The 40-Day Feast: Feast on God's WordSample

On Sunday mornings In Sunday School we played games, sang the books of the Bible, and listened to Ruth Gosting's stories. Ruth had an animated, high-­pitched voice that was full of inflection and wonder. To this day I can recall the sound of her singing, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” Her eyes were always wide open, as if she were perpetually surprised, and every time she saw me, she exclaimed, “Oh, Wendy, I’m so glad you’re here!” And she was. And so was I.

I loved church because I was loved at church. And the people who loved me well loved their Bibles too. I wonder if that has anything to do with the tender affection I had for my own Bible as a young girl. I’ve heard it said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. My heart was wide open to receive Ruth’s words because her arms were wide open to receive me, Sunday after Sunday.

If you had a negative experience with those who claimed to love God but didn’t love you, I’m sorry. Perhaps, as a result, you have “Bible wounds.”

God’s desire has always been to bind up and heal broken hearts (Ps. 147:3). We’re told that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted (Ps. 34:18). And when Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah, He took this job description as His own when He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me . . . He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18 NKJV).

Many within our churches and around the world have broken hearts, broken relationships with others, and a broken relationship with God. Men and women are held captive by age-­old wounds. Today, let’s invite God to do His job—­to bring healing to our lives.

Charles Spurgeon once preached, “There are many sorts of broken hearts, and Christ is good at healing them all.”1 Jesus came to bind up your broken heart and repair your broken-­down relationship with the Father, and He uses His Word to accomplish the healing and bring about the binding. The psalmist affirms, “He sent out his word and healed them” (Ps. 107:20).

Some heart wounds are deeper, harder to perceive, and much more difficult to heal than physical abrasions. Cuts to the heart require the tenderness of a God who knows our frailties and cares about our humanity. Jesus, who is fully God, was also fully man, and He can identify with us in our afflictions. All of them. Jesus hears us when we cry out, “Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am frail; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are in agony (Ps. 6:2 BSB). He understands our pain because He, too, was physically and emotionally battered and bruised.

Jesus’s wounds have the power to heal our wounds. There’s a lot to unpack there, but I want to encourage you to ingest the thought of it, meditate on His healing Word, and ask His Holy Spirit to lead you to a place of healing and wholeness. If your parents, peers, or pastors wounded you over the years, bring those deep cuts to Jesus.

Jesus, thank You for preaching the gospel to my heart today. You came to heal it. I believe that’s true. Restore my childlike faith, and help me to forgive those who have hurt me within the church, within my home, and over the course of my life. While Your Word brings healing, forgiveness is a balm too. I pray in the healing name of Jesus, Amen.