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Recently, I came across this great thought well expressed, by a former teacher of mine, Keith Condie:

How we perceive ourselves profoundly shapes our behaviour. If you are unsure how to answer the question, ‘Who Am I?’, or if you have an unhelpful answer to that question, it will impact on your marriage. Some of the most selfish people I have met are those who have very low self-esteem; they are so caught up with themselves and what people think of them, they lack the freedom to love. But those who have a sober estimation of themselves can give to others from a position of inner strength.

Christians are loved and accepted by God. He is the safe haven for us. We are people of immense worth and value simply by virtue of being created in God’s image and being redeemed through the death of his Son. God the Father hasn’t just forgiven us, he’s welcomed us into his family as his beloved children and heirs.

You may know this, but do you know this? Is it a truth that shapes your life and self-perception? It’s not meant to swell our heads with pride and arrogance; its humbling because its only of his grace. We need to wholeheartedly take this truth on board. It sounds strange, but even low self-esteem is about pride. Beneath self-pity and feelings of failure and rejection lurks the desire to be somebody – to be recognized as a significant and worthwhile person. The research suggests that strong (ie. emotionally together) individuals create strong marriages. When two people who understand who they are in Christ come together, that gives great strength to their marriage. The gospel of grace shapes our identity, so the more you grasp the truth of who you are in Christ, the better it will be for your relationship.

“The general question which arises from the whole account of his healing ministry is, of course, ‘Does he do the same today?’

My own view (and it is no more than that, on a matter where there are such divergent views) is this. Luke presents throughout this whole section a Jesus who utters words of power, and in these particular instances a Jesus who is the Healer of men’s ills. And Jesus is the same today: ‘Thy touch still has ancient power; No word from Thee can fruitless fall.’ But his methods are his own, and not the over-simplified ones his patients would sometimes prescribe for him.

I would therefore make a broad distinction between two methods of healing: not the obvious distinction between the miraculous and the medical, but one which lies deeper than that. Where his object is to be known as the Healer, he works immediately; such cures are, as it were, for the shop-window – the kind of success story which establishes the reputation of a great surgeon or physician. I see no reason why in some circumstances today Jesus may not choose to work in this way and for this purpose. But where he is already known, he may well say to his trusting patient:’I could of course give you immediate relief; but I would rather take the opportunity to do something more far-reaching, which will be to your greater benefit in the long run. You will find it more protracted and perhaps more painful, and you may not understand what I am doing, because I may be treating disorders of which you are yourself unaware.’

He will then set to work to deal with the needs of the whole person, rather than with the obvious needs only. He may aim at a calming of spirit, or a strengthening or courage, or a clarifying of vision, as more important objectives than what we would call healing. Indeed the latter may not be experienced at all in this life, but only at the final ‘saving and raising’ of the sick, when their mortal nature puts on immortality.

For I think it is no accident that each of these two words in James 5 has a double meaning, making them equally applicable to this life and the next: sozoI, to heal, or to save; egeiro, to raise from sickness, or to raise from death. The ‘prayer of faith’ cannot fail to bring about this result, one way or the other. But the faith in which such prayer is prayed must be, not faith that Jesus will heal in some particular way (ie. The way we should advise him to do it!), but faith in Jesus the Healer, who will choose his own timing and method. Then even today his word of power in this respect will amaze onlookers (4:36) and bring other to seek him (4:40).”

Michael Wilcock, The Message of Luke (Leicester: IVP,1978),67-8.

‘To be persuaded means to have convictions. To know what you are convinced about implies that you discriminate between some matters you consider certain and others you regard as uncertain – matters of doubt. To make meaningful distinctions between convictions and doubts, one needs further to have a sense of how things doubted might cease to be doubted; that is, one needs a concept of warrants, of what may be persuasive. People can be in doubt about something and feel unsure if or how it can ever become for them a matter of conviction or certainty. Part of the achievement of effective communicators lies in their persuading their audiences that stepping-stones (warrants) do exist by which they can move from doubt to conviction.’

D.M.Hay, ‘The Shaping of Theology in 2 Corinthians: Convictions, Doubts, and Warrants’, in D.M.Hay (ed.), Pauline Theology Volume II: 1 and 2 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 137.