Kingdom's Keys Fellowship

Where God's Kingdom Meets Man's Heart.

Of Time and a Season Part 6

“a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,”

This verse may carry one of the more constantly recurring themes in the passage, killing and tearing down which is certainly amended by the positive themes of healing and building. First, consider this. The world leads from negativity; the ‘woe-is-me’ variety to which positive faithful thought, prayer and response are applied. Spiritual preparation is being consistently in the Word. The positive follows spiritually. To some degree we are always playing catch-up ball; having to react to some new situation. There is no way to anticipate the future, to know what’s going to happen. Contingency planning only goes so far. From our spiritual perspective, our response to the unexpected is what Scripture says which informs our belief, our trust and our faith.

To start this section, we need to look at what Jesus did early in His mission; how He dealt with the unexpected.

Shortly after the Sermon on the Mount, His healing ministry really takes off (Matthew 8). After a number of healings He and the disciples cross the Sea of Galilee and land near a Gadarene cemetery where He is greeted by two demon-possessed men who immediately react in fear and the demons within them beg Him to be sent into a herd of pigs which He does. They ran into the lake and died in the water (Mt.8:28-34). What is really happening here?

You have to look at the historical background. The Hebrew people left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea and spent forty years making that journey. On the way they had to fight foreign nations that had given themselves to idolatry and manufactured gods; their idols populated by evil spirits. Their journey was filled with compromised behavior and intermarriage with the nations they met along the way. Prophets were sent to them by God to correct them during that time. They finally crossed the Jordan arriving in a land populated by idolatrous peoples led by evil spirits.

What Jesus did in His own wilderness journey, was to use that past historical imagery, and through His teachings, healings and miracles, reclaim the real land that was lost, the spiritual land of the heart and its relationship with God and others. Israel’s history is our personal history. When Adam and Eve were barred from Eden, their relationship was fractured by sin and every human being thereafter was separated from God and others from birth. They felt alone, self-conscious, looked to blame God, started making excuses, rationalized and justified their down-sliding behavior. The same condition exists in us. Our lives and the present world are the result. Jesus came to restore what they had lost and what we never had before we accepted Jesus. Everything Jesus did and taught was a detailed program for the spiritual restoration of our personal mind, heart and spirit (the image of God in us) through a faith relationship with Him.

That’s what makes the Bible the authoritative document for everything spiritual. It contains everything necessary to deal with spirituality. Creation was personally designed and initiated spiritually by our spiritual God. So logically, it involves our personal beginning as well. We have a spiritual problem. It needs a spiritual solution. As Scripture shows, Jesus is the only One who can give it. He did it by His Cross and Resurrection and the Holy Spirit does the work in our heart.

Apply all this specifically to our world. The world being the people you and I come in contact with. Vs.3,” a time to kill and a time to heal” means there is something in us that needs dying and healing. A good start is our attitude. By attitude I mean the manner in which I meet every next moment. Do I have a first impression that makes a conclusion about someone I don’t know personally? Am I compulsive, fearful, brash, I know I’m right, just ask me, don’t care what anyone thinks, moody, sarcastic, critical, etc., etc. etc. Those are attitudes that populates the heart. The mind rationalizes and justifies them and the spirit acts on them building a wall around them. Then we avoid having to deal with them. Maybe we smile and just walk away.to ‘more important’ things we have to do. That process is called sin.

Sin has a host of evil attitudes we call spirits that inhabit behavior. They are the hidden demons we carry from our past. In a relationship with Jesus we are given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit develops Spiritude to heal us. We have been given a choice. When those attiudes pop up in us, we can drive them out. It’s time to kill them, drive them from our heart to die. The anti-relational walls they have built in us need to be torn down. Our hearts need rebuilding. Yes, there is “a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to rebuild.” “It is for [spiritual] freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal.5:1).” All our freedoms are based on that freedom.