Loving Like God

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” – Jeremiah 8:22

Without going into how the Lord revealed it to me, some years ago now, the Lord prompted me to look up the word “balm” in my Strong’s concordance. I was led to the root word, which meant “crack and cause to leak.” I thought what kind of medicine is that? When I realized that was the way a poultice works, I looked that up in Strong’s also, and found two references, both to the same event.

“Prepare a poultice of figs, put it on the boil and you will be healed,” or words to that effect – advice from the Lord through Isaiah to Hezekiah.

Anyway, he did this, and Hezekiah was healed. I immediately realized that this was a picture of Jesus. Jesus is the poultice who takes away the sins of the world. When He hung on the cross, prepared by his stripes to be a poultice, all of the sins of the world in time and space came to a head, and were drawn into him who knew no sin that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. To prepare a poultice of figs first requires that the fig be peeled, and that is what the stripes accomplished. And then there was an earthquake – a crack in connection with His death. In the ministry of Paul we see the continuation of this ministry of stripes.

And so, it is clear that we are an extension of this same poultice ministry, a part of His redemptive purpose in the earth.

• By Jay Ferris, Originally posted on October 2011

For a short audio expounding this subject, Click Here

I spent many years looking for the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5 & 6:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” KJV

I used to think this meant, at some point there would be a turning of flesh and blood fathers toward flesh and blood children that this would be a flesh and blood redemption outside of or in addition to the blood of Christ.

One day I finally came to realize that this promise/threat, is fulfilled in Christ: “And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.'” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” Hebrews 2:13.  Here The writer of Hebrews is quoting Isaiah 8:18: “Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.”

This not only speaks of Christ, and the children God has given Him, but also to us, who have seen and believe in the relational Lordship of Christ in His Body.

The Apostle Paul had children too – spiritual children. A careful rereading of the New Testament letters reveals that this spiritual parenthood was, and ought to be normal for the Church!  The Church is a new creation. Like the old creation, families are normal to creation, and parents and children are normal to families, no matter which creation we are talking about.

There ain’t no plan “B”!

Love!

Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.~   Mark 10:29-30 & Matthew 19:29

• By Jay Ferris, originally posted May 2011

This week’s post features a special message given by Jay Ferris at an annual conference called “Searching Together” in 2007. It was titled, “The Needs of the Bride of Christ,” and later Jay said that it might have been one of the most anointed times of sharing in public he ever experienced. I can’t help but agree.

It also happened to be the first time I met Jay and his wife Carleen, or heard Jay speak. And I felt his message to be strangely profound. It’s not that I understood it all then–it was multi-layered with many metaphors–but it caused my heart to burn and my eyes to well up with tears. It was an unusual response that deeply unnerved me. I am now certain it was the Holy Spirit.

He said, “The things I share I’m very passionate about, but I’m ready to repent if you can show me a more excellent way.”

In addition to the audio, there is also a written transcript to read. Click here for all the options. But I hope you’ll listen to the audio. In my opinion it has all the nuance and flavor.

In Love!
-Pamela

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