Hurting In Order to Heal

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.  Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the Law of your God, I also will forget your children" (Hosea 4:6).

How painful, how painful is this scripture but it's not unlike having to re-break a bone that improperly healed, in order that proper healing proceed.  Hosea is saying God's people are destroyed (gone into captivity) for lack of knowledge.  Let's look at three points where we are "destroyed", in order that our captivity be destroyed.

1) Ignorance of the Word of God.  That's like being ignorant of the provisions of a will detailing a person's inheritance.  Only what you know of the Word of God does you any good.  Its provisions can only be activated by faith.  If you don't know the Word, what does your faith have to act upon?

2) Ignorance of the Body of Christ.  We don't understand the nature of Covenant and how its requirements begin with our being part of a "body" and our finding and maintaining our place therein.  This lack causes some to be weak and sickly and others to have died prematurely (I. Corinthians 11:30), all having to do with discerning the Body of Christ (not just communion).  When you are sick, you need to have elders (James 5:14,15) who can pray for you in faith.  Too many congregations are still fighting the battle over praying for healing, being willing only to pray, "If it be thy will."  That kind of praying is without faith and requires absolutely no response from God.  Is not healing a part of what was made available to us by what Jesus suffered, especially in light of what Peter said in I Peter 2:24b, "by whose (His) stripes you were healed"?

Many haven't found the right "body"; but of those who have, many have not found their place within the body.  This accounts for some of the movement of people from one church to another--they are trying to find their place.

3) Wholesale ignorance of God's plan for His redeemed people to reign with Christ upon the earth.  Instead thinking heaven is the ultimate goal of God's people.  This ignorance causes people to discount the present-day training process that is designed to make us like Christ Himself (Romans 8:29).  This is to prepare us to rule and reign with Him in this life (Romans 5:17) and in the life to come (II Timothy 2:12).  It further causes us to miss the fact that God wants to do things that are beyond our imagining, to reveal His greatness and glory (I. Corinthians 2:9). 

Let us be wounded that we may be healed.