WITHOUT BLEMISH 

 

EPH. 5:25-27 

             We know that over in Revelation the church is presented as the Bride of Christ. As Christians we recognize that Christ has paid an expensive price to redeem us back to the Father.   But He also has the knowledge that the Church will one day become His bride.  Therefore He, through the Spirit of God works in the church that He might present it to Himself  without spot, wrinkle or blemishes.   Spots must be removed by washing.  Spots represent sin,  non-Christian behavior or actions..  We have been washed in the blood of Jesus, and thus have been delivered from the power of sin.  God sees us not as sinners, but rather as those to whom He has imputed righteousness.  Since, He see us as righteous already , He expects us to manifest righteous living in our daily lives.  Now the church as a whole has spent many years preaching on righteous and sinless living.  In fact the church has worked hard for years  on sin, but God wants more than just sinlessness for us.  He also wants wholeness.  The other two descriptions given in this text refer to this wholeness.

            When we think of wrinkles, they are creases or folds in something that would-be otherwise smooth.  They are deformation.  Wrinkles can not be washed away.  They must be pressed out, normally with much pressure and steam.  Wrinkles represent character or personality flaws.  We are allowed to go through trials and tribulations that these wrinkles might be pressed out of our lives.

            Finally, we have blemishes.  A blemish is a scar or a mark that mars our image.  As women and particularly Black women, we have many scars and these scars oftentimes mar our image of ourselves.  We then pass this marred image on to our children and particularly to our daughters following us.  Life and it's experiences have caused a brokenness and decay in us that has caused many to live a life of mere existence, never experiencing the abundant life promised to us by Christ.  We hide from our fears and our inner hurts, biding our time here on earth and waiting to get to Heaven where we know things will be better.  The scars of life are blemishes.  Blemishes cannot be washed away, nor can they be pressed out.   They require treatment, and work.  They do not go away quickly, but required effort sometimes over a long period of time. 

            As Christians we know that we cannot get by with sin.  Sin must be dealt with.  Whether we wan them or not, trials and tribulations come to take care of the wrinkles.  But the scars, they often linger and go untreated.  We become accustom to them and accept the repercussion, saying to ourselves and to others "that's just how I am".  But for each of those "that's just how I am's" we need to ask is that just how God wants me to be. 

            I want to look at two women in the Bible who were scarred. 

MARK 5:21-34

            Here we see a woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years.  Now 12 years is a long time to deal with a problem of that sort.  Most of us don't want to deal with it 3 days in every month.  If we cut or scratch ourselves deep enough for it to bleed we get frustrated if it bleeds more than 10 minutes, even if it's just a little trickle.  We start to get concerned about getting blood on our clothes.  We have things to do and we don't have time to sit and wait to stop bleeding.  We want it to stop so that we can get own with what we are doing.

            This lady had been bleeding for 12 years.  You know that this had to cause many uncomfortable situations and problems in her life.  But there was more involved here than just the problems of being uncomfortable and inconvenienced.

LEV. 15:19-28

            This lady for as long as she had that issue was considered not only physically unclean but also spiritually unclean.  Any time a person had any type of uncleanness he or she was not permitted to participate in any of the sacrifices, or even to enter the temple.  Those who touched them were even considered unclean and had to go through cleansing rituals.  They were basically isolated and separated from normal daily interactions with others.  If she was married, can you imagine what life for her husband would be like?  Every time he touched her, whether sexually or for a simple hug, he too would then be unclean.  This is more than a problem of just dealing with a sore.  Can you image how she was socially treated.  Deprived of friends,  alone.  I can image that her self worth was gone.  She was an outcast.

            We can now understand the urgency that drove the woman to try doctor after doctor and the Bible says to suffer many things at their hands (remedies - herb drinks, sudden fright, burning new grape vines, sitting over certain ditches, etc.).  She had spent all that she had.  In essence, she had put all of her time, finances, and heart into ridding herself of this condition and nothing worked.

            When she heard that Jesus was there, she decided to go to Him.  Now remember that she is unclean and therefore forbidden to touch others or to be touched.  People did not go around touching or interacting with those who were unclean, because of the time and effort required to renew their clean state.  So maybe this woman was hoping that Jesus would speak to her and heal her.  She gets there and their are so many people that she can barely see Jesus, and surely she thinks, there is no way that he will pick her out of the crowd.  So she thinks, if I can just get close enough to touch his garment, even the hem of it, I will be whole.

            After she was healed she became fearful when Jesus had acknowledged that someone had touched Him.  She in her unclean state had touched the Master.  Though she had been healed she was now afraid of what the outcome would be.  Maybe she had not heard Jesus in Mark 2:17 say that it is the sick not those who are whole who need a physician. This woman took a chance to do that which was forbidden because she knew that Jesus was her only hope.  Recognizing her condition and her need for personal interaction with Jesus, she reached for Jesus in faith and that reach of faith caused her to be made whole.

            (Lengthy, disabling sickness; desperate to be healed; she acted in faith and was made whole.) 

LUKE 13:10-16

            Here we have a woman who has been oppressed by a spirit of weakness for 18 years.  We are not told what symptoms existed in the early stages of the oppression but we are told that it has progressed to the point where she is bowed or bent over and cannot lift herself.  However, her condition did not hinder her from going about.  She was able to mingle with other people, to go to the synagogue, and probably to lead a normal life.  It is just that her physical appearance is that of woman who is bent and deformed in statue. 

            We see no indication that there is an urgency to be loosed or made whole.  We are not told that she has spent all of her money in an effort to get well or even that she has gone to many doctors and tried many remedies.  But we do see, that although she is in the presence of Jesus, she does not initiate the action.  It is Jesus who calls to her.  It is possible that this woman has become accustomed to being in this condition.  It is now comfortable for her and she has accepted that this is how she will remain for the rest of her life.

            This woman is like many of us and unlike the first woman.  We have had scars, hurts, fears, and deformities in our lives for many years, yet we see no need to address them.  There is no urgency to rid us of these blemishes.

            There are those of us who know that we have binding conditions in our lives, whether they are physical, emotional or spiritual.  We have accepted these conditions as just a part of how we are, or as just a fact of life.  For instance there are many of us who where eyeglasses.  Now there is nothing wrong with wearing glasses.  They don't really get in the way of our doing anything.  They are not a great hindrance and in fact with the convenience of contact lenses, and new designer frames for glasses, it just does not seem worth praying over.  We accept it as a fact of life.  Now glasses are a small example.  We have no urgency about receiving healing in that area.  There are many such areas in our lives that we do not even bother to seek the Lord on for healing or restoration.

            But Jesus seeing the woman's need and recognizing the source of her infirmity, loosed her from the grip of Satan.  Here was a descendent of Abraham, and therefore someone who had covenant relationship with God almighty, deceived and blinded into believing that this was her lot in life.  This lady was bound and blinded by Satan.  The outward condition of her physical body was only a symptom of a deeper more serious problem.  She was bound, and for whatever reason she showed no urgency for obtaining freedom.  But God does not like seeing His children bound, so Jesus loosed her.

            There are many women who just like this woman, are bound in areas of our lives.  Whenever we hear people talking about being bound we immediately start to think of those sins that we keep struggling with.  But as Christians I believe that for many of us there is something other than sin that we struggle with and that is fear. Many of us fear getting hurt or being vulnerable, and therefore we build up these walls trying to protect ourselves.  Many times in building the wall we do not understand that with each brick we become more and more bound, and the fear grows worse and worse.

JOHN 8:30-32

            We are sometimes quick to quote this scripture.  Yes as Christians we have received the truth of God's Word and have been loosed from the power of sin over us.  Through the power of prayer and faith, many of use have received the healing virtue of God, and believe that good health is God's perfect will for man.  But total freedom is not gained simply by freedom from sin's power or freedom from physical sickness.  Many of us are still mentally and emotionally bound and we continue to give Satan place in our lives through these areas.  Christ has provided freedom for the believer, but if many would be honest we would admit that we do not walk in that freedom.  Just like the woman bound by Satan, it is often times more comfortable to remain bound.  It is hard to confront those areas.  But realize God wants to loose you from Satan's grip in every area of your life.  Just as we attack sin in our lives we must also attack  fear. 

2 TIM. 1:7

            God did not give us this spirit that oppresses us with fear.  It is a spirit that derives its purpose from the Devil.  He has used past circumstances that caused us hurt, to give birth to fear in us.  As we feed that fear it grows, just like faith does when it is fed.  Just like faith produces results in our lives so does fear. Fear produces insecurities, a lack of trust, unforgiveness, and in general more fear.  Just as we are given opportunities to test and strengthen our faith, we are presented with opportunities to test and to strengthen our fear.  Only the fear test are often disguised and we are deceived into believing that protecting ourselves is the right thing to do.  Just as we are to resist the Devil when we are tempted to sin we must resist the spirit that hinders us from building and developing trust.  The spirit of fear is from the Devil and he uses it to keep many of us emotionally bound.

2 Cor. 10:3-5

            We are to tear down every stronghold that Satan has built in our lives.  How has Satan built up strong holds in our lives.  As women, we have been abused mentally, physically and sexually. We have seldom been given the opportunity to freely discuss our hurts and to heal.  In fact rather than healing we have been taught to go on with our lives and make the best that we can out of thing.  We have watched our mother, and grandmother, friends and aunts all struggle through life just as we are doing. We have learned from them not to focus on healing but rather we have learned to survive.  But all of these things that we have seen as children and experienced along the way are implanted in us and are being used by our enemy against us.  He uses what we have seen, heard and experienced to make us timid, untrusting, fearful, vengeful and angry, insecure and sometimes even withdrawn.  Everyday he uses experiences from the past to influence our actions today, and thus tries to shape our future tomorrow's. This is how he builds and maintains a strong hold on our lives. But, we are to bring every thought under subjection to Christ; even those fearful and insecure thoughts. 

            1 JOHN 3:5-7

            Jesus came to this earth to destroy the works of the Devil.  When we think of this we normally think of sin.  But sin is not the only work that the enemy has in our lives.  I believe that for many who are truly committed to Christ and have been so for a while, fear is now more of a problem in our lives than is sin.  It is fear that keeps us from ministering to one another as we should.  It is fear that keeps us from trusting, from giving and even from loving as we should.  Many of us are in bondage to our history and we accept the scars from our past and the resulting consequences as just apart of who we are.  But who we are when we come to Christ is not who God has intended for us to be and it is certainly not who we must continue to be.

            One day we will stand as the Bride of Christ.  When we stand there in our spotless white gowns, which He has provided, smooth and pressed by trials and tribulations to remove all wrinkles, do you want a blemish sitting on your face marring your image.  If not then let's allow Jesus to loose us now from the past memories and experiences that mar and scar us.  We must go to Jesus and get instruction on which beauty cream to use, when and how often should it be applied.  In other words, go to Him and get a prescription for healing.