“What have you gotten into that has made you forget that you belong?”
This quote sums up the entire message that Noelle Garcia conveyed to the conference this evening. What struggles have caused distance between us and Christ? What has made us forget that He loves us and longs for us to live in relationship with Him?
Noelle, after sharing some crazy stories about her family, brought to mind another story. The raising of Lazarus. Jesus went to Judea and was told by Martha that Lazarus was dead, and even blamed Jesus for not being there sooner. After this, Jesus told Lazarus to rise and exit his tomb. And Lazarus did just that.
Why did Jesus let Lazarus die? Noelle said that it’s because Jesus heals. Jesus can heal any wound and brokenness we bring to him. We just have to ask for forgiveness and allow ourselves to be healed by Him.
Here’s the cool part – not only does Jesus want us to be healed from our struggles, but He walks with us in our struggles. Noelle pointed out that sometimes in our suffering we are tempted to blame God. We ask sometimes, “God, why did you let this terrible thing happen to me?”
Noelle shared that, “God does not promise a lack of suffering He promises to walk with you and give you peace.” She then said that if Jesus took away every bit of suffering in our lives, we would not be free to choose him. And the fact is sometimes we just choose other things before Christ.
“God aches for us.” Noelle then said that nothing could separate us from the love of God. Not even death. “You don’t get to stay lost.” The name of Jesus has power and if we are lost all we need is to call upon His name. If we need to say sorry for separating ourselves from His love, then we have to go to Confession.
Jesus came to seek out those who need to be saved. So let us call upon His name knowing that our hearts need healing, sometimes so desperately, and ask to be healed by our Lord!
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