Healed and Serving

A couple of months ago, I started reading daily scripture with a group of friends.  My friend Kendall will send out the verses for the day, and it is honestly such a wonderful thing for my soul.  If a day goes by that I miss getting into The Word, I can feel the hunger inside of me, telling me I am missing out on my precious time with Jesus.

I say all of this to lead into what this post is about.  A couple of days ago, I came across some scripture in Mark that was a part of our daily reading.  The passage is about Jesus healing the mother-in-law of Simon, and while it consists of only a few verses, I found it to contain a particular message.

Mark 1

(29) And immediately He left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. (30) Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. (31) And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

When I first read these verses, I thought, “Okay, cool, another person my homie Jesus healed.”  Reading about the various things Jesus selflessly did for others is one of my absolute favorite things about scripture.  It encourages me to personally reach out to those in need, whatever their case may be.  However, even with that being said, something drew me back to re-read these verses. 

When I read through them for a second time, I took a different look at them.  I saw a parallel with the verses and when we first accept Jesus into our lives.  When we do so, He moves into our hearts and heals us spiritually, similar to the way He heals Simon’s mother-in-law in Mark.  He takes our “sicknesses” and removes them with His grace.  And while we still come across different “sicknesses” throughout our walk with Christ, when we know Him as our Savior, we are assured that He will heal each and every one of them.  No matter if it is our own weaknesses, broken relationships, difficult hardships…the list goes on.  But no matter what it is, God can take whatever you are faced with right now and use it to strengthen you.  He takes the mountains we face and turns them into stories for us to tell of the journeys we have embarked on.

But that isn’t even all to this.  In this case, the ending is my favorite part.  The verse says “she began to serve them.”  Now, when I first read it, I read it as she got up and began to serve Jesus and the disciples.  (I am guessing maybe food, or something to drink.  Maybe she made them cookies or something.)  And while that is very much what is happening in this verse, I found there to be another way to look at it.  With the connection already established of Jesus healing the woman to be like Him healing us by saving us, I took it a step further.  After she is healed, the woman does not hesitate to serve them.  She does not go do something to please herself, nor did she just say “Thanks, man” and walk away.  She literally gets healed by Jesus and immediately serves Him.  What if we were all willing to do that when Jesus heals us?  When we invite Him into our lives, what if as soon as we accept Him, we began to serve Him?  Instead, we find it so easy to just let Him in, and then go back to our lives of doing what we want.

It is part of our selfish human nature.  Someone helps us, we say thanks (maybe), and go on with our lives.  But how can we possibly do such a thing to the Savior who died for us, all because He loves each of us THAT much?  How can we just not pursue Him, when He pursues us?  How can we not give our lives to the One that gave His life for us?

Because we get comfortable.  We realize we need Jesus, and we accept Him into our lives.  Then, once we are saved and Jesus seems to have worked His magic and heals us, we begin to go back to pursuing worldly things.  Basically, we begin to serve the world for what it has to offer.  However, everything the world has to offer is only temporary.  It will all end and fade away.  The world was not created to last forever – I believe there is a place called Heaven that already fills that position. 

So, if these worldly things can not satisfy us, what will?  The answer is Jesus.  But how does that work?  How do we let Him fill us up?  How do we pursue Him?  We pray to Him, read scripture, surround ourselves with fellow believers, love on others, do mission work, sing praises to Him…and so on and so on.  All of these things make up what is known as “serving God.” 

And to be honest with you all, I used to struggle it.  For years, I could not figure out the whole “serving God” thing.  It felt like something was wrong with me.  I thought maybe I was not trying hard enough.  It would stay in the back of my mind, and I felt like something was holding me back from a deep relationship with God.

And something was holding me back – myself.  Once I realized that, everything changed.  I realized serving God is not something you have to try really hard to do; you just do it.  There is not a best or worst at it.  There are so many ways to serve God, and none of them are necessarily better than the other.  The key is to be willing to serve Him.  If you are willing, then that’s all there is to it.  You just have to jump right in to the glorious path of serving God.

So, all of that to say this: Let Jesus heal you.  Let Him come into your life.  And when you do, don’t hesitate to immediately start serving Him.  And if you have already begun your walk with Christ, I encourage you to ask yourself if you are truly serving Him in your daily life.  Maybe even find new ways to serve Him to add to your current ones.  It can in turn help your relationship grow with Him.

Let Jesus heal you, and instantly start serving Him.  After all, I can not think of a better way to celebrate The Lord of All healing your broken soul.