Martha Olawale

“When Jesus heard this, He told them, “Those who are well don’t need a doctor, but the sick do need one. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17

It isn’t easy to think of perfection in the world we live in now. Each time we flip through our news feed, something is tugging at our heart’s core. There are wars around us, and injustice in our human systems is a daily struggle. The evil permeating people's hearts is unimaginable, forcing us to ask, “How does this end?”

Our world is so lopsided that we only need to look in the mirror to see her utter brokenness. Despite the constant pursuit of self-satisfaction, nothing feels good enough. We can adorn our lusty flesh with all its demands and still feel empty. The more we fill, the emptier we feel.

The fall of man in the Garden of Eden left our souls wounded. It left us longing for more of everything to replace the satisfaction of communing with our Heavenly Father. While we can complement our earthly desires with worldly gains, the core of humanity links our soul to the creator. And until the soul of any man finds healing through the thirty-nine stripes of Christ’s suffering, the longing for satisfaction can’t stop.

As deteriorated as today's world, it was not so in the beginning. In Genesis 1:31a, the Bible states, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” God made the world a perfect place, and man was the perfect icing on the cake made by a perfect God.

It's easy for us to get caught up in the earthly benefits of walking with God (sound health and provisions), and we forget that our overall prosperity hinges on the health of our souls (3 John 2). Jesus exchanged His beautiful scars for our wounded souls and died to restore humanity to God. The gravity of this truth is evident in the fact that God didn’t have to come down to set the Israelites free in Egypt, nor did He have to die to make King David one of the wealthiest men that ever lived. But He needed to abandon Heaven to die for our sins and restore our relationship with Him. Isaiah 53:5 states, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…. and by His stripes, we were healed.”

Christ’s crucifixion is the ultimate sacrifice, and the walk to Golgotha measures beyond anything, even our ability to live well here on Earth. Although there are stories of healing and blessings in the pages of the scriptures before the birth of Christ, the story of redemption was completed on the cross at Calvary. The death of Christ marks the end of our struggle to find our way back to God and the beginning of the eternal fellowship that connects our souls to our maker.