Generosity预览

Healing Generosity 

"He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted." Lk 4:18

What does the term ‘broken hearted’ mean? In the Hebrew understanding the heart was the centre of the will and the term means ‘one whose will is broken’. These are the people who have lost the will to fight the battle of life and have dropped out. We see them as the homeless on the roads and beggars in the street corners.

These people are now discarded and ignored by society. They are often blamed for their situation as people who do not have the will to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Society shows no understanding of their psychological problems, and the experiences which have led them to this state of mind. Instead, they are treated as outcasts.

However, Jesus says that He has come to restore them back to a sound mind. 

In Jesus’ time, a leper was a person without hope, who had ceased to try and make anything of his life. He lived off the charity of the people, but was segregated with no friends except for people in the same situation as himself or herself. When a leper approached Jesus for healing in Mark 1:40-45, Jesus reached out and touched him and healed him. This touch, which was not permitted by the Old Testament Laws without bringing uncleanness on oneself, showed that, to Jesus, the feelings and loneliness of the leper were more important than Jesus’ need to avoid pollution and the consequent rituals. Jesus gave a hopeless person a new hope.

We also should see where we are following the world in ignoring and avoiding the drop outs of society, and should instead extend our hand of fellowship to them so that they can experience emotional and psychological healing in their lives. 

To whom have you brought healing in the recent past?