Would you follow Jesus Christ because He can heal you or because he can deliver you from your sins?

Venue: Liverpool Prayer Group
Message Given: 23-Mar-2012

Would you follow Jesus Christ because He can heal you or because He can deliver you from your sins?
After Jesus had performed a series of great miracles, right from healing the sick, casting out demons from men, curing a leper, making a paralytic walk, healing a man's hand, calming the storm for his disciples and setting free a man from being possessed by a legion of demons, Jesus was looking to go on to the otherside of the mountain to pray and spend some time with his Father. But a great crowd of people followed Him because they saw the signs Jesus had performed by healing the sick (John 6:2). If you asked yourselves the question as to why the crowd were following Jesus, Apostle John is quite clear here, it was in pursuit of healing.

Two thousand years ago many followed Jesus but most of them did so for their temporal needs, and it's no different today. Christians can get too easily carried away when a healing minister is in town. Just take a look at the large crowds that follow the modern day healers and compare it with the numbers who attend an average Bible seminar or even regular Sunday services. As Christians, we tend to want action and we want it now.

Jesus can no doubt heal our sicknesses but is that the reason He came into this world? Is that the reason why he was paid as a ransom to purchase us? If He came just to heal the sick and perform miracles then we read about the people continuing to become sick and continue to be possessed by demons even during and after His three years of ministry. Jesus did not abolish sicknesses once and for all during his ministry.Jesus can heal the sick, He can do the impossible but His true calling was much more than that, He came to save sinners (Mark 2:17 & 1 Tim 1:15). No one on earth had been given the authority to forgive the sinners, only Jesus had that authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). No wonder the Pharisees questioned Jesus when Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic (Mark 2:7)

Today many Christians do not want consider that they are sinners but they just want to be healed. Some don't even want to know the source of their healing. Apostle Paul, was sick many times, he was ship wrecked, he felt lonely and depressed and yet he admitted he was a sinner and a hopeless sinner at that (1 Tim 1:15). Unless we admit that we are sinners and we need deliverance from sin, then Jesus coming into this world is pointless. Its the sick who needs a doctor, its a sinner who needs a savior. If you have been praying for many years for a cetrtain healing to take place in your life and you may be still waiting for an answer. Here is what Jesus said, 'it's better for you to enter life with one eye (Matt 18:9)' and 'it's better to enter life crippled, rather than have two hands and legs and be thrown into eternal fire (Matt 18:8).Temporal needs are temproray needs, they only last as long as you life on this earth but those who put their trust in Jesus as their Savior will live with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit for eternity. When we compare our time here on earth with that we spend with God in Heaven and only then we can have the right perspective in our walk with Jesus. Are we following Him for our temporal needs or our eternal needs?

Prayer:
Holy God, I have been a busy body doing so many activities in the hope of pleasing you but at the risk of loosing my Soul. I failed to realise that I am a sinner and a hopeless sinner. There is hope only in you. You are the only one who can set right my sin nature. I want to be delivered from my sins more than I want to my temporal needs answered. Hear me O Lord! Amen!

Thank you & God Bless you!
Chris