Spiritual Novacain

I’ve become ever more convinced in observation of America and her inhabitants that pain is understood as an incredible inconvenience and unrealistic expectation that we go through. Sure, we’ll take it- with all the Tylenol, booze, coke, weed, or music we can find to soothe us. More and more people are treated for depression every year, more and more people choose to end their own lives, more and more end the life of someone else. We can’t handle pain, we can’t handle being fallen.

So what is the church doing about it?
It has become another manufacturer of pain killers, only this time- we put the relative expectation of use and expiration date slightly more manageable and riding on hope. It has become manufacturers of spiritual Novocain and slave traders of hope.

Prescription:

One dose a week (“Choose from our Wednesday evening service, Thursday Contemporary service, our Friday Healing service, our Saturday Morning convenient service, Saturday Evening family service, Sunday Morning First service, Sunday Morning Second service, or Sunday Evening Prayer service, or just come to our Car Show/Motorcycle Race next weekend for good fellowship without any conviction”).

Continue for the rest of your life.

You’ll find the real thing in heaven, persevere, and know that God is taking care of it.

Look around you and tell me if what you see is different? Look at the banner hanging from the four churches on your block and see what they’re selling. Listen to the pitch of your pastor on (insert chosen dose day here) and listen for clear instructions on how the pain in your life is to be remedied in this place. Is it kid’s ministry? Is it service? Is it exciting? Is it fresh? Is it new? Is it relevant? Is it community? Or is it Jesus, who is none of these things? The message of the cross is one of complete and total surrender to Christ.

Here is a picture for you:

Your skin scarred and marred with wounds. Wounds from others, wounds from yourself, wounds from the past, wounds from your fear of the future, wounds and more wounds.

All OPEN and BLEEDING. EVERY ONE OF THEM.

Crud! What are we going to do about this? We’re getting blood everywhere. We’d better cover up. Let’s wear this colored shirt and hope no one will notice! Let’s surround ourselves with other people and things that we can hide behind, just in case someone glimpses the blood coming through our clothes.

I’ll use this shirt, it only looks like every girl in school has used him, but I’m sure he’ll cover my wounds for a little while. Maybe I’ll use this “medicine” to fix some of these… weed makes everything feel better. Maybe I’ll use this lifestyle to make my wounds popular, then I won’t feel so conspicuous. Maybe I’ll use something else entirely, maybe I’ll use studying to create some merit to my wounds, give me some valor.

Sorry, but these wounds will not be mistaken for badges of courage.

Or maybe… What?! I can get newer clothes at your church? You’ll show me how to put them on? All different colors too!? Sweet! I’ll come to your church then and get new clothes to cover up all these wounds so no one will know I’m bleeding. It takes one week for these clothes to wear out you say? Okay, I’ll come back next week for a different set- this is awesome! I can pay for these… that’s what you’re expecting? I should tell my friends where they can get new clothes too? OKAY!

But the wounds are still there.

Moreover, they still bleed. A lot.
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You see, no matter what bandage or covering we want to put on our pain and open wounds, they’re still there. Hiding for just the right moment when we come across the person who gave them to us and they get deeper and bleed more.

No one is telling the wounded that Jesus didn’t come to cover their wounds up and make it so they aren’t there.

HE CAME TO HEAL AND RESTORE THEM ALL.

Whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.

That’s a promise.

We must end this shopping mart of family value red shirts, financial management blue shirts, Christian counseling black shirts, community made striped shirts, and youth group centered tie dye shirts and bring ourselves and our world to the God of all who will restore and place on our backs the white shirts of His righteousness and holiness through all the blood spilled by His Son, Jesus. That’s it. There’s nothing else. The blood Jesus spilt at Golgotha was enough for the entire world for all of eternity- that’s a lot of blood. How many people is yours for? One, and it’s not even healing you, it’s killing you. He wants to give your life back to you and heal you completely. But will you let Him?

That’s the deal, letting Him means some pain. Because all the sharp things that sliced you open are still in your skin and He wants them all so He can destroy them. He offers complete and unmatched freedom from sin and the works the devil has done in your life, but will you let Him clean your wounds and make is so that nothing in the world matters any more than He does? It’s a high price to be given a new body. It’s a high price to know you can’t go getting yourself all battered and broken again. It’s a high price to be healed and hear the words “Go and sin no more” after it. Can you manufacture freedom? The answer is simply NO. It is the Son Who sets free and restores all things and it’s on His terms that any restoration happens. I’m not satisfied with spiritual Novocain any more. Is it good enough for you? Or are you truly unafraid to look in the mirror when you’re undressed?

I pray that you find no condemnation in this note, moreover, I pray the Lord shows you if you still live with open wounds. Wounds that He wishes to heal so that you can live in freedom and be fully able to declare His glory as intended. I have found this to be so true of my life, that I may have found forgiveness in Christ, but lived with open doors through which Satan had access to deceive and deny the glory I was purposed to proclaim. If you are like me, you know of wounds that plague and hurt, crush and condemn, deny and bind you in so many ways. This does not have to be so. I plead with you not to meditate on them more, not to seek the guidance of friends or look for advice on which counselor is the best, not to cover them up any longer, but to seek true freedom, freedom only found in abandoning everything you hold dear to gain the life Christ holds for you. The one He exchanged His life for. Give Him your life- the past included- and let Him redeem it so that you may declare glory from freedom you were not aware was possible for YOU.