Coming fully alive in Jesus
Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash
You don’t have to watch the news to realize that many people experience a lot of pain these days. The world is in a bad state and people hunger for meaning, healing and peace. When you suffer from a chronic condition like I do, you come to a point where you think: This cannot be all, there must be more. There must be more ideas and better solutions. There must be a doctor who really takes time to listen and doesn’t only treat the symptoms with another pill. There must be somebody who cares for your whole being, sees you like you really are and finally understands. In the Western world there are a ton of ideas about how to get well. I tried many of them. Most of them disappointed.
When I got to know All Nations team members here in Hamburg in 2018, I was in a pretty bad place. I was estranged from my parents due to things that happened in childhood, and was traumatized and suffering from an acute flare-up of the autoimmune disease. Anxiety, depression, and shame are common among those dealing with chronic illness. It has all the potential to destroy your life when you don’t pay attention, and I was feeling the effects.
Around that time, my flat mate introduced me to two couples from South Africa who were All Nations team members. They welcomed me into their families with a generous love I had never experienced before. They showed me the Father heart of God and taught me a new perspective on healing and wholeness. I began to understand how much God loves me and how much He aches for me and all of us to be healthy and whole.
Slowly but surely something shifted inside of me and I gained a renewed faith. I started to believe that God is at work inside of me and others, and I was able to witness reconciliation between me and my family – the greatest miracle in my life so far. With that newfound faith, I learned to intercede for others and believe for miracles to happen in their lives.
Since then, God has been speaking to me repeatedly about healing and wholeness. The more I listen, the more I find that Jesus is the only answer to my seeking. I believe God placed the ache for healing and wholeness inside of me and every person on this planet because He wants to answer it. He is the only one who can fully satisfy our longing. It’s ultimately an aching to know the Father and be known by Him. Shane Claiborne said it well: “We are setting ourselves up for disappointment if our hope is built on anything less than Jesus.”
Christ came to this earth to bring healing to a fallen world, to redeem it from the yoke of sin and sickness. On the way to the cross He was tortured for our pain, wounded for our healing: “By His stripes we were healed.” That is a truth I want to meditate on. I long to see the fulfillment of these words in my body, mind and soul.
God is so much better than we think! His intentions for our lives are more than well-meant because He is the perfect Father who loves unconditionally. His heart breaks when His children are suffering. Jesus wept with those who grieved. We easily fall to the lie that His intentions might not be as good as people want to make us believe, or that we did something He didn’t approve of and therefore we don’t deserve healing and wholeness.
We have every reason to believe God wants to heal and make us whole. Jesus sent His disciples off with the command “to heal the sick and raise the dead.” That command has never changed and is still the same today for every believer who longs to see God’s Kingdom advancing “on earth as it is in Heaven.” Jesus never turned somebody down who asked for healing. Healing accompanied all of His teachings. It is part of the Good News and therefore God’s will. Through the Holy Spirit in us, we have access to the same power that lived in Jesus and raised Him from the dead. Every single one of us is part of God’s healing plan for this world.
There is a powerful promise given to us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord […]. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” (Proverbs 3:5-8).
If we keep Jesus’ teachings and commands in our hearts, we will be able to live the life we all long for: a life saturated with His goodness. What more could we long for? My passion is to see people get healed, delivered and made whole through the redemptive power of God, coming fully alive in Him.
About the author: Annie Wagner serves on the All Nations Hamburg team. She is a teacher with a strong pastoral heart. In the past she worked as a language guide with Middle Eastern refugees. Her passion is to see people get healed, delivered and made whole so they can live a life full of purpose and submitted to Christ.
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