Healing for the Hurting

I’m writing today especially to those of you who are going through a tough time right now. There’s healing for the hurting.

Maybe you’re in physical pain, where everything seems to hurt, and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work. Every day is a struggle just to get up and going and to somehow make it through. You feel the pulls and the cracks and pops and aches and strains of a body that’s been through the battle and you’ve got the scars to prove it.

Maybe your hardship is emotional. You don’t want to be this way, but you feel depressed so often. You’ve been burnt too many times, and it just feels like the world is caving in all around and everything’s against you. You’re anxious and worried and upset and fearful about so many things that you can’t even begin to enjoy today. You dread getting out of bed because of what might go wrong.

Perhaps you’re struggling financially. Whether it’s because of some poor choices you’ve made or something completely unforeseen, times are flat tough. Each week and every month it’s getting harder to make ends meet, or maybe they’re not meeting at all. You might be swimming in debt and feel like you’re about to be pulled under.

Maybe you are hurting relationally. It seems like every relationship you’re in ends up in the dumps. Maybe your spouse has been unfaithful. Perhaps your children have turned against everything you’ve taught them. It could be problems with people at work. You’ve held certain expectations for someone to come through for you and they’ve let you down.

Perhaps your hurt is something altogether different. You might be hurting for somebody else going through an excruciating ordeal. You wish you could take the suffering for them, and it’s killing you to see them struggle.

Here’s what I want you to hear today, friend: Jesus loves hurting people. Jesus loves hurting people. Now, you have to read this the right way and understand the syntax, you know, verbs and adjectives and stuff. I’m not saying that He delights in causing harm to people, but He loves hurting people. See what I mean?

Jesus has a deep compassion and sympathy for those who are hurting. Just ask Mary and Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died. When Jesus saw Mary weeping at the loss of her brother, and all the others who were there also crying, the Bible says that Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” And in the shortest verse in all Scripture – and one that packs a powerful punch – it says: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

Did He ever turn away the hurting who truly called upon His name?

Jesus understands your sorrow. He knows your hurts. He feels your pains. He sympathizes with your weaknesses. And He loves you with an unfailing, steadfast love.

In fact, it was for this reason that He came and suffered Himself on the cross of Calvary – to take away sin. The sinful condition of mankind, from the fall of Adam and Eve that’s infected every human being, means that we live in world marked by suffering and hurt, sickness and disease, pain and death.

Only Jesus, God in the flesh, who though tempted in every way just as we are, was without sin (Heb. 4:15), and only He is able to deal with the effects of sin because He Himself has conquered sin by His death for us on the cross and by His resurrection victory over the grave!

“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). The Bible further states: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

There it is! There’s the healing for the hurting! The cure for the ailment! The remedy for the disease! Friend, if you’re hurting, there’s healing in Jesus.

“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isa. 55:6-7).