Soul Snack 196/11 ... Crippled inside

You can go to church and sing a hymn,

You can judge me by the color of my skin,

You can live a lie until you die,

One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside.

John Lennon wrote this in 1971.The tune stays with your heart and echoes in the head even though I think it is wrong.

At times I wonder if a person who is paralysed on the outside may also be crippled on the inside. I suspect too that there are more internal cripples than external ones. Unlike John Lennon my suspicions flow that countless people do hide the fact they are crippled inside.

Meeting in a dusky home Jesus was confronted by at least six dusty men, one was crippled on the outside b y his legs and inside by his sin. In a bold and remarkable move Jesus healed the man's crippling on the inside by forgiveness before He attended to the man's external needs. (See Mark 2:1-12)

Sin cripples on the inside. So too does a crushed spirit, relationships of malevolence and even loneliness. Crippling, as John Lennon sung is spiritual as well as an inability to walk.

It is Jesus' desire to also heal on the inside. This is usually done by the power of His love ~ it is in received love there is healing.

As with the dusty paralysed man; only when Jesus first heals on the inside that the outside can then walk well in health.

Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? (Mk 2:9)

Today's Soul Snippet:

“There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes.” Oswald Chambers