January 9

HE CURES MY DEPRAVITIES
by Ray Prinzing

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. - Who healeth all thy diseases."                                                                                           [Psalm 103:2-3]

Ferrar Fenton gives a beautiful rendering here,  "And all my depravities cured." Disease, or dis-ease has reached into every avenue of our being, body, soul, and spirit. The depravity of man is exceedingly great, for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"  [Jeremiah 17:9]. Praise God, this disease of heart can be cured, for our God is able to make whole again.

By no means would we infer that all sickness is the result of sin in our life, such would not be true at all.  But it is a fact that we are more prone to treat the symptoms than to dig in and find the cause and cure it.  Many doctors now know that much illness is rooted deeper than just the physical body.  Some root of bitterness, jealously, envy, unforgiveness, etc., these depravities of soul and spirit can cause much outward distress. But our Great Physician cures them all.  One might not be able to discern and analyze all these things in themselves, but we can go to the Healer for our deliverance.

Jesus said, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. - I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." [Matthew 9:12-13]. For "the Son of man is come to save..." [Matthew 18:11]. This word "save" is from the Greek word "sozo" meaning TO SAVE, KEEP SOUND. Salvation is more than finding a lost one, it is bringing that one back into TOTAL SOUNDNESS.

So complete is the scope of His healing, that He declared,  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." [Luke 4:18].