Love Has Therapeutic EffectsDefinition of therapeutic:
Having or exhibiting healing powers (
The American Heritage® Dictionary)
Tending to cure or restore to health (
Word Net)
Love is the greatest force in the universe.
It is also said to have healing effects.
I am sure you have experienced or even heard of a situation where a child or an adult was abused and could testify that they were healed by love.
Here are some headlines from the news for instance:
Broken By Abuse, Healed By Love
Veterans who loved country healed by love of others
Personal experience shows: love heals war wounds
From Heart to Heart: Divine love has the power to heal
All over the world people are being healed by love, as disciples are you healing with love?
1 Corinthians 13:8-13 (Msg.)
8Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. 10But when the complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
These virtues outlast all the gifts.
1. God’s love has healing power
1 Kings 8:23
God’s covenants are always fulfilled
God agreed to love us
We can agree to love but we always fail at some point
Human being fail each other over and over, but the greater failure is failing to try in the first place.
God does not make this mistake
Psalm 66:20 (Msg.)
20Blessed be God: he didn't turn a deaf ear, stayed with me, loyal in his love.
God loves his children, not because of who they are, but because of who he is.
God is love.
I feel so spoilt as a disciple because I know that God is always there to love me no matter what, but there are so many lonely people who are not aware of the love God has to give.
Hosea 11:1-4
The scripture describes a picture of how God cared for Israel.
He called Israel from Egypt to Canaan and provided protection
And the more He called them the more they hardened their hearts and refused to obey God.
The scripture uses symbolism to show how God held them by the hand and guided them to walking as parent would their child.
But Israel did not realize and acknowledge that God healed them instead they gave the credit their Baals and images, their idols.
How often do we do the same thing.
Great things happen in our lives because of the love of God and we don’t give Him his due gratitude and at times take him for granted.
We see family members healed, we experience God’s healing power and we take it for granted as if we were responsible for the miracle.
And all this happened after we begged for his help in the first place (Hosea 5:13).
Sin is a disease.
Jesus said “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”.
We have a chronic illness and its called sin.
Chronic because though our sin was forgiven our sinful nature is still here.
Ephesians 2:3-5
Because of his love God has bestowed his healing power on us and saved us.
I have the pleasure of treating people suffering from chronic pain every week.
When you look at some of the pain patients suffering from chronic pain the pain is obvious in their faces, it is obvious by how restless and unhappy they are.
Some patients have said they rather die than cope with the pain they are feeling any longer.
It has caused them to lose jobs, ruined their social life, burdened their families and friends, they just feel helpless.
They feel as if they have no more fight in them.
I believe that when sin has gotten into our hearts we have these same signs. When I am plagued by sin it’s as if I get week.
But have faith there is hope in God, there is hope in His love, there is hope in His healing power.
When he heals there are no scars.
2. Our love rehabilitates
Mark 2:1-5
Here we have Jesus has come back to Capernaum which marked the completion of the first tour of Galilee.
We can assume that this is Peter’s house by the previous chapter.
Hopefully he had some skill in construction because he would soon have some repairs to do on his roof.
On ancient flat roof homes there was usually a stairway on the outside leading to the roof, which would have enabled the paralytic’s friends to carry him up the without any difficulty.
The roof was probably made up of some kind of grass, plaster, and tiles.
Not an easy task to dig through.
I wanted to paint this picture to show that we need to be relentless in helping each other go to heaven.
These men were relentless in helping the paralytic get to Jesus.
Each obstacle that comes before our friends, need not be overcome alone but together as a unit.
Love is more than some sentimental feeling-it’s putting another’s welfare above your own.
God measures how much we love him by how much we love others.
Mark 2:6-12
Because his friends took action he was rehabilitated and healed.
He took up his mat and walked.
The most difficult part about love is forgetting about yourself, surrendering your life to God and living for others.
Because as it says in Hebrews 6:10-11:
10God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.
You are loving God as you love his people.
Exodus 32:30-32
Moses was ready to give himself for the people he loved, he was ready to give himself to deliver an entire nation if God did not forgive their sin.
I don’t think Moses even understood what he was doing.
We see this kind of sacrifice come true in Jesus when he gave himself as an atonement for us.
But look at the heart of Moses. Is your heart where Moses’ is?
Is your heart full of compassion, does your heart have the capacity to put love into action?
There is a saying that love is blind, well show it around, show it the way.
As disciples in God’s church we need to change lives:
· our faith should make people look from the darkness of the earth to the brightness of heaven
· our faith should make the doubter a believer
· our faith must be assuring, insuring and enduring
· our hope should be a savior from despair
· our hope should make the disheartened ambassadors of cheer
· our hope should make the anguished radiate with joy
· our love should bring joy to the broken hearted
· our love should make the poor content
· our love must make the sinner see the cost of his actions and the joy of repentance
· our love should make the down and out over-comers
· our love should make the hungry well fed
· our love should be that of Jesus Christ which reads like this:
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
AMEN
Posted by JD Lusan | 
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