Healer: A 7-Day Devotional With Casting CrownsSample

Whatever the reason we need healing or long for comfort and peace, our greatest hope of finding them is in the person of Jesus and the power of his Word.

God provides no shortcuts, but he does encourage us to search his truth daily for new mercies and to renew our minds. Our faithfulness in digging into Scripture before heartache hits is a key to finding the comfort and peace of God when we need it most.

The Apostle Paul pulls no punches when discussing the importance of the gospel in today’s passage. He is so certain of God’s Word that he says, “Even if we come to you next month and preach a gospel contrary to the one that we’ve shared with you from the beginning, may we be damned to the eternal punishment we deserve.”

That’s a stark comment. Why would Paul say that? Because he saw how easy it is for people to use God’s Word to justify twisting wrong ideas into their own truth.

I’ve seen events happen to people that changed their theology. Tragedy can do it. We can be all about God’s healing until the healing doesn’t come the way we wanted it. Suddenly, we start talking differently about God. Failure can do it. We fall, we commit a dark sin, we get called on it, and pretty soon it’s easy to rationalize our behavior when we’re in pain from failure.

We can start critiquing what we gradually believe is a judgmental Church. These days it’s often called deconstructing the gospel. What that means is somebody hurt the person’s feelings. Somebody left him out or called him out. Something happened to hurt him, so now he’s going to step away from all of it or go out the door guns blazing—on social media, of course.

It’s easy to fall for someone and, over time, hear them say, “I have a different way of looking at life. This is who I am now.” Unless you are steeped in God’s truth, someone else’s opinions forged by emotion can reshape your convictions.

We need always go back to God’s Word. I need to read the whole of Scripture over and over and over again because God’s Word is alive, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and it cuts straight into the heart of us, cuts straight to the point.

We’ll find a preacher that won’t hit that point if we look hard enough. We can always find somebody who will agree with our pet peeves, and the search usually won’t take long. Then we can build a little club with them if we’re not careful. The prescription against such a slow fade is arduous but simple: We must keep going back to the true gospel and allow it to be our counsel.