HEALED FOR SERVICE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 10, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 19.

HEALED FOR SERVICE.

By Editor

GOD heals. He heals through various agencies, by natural processes, according to partially-understood laws of life and health and growth. These laws regarded, and the life forces given of God, fed in various ways, restore the enfeebled one, tone up the organs, cleanse the system, build in new tissues, and so restore the erstwhile sick.

YES, God heals. Marvelous as are all these life-processes in restoring health and strength, they are not in the category of the signs and wonders and miracles of the Gospel record. Like the shining sun and the beneficent rain they fall upon all alike, and bring blessing to all who yield to their gracious laws. But the healing of God in answer to the prayers or needs of His people is of a different character. It is a glory above that of the midday Sun, brought by celestial messengers. It is a stream from the deep secret fountain of God, surpassing the fountains of earth, come tho they may from the cool snows of Lebanon. It is the fruit of spiritual life direct from God to His children, limited only by their weak faith and by their needs.

To His children the healing of God comes through a higher law than governs physical, sinful man. It comes and is retained in response to harmony with God's moral law, the higher law exclusive of all others. It is a pledge of a larger, more abundant life than the world knows. "I came," said the Master, "that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." But life is given for growth and use, and larger life, should mean, and must mean if retained, large service.

THIS is the lesson of our miracle this week, the record of which runs as follows:

"And straightway, when they were come out of the synagog [where the demon had been cast out], they came unto the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and straightway they tell Him of her; and He came and took her by the hand, and stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and raised her up; and the fever left her, and she ministered unto them." Mark 1:29-31. See Matthew and Luke.

It is a simple story, with marvelous lessons. The picture is of a small crowded house, a hard-working, sick woman, submissive to God, willing to be healed, but with no power to heal herself, or potency within to raise her up. Divinity furnishes all that the sick one can not furnish. He reached forth His hand of power; He spoke away the fever; He lifted her to her feet, cool, and well, and strong. The dominion of the perverted law of life and health yields to a higher law, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus."

THE woman tastes the new life and recognizes its meaning. She arose; she did more,—she ministered, she served. And all God's life is given for service. Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit, the life of God, and therefore "He went about doing good."

HOW MUCH the lesson of the healing, miraculous power of God is needed to-day. Some have known it, but many of these have put the life blessing to no service. Selfish interests have demanded time, and life, and service, and the great spiritual blessing, with its larger uplift and possible service for God and humanity, have been lost.

THE church is sick to-day of a great fever. Her life-current is poisoned by the bacteria of worldliness, by the germs of greed, by the glamor of fiction, by the intoxication of pleasure, by theological fables, by science falsely so-called, by pagan philosophy; and she is sick unto death. No "natural process" will cure her; no divine immanence will restore her health. Evolution is to her in spiritual life devolution. "Christian Science" and "New Thought," falsely so-called, take from her both her guide-book and Saviour. She needs the divine touch of the Man of Galilee. She needs the creative power of His touch. She needs the larger, the more abundant, life of His Gospel. O, she needs Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the great old-fashioned, simple Gospel of God in Jesus Christ, filled with soul-healing, body-healing, and consecrated service for God and humanity.