Let me quote a few lines from Bosworth in regard to this position. I think it is compelling and helpful.

Is it still the will of God, as in the past, to heal all who have need of healing and to fulfill their number of days? The greatest barrier to the faith of many seeking bodily healing in our day is the uncertainty in their minds as to it being the will of God to heal all. Nearly everyone knows that God does heal some, but there is much in modern theology that keeps people from knowing what the Bible clearly teaches – that healing is provided for all. It is impossible to boldly claim, by faith, a blessing that we are not sure God offers.

The power of God can be claimed only when the will of God is known….Faith begins where the will of God is known. If it is God’s will to heal only some of those who need healing, then none have any basis for faith unless they have some special revelation that they are among the favored ones. Faith must rest on the will of God alone, not on our desires or wishes. Appropriating faith is not believing that God can, but that God will. Because of not knowing it to be a redemptive privilege for all, most of those in our day, when seeking healing, add to their petition the phrase, “If it be thy will.” (p.49-40).

Once we accept the position that we cannot have faith for what God does not promise all of his people, we are then compelled to dig through the Word to see if those promises are truly there for all of God’s people and, especially, for us. So, I want to begin that search in this blog and then continue it for another blog or two so that you may have a stronger foundation on which to stand if you are trying to believe God for healing.

Let me raise this question: What if healing is as much a promise of the gospel as the forgiveness of sins? When Jesus established “the Lord’s supper,” he offered two parts. One is found in the cup, which represents his blood. The blood of Christ brings forgiveness. The writer of Hebrews makes this point when he says, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb.9:22). At the first Passover, it was the blood of the lamb that was placed on the doors that released them from the judgment of God. So…the cup in communion represents his shed blood and that is what brings forgiveness of sins. So what is the bread for? What does the body of Christ, broken for us, bring to the table if the forgiveness of sins is already provided by the blood? Peter 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” (1 Pet. 2:24 ). Jesus incurred wounds in his body that was broken for us. Why? So that we may be healed as well as forgiven.

Many will argue that the healing Peter speaks of is spiritual healing, not physical healing. Then why did Jesus heal everyone who came to him instead of simply taking away their emotional pain? Undoubtedly, one of his major goals is to take away emotional pain from his people since both Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 tell us that he came to heal the broken-hearted. But, he also came to heal bodies in bondage to disease and infirmity. In Luke 13, a woman came to Jesus who had been crippled with a bad back for nearly twenty years. Jesus healed her on the Sabbath and as the Pharisees objected he said, “Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Lk.13:16). Jesus spoke of physical infirmity as bondage and set her free. In Isaiah 61 and Luke 4, we are told that Messiah Jesus would not only came to heal broken hearts but also to set captives free.

In Psalm 103, David speaks of the benefits God provides for his people. He says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” (Ps.103:2-4). Now, as Christians who live under an even better Covenant than David, we easily and quickly claim that God’s forgiveness is for all, along with his love and compassion and his involvement in our lives to pull us out of any pit. So…why do we exclude from that promise that God also heals all our diseases? Didn’t Jesus do both over and over again in his ministry as he preached the Kingdom of God and then demonstrated it?

In scripture, healing is a physical manifestation of forgiveness since sickness is part of the curse of the Law for those who are unforgiven. In Exodus 23, God tells Israel that when they serve him faithfully, “I will take sickness away from your midst and the number of your days will be fulfilled” (Ex. 23:25-26). A few chapters earlier, God had already revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals you. (Ex.15:26). If it is the name of God to heal, then it is the nature of God to heal. Jesus came as the exact representation of the Father and demonstrated his will to both forgive and heal over and over. So…why would God withdraw that covenant benefit from those who love him today and live under a better covenant – a covenant through which he gave gifts of healing to his church?

We will pick up on that thought in Part 2 in my next blog.

I prayed with a godly man last night who has struggled with a personal sin for years. He has a few weeks in which he feels that he finally has victory over the sin but then it rushes back in, along with the shame he feels for not living up to God’s standards. We talked about the dynamic of a wound producing a desire to medicate our feelings of failure, unworthiness and shame which leads to a sin that medicates for a moment which then leads to more shame which then leads to a greater desire to medicate and so on. The biblical balance is to receive conviction from the Spirit regarding our sins but not condemnation.

Bill Johnson has a good word on short-circuiting this cycle of sin in his book, Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. “Focusing on our problems more than God’s answers should be a dead giveaway that we’re really dealing with condemnation not the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Focus on God’s answers – not your problems. When the Holy Spirit shows us where we are falling short, the bigger reality is not the area where we are not yet walking in our destiny, but the destiny itself. So many of us read the verse that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom.3:23) and focus more on the fact that all have fallen short than the fact that we are destined for glory! The conviction of the Holy Spirit is actually a call to turn our focus away from our sin and our limitations. He is saying, ‘Your made for more than this. Lift your head and set your sights higher’” (p.136-137).

Focusing on our sin does the devil’s work of creating an even greater sense of shame and failure in us than existed before. That focus waters a seed that suggests that God is already disgusted with us so that we don’t turn to him for comfort but to “medications” in the world’s medicine chest – alcohol, drugs, power, pornography, sex-based relationships, etc.   The Holy Spirit wants us to acknowledge the sin, agree with God about it, and then lay it at the foot of the cross and move on with our eyes reset on the goal.

Agreeing with God about who we are in Christ and his father’s heart for us is a greater deterrent to sin than any shame or “beat yourself up” session. Keeping our eyes on our destiny is he key. Paul said, “Forgetting those things that are behind, I press forward…” That is good council. In the 11^th chapter of the book of Judges, the king of the Ammonites sent word to Jephthah that he was going to wage war against Israel if Israel did not return the land they had taken from his ancestors. In response, Jephthah recounted the history of Israel and how God had given them that land and decreed that it belonged to Israel. After recounting the history and the promises of God, he declared, “Whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess” (Jud.11:24).

That is a good word for us as well. God has promised us a destiny of victory and glory in Christ and we should possess (hold on to, defend) that future by faith, not allowing the enemy to take back what has been given to us. That is the vision that should possess us, rather than a vision of past failures. God’s mercies are new every morning. No matter what happened yesterday, in Christ today can begin with a clean slate.

Paul was enamored with sporting events. He often used the analogy of runners preparing for a race and fixing their eyes on the goal. Most of us just finished watching two weeks of Summer Olympics events. When each runner stood at the starting blocks seconds before the race, gazing down the track, I assure you that the winner was imagining a perfect race in which he crossed the finish line first. He was recounting past victories rather than brooding over past losses. Any runner who was focusing on past losses, false starts, or disappointing times did not run that race well. In the same way, we need to spend time imagining our victories in Christ, the glory that is ours and will be ours, the strength that God provides, and the victory that is promised in Jesus rather than yesterday’s failures.

Fixating on our failures is coming into agreement with the enemy who wants is to define ourselves by our shortcomings. Fixating on ultimate victory is coming into agreement with God because that is his promise. Fixating on past failures is “illegal” for believers, because in Christ those past failures don’t exist. There is no record in heaven of our sins and our testimony of failure has no evidence to back it up. Lay it aside. Get on with the race.

In Nehemiah 8, Ezra read the Law to the people of Jerusalem after the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt. As the Law was read, the people began to weep for their sins. But the text says, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh.8:10).

Weeping for our sins has its place, but it must quickly be replaced by joy. The joy of the Lord is ours when we come into agreement with him about his immense love for us, his quick and eager forgiveness, and his promises that point us to our destiny. This mindset is a great weapon in spiritual warfare.  God is always joyful toward us because he knows the end from the beginning and sees us as we will be, not as we are. Sharing the Lord’s view of me, imagining my destiny in Christ, and fixing my thoughts on him open up that joy to me and become a greater comfort and encouragement than anything the world can offer. Meditating on God’s love for me, my eternal home with him, great victories over the enemy, and feeling the presence of God will release more endorphins than any drug or pornographic display and the result will be joy rather than shame. Our goal is not to ignore sin but to simply deal with it quickly through the blood of Christ and refocus on his promises and our destiny. Try it. You’ll like it. Blessings in Him.