This quarter, we focus on healing in our weekly devotional series. This week’s devotional comes from John 18 through Matthew 3.
Matthew 3:2 reads, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (NKJV).
In July 2011, I was in a car accident that by all logic should have killed me. Instead, I suffered a broken femur, a dislocated hip and several minor injuries. I had plans to start college that fall, but the accident changed everything. In the spring, I began attending the Ignite Academy in Christiansburg, Va., and it was while on one of the Ignite outreach trips that Matt. 3:2 became real to me in a powerful way.
I had been off crutches for several weeks but was still in a significant pain, unable to participate in normal physical activities. I had actually stopped asking for prayer, believing that eventually the pain would go away and the bones would heal on their own, as the body often does.
During worship one evening, several Ignite students all felt at the same time that they were supposed to pray for me—and they did. They prayed God would heal my leg and hip. As they gathered around me, one of the students paused from the prayer and said he believed God also wanted to heal me from years of deep personal rejection and pain.
I realized then that I was no longer the victim of past hurts that were preventing growth and healing in my life. I began to worship, forgetting about the pain in my body. I asked that the Lord would heal me of the pain in my heart.
When the service ended, I realized that there was no pain in my leg. I ran, jumped and climbed the stairs with absolutely no pain.
More than 2,000 years ago, when Jesus the Messiah arrived on the scene, He came in a manner the Jewish people were not expecting. The declaration that the kingdom of heaven is at hand was a sign that God was going to establish His kingdom starting at that moment, that Jesus was going to establish His earthly kingdom—take back from Satan what had been abdicated to him in man’s fall. And Jesus was going to do it one life at a time.
Jesus came to me last March in a way I least expected. As I laid my burdens and hurts before Him, He revealed to me that kingdom business and authority include not only physical healing, but also healing of the inner self.
Jesus has restored my life, and He continues to heal and soften my heart. He teaches me of His love and brings me His joy.
By: Hannah Matranga, second year student with Ignite Academy in Christiansburg, Va.
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