Two screens played before him. On one side he saw himself being treated for the physical
symptoms of AIDS. On the other he
saw the Lord who was surrounded by light. He knew that God was giving him a
choice between healing of just his body versus a healing that was also
spiritual.
He had met Christ as a young man but after the pain of our
broken world caught him, he began to live a self-destructive lifestyle. He had every symptom of AIDS and was
dying in the hospital waiting for the final test to confirm what he knew.
“I want to heal your whole person, not just your body. Choose.” These are the words that Mario heard as he saw the vision in
the hospital room.
As he chose the total healing, the first screen faded away;
he was embraced by God and filled with his love.
God’s healing and love reach us at the root. He re-orders our identity and
integrates our existence on the basis of his life in us. Jesus said, “you must be born
again.” When our soul is healed as
we are embraced by the love of God, we become a new creation. The old self dies. The new self, which is really Jesus in
us, grows and lives. While not
guaranteeing perfect actions, this new power in us has practical consequences
for our behavior.
The word of God is strong in insisting that to be a
Christian is to undergo a change in behavior. Paul writes to remind the church in Corinth that they need to
remember who they are.
Do not be
deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men
who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor
the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom
of God. (I Cor 6:9-10)
If a Christian has Jesus at the
center of his new identity, then good practical results follow just as surely
as a good tree bears good fruit.
If we are caught up in patterns of sin, then we are not able to see and
inherit the Kingdom.
Paul goes on to say,
And such
were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
(I Cor
6:11)
The language here is of
identity: you were x—but now you are no longer. When God grabs us and pulls us up into his life he gives us
a new center. Habits and
hurts which drove us to act in
sinful and broken ways no longer dominate; patterns of thought which made us believe that we were
beyond redemption do not prevail.
Best of all, we are touched in the deepest part of ourselves by the
living word Jesus who writes a new story in our hearts. He makes us right with God. He gives us a new identity as a saint.
Mario might have said, “I am a
homosexual,” and counted himself outside the saving embrace of the Lord. It would have been easy in a way to
adopt our culture’s stance that one’s sexual preference is one’s identity. This modern cultural “truth” has
become a non-negotiable truth in some quarters. But its not true, and Mario understood that.
Like every sin, sexual sin has the
potential to consume one’s life, to demand more and more energy and to place itself
at the center of our thoughts and actions. Modern philosopher and sexual activist Michel Foucault spoke
of our modern embrace of sex as the means by which we sell our souls, like
Faust did, to the devil. Our
temptation and sin is now to, “to exchange life in its entirety for sex
itself, for the truth and the sovereignty of sex. Sex is worth dying for.”
Can you hear the tone of worship in his words? Sex for Foucault and for many in the
modern world is the truth and is sovereign. But this is false. Only God is sovereign. Only God is the truth. Only he is worth dying for. Mario was healed and went on to write a book that has helped heal others of the greatest confusion we have as sinful people: that of loving other things--even good things--more than we love God.
Consider Paul’s words to those who had formerly given
themselves over to the lusts of their bodies. Hear how he contrasts a holy union with God against a sinful
union outside of marriage.
But he who is
joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other
sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins
against his own body.
Paul goes on to say that not even this body we have is our
own, but that it is a place where God’s Holy Spirit dwells:
do you not
know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have
from God? You are not your own, for you were
bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (ICor 6:17-20)
I am not what I do.
I am not what I like. I
don’t own myself and so have no right to exchange my life for some small part
of it. In fact, it was God the Son
who exchanged himself for me—this is the divine pact and covenant. He gave me new life. He gave me a new identity.
Mario understood this. He chose a healing that went to the
root. He chose life.
Lord God and Heavenly
Father, give me the assurance that it is neither past nor present sin which
define me; grant me the knowledge that I am a new creation in your Son; awaken
hope in me; fill me with your Spirit; and bless me with the truth that my
identity comes from you; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen
For more of Mario's story, see this website http://www.zacchaeus.ca/mario.html. For more on how God has used and is using Mario's healing to bless others, see his ministry website http://www.redeemedlives.org/
