The Healing Word

Announcer: The Healing Word Ministry, on one place, is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Everybody that comes in contact with Jesus, I don't know whether we call it a virus of love or what, but love is communicated and you and I are carriers of love. If we are in Christ, indeed in Christ.

Announcer: Welcome to the Healing Word, a radio ministry of the Largo Community Church. Here's Pastor Jack Morris with today's message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: Love's healing power. You see, love has come to earth in Jesus. Earth is not a place of love until Jesus enters into that situation. But Jesus is the conduit of love. He let me let me put it maybe this way. You know, like a virus, you wear your your mask. You don't want to touch or come in contact unless you become inflicted with that virus. Well, everybody that comes in contact with Jesus, I don't know whether we can call it a virus of love or what, but love is communicated and you and I are carriers of love.

If we are in Christ, indeed in Christ. Carriers of love. Think of yourself as a carrier of love, bringing love everywhere you go. Love is a healing power. Where love is, God is. Now, listen. The scripture says in 1st John chapter 4 verse 16, there it is on the screen. Read those three words together in unison. Where love is, God is. Where God is, love is. And if God is in you, then love is in you and you can't help but explode it out like Jesus did when he was here on this earth. He came from another world.

So, remember this. Love is from another world. It's not of this world. It's from another world. How gracious he is to us and how much he cares for us and loves us. You see, when Jesus came, he came born of a virgin in a human body and that human body was the housing of eternal love. Love from God Almighty came embodied in Jesus. And wherever Jesus is, love is. And wherever love is, there is healing. Healing love. A great psychiatrist, well-known in psychiatric circles, Dr. Karl Menninger said this. Even a psychiatry knows it and a friend if you're a Christian and you don't know it, then in Jesus' name, listen to this message today because I wonder if some Christians actually know the love of Jesus Christ.

It it is something that will come forth. You can't hold it. You can't bottle it. God couldn't hold it in heaven. He had to send it to earth. But Karl Menninger said these words. Love has the power to cure both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. Now, listen. If a secular psychiatrist knows that, shouldn't you know that also? I mean, know it by experiencing it and by giving it forth and sharing it. I'm going to tell you a story about a lady, Catherine. Catherine worked in a Starbucks store. Catherine was well employed making wonderful salary until her little company was bought out by a bigger company and the larger company then led all the employees of the smaller company go.

Laid them all off. And she was unemployed. Her husband Al had resigned and was living in on retirement. And she was making a very good salary in this other company. Actually, she traveled all over the world giving lectures on the selling of medical equipment. She made a lot of money, but now she's laid off. And Al is retired and she's not bringing in any money at all. And so she's looking for a job and this story I'm telling you now happened well over 10 years ago when Catherine was 67 years old. I had to stop for a moment and think about it.

67 years old. That was 10 years ago. She was 67. He's getting up there now. But she needed a job and she looked and jobs back then at that time weren't plentiful at all. And her sister told her that the Starbucks are are Harry. And she said that I need a job with benefits. We must have benefits. And so she went to Starbucks and they hired her. The first day, she was so exhausted at the end of the day, she told her boss she said I don't think this job is for me. The boss was a Christian man and said Catherine, stay just 6 months.

Will you stay 6 months? She said for the next 20 days every day I told him I was going to retire. I was going to leave. And he would say just stay 6 more months. Just 6 more months. Which she did. She was they live over in Huntington, West Virginia now. She still works at Starbucks, but only 4 hours a day. She tells the story how that she said I I I couldn't memorize very quickly all of the fancy names of coffee. People would come in and ask for a certain coffee, a certain blend. She said that even take out their cell phone and show it to me.

This is what I want. This is not what you made me. This is what I want. She said she was bumping into these younger employees. They they were just literally bodily bump into each other. She said everybody in there was half her age and she said she just about had half the energy that these younger employees had. She said I couldn't remember where to where to put things away. I put them in the wrong places and then I couldn't find them. She said I had a terrible time and she said there was always those long lines.

Everybody in a hurry. Everybody got to go. Cars waiting outside. So, she said she tried to remember. She tried to think. And then after about a month of that, the month was now gone, she decided friend, you become pretty much in most cases, or I'll say in a lot of cases, what you decide you're going to do. If you're going to love, you're going to love. If you're not going to love, no one can bring it out of you. But she decided being a Christian, she said enough is enough. I'm going to go to work tomorrow and I'm going to smile.

And she said I'm going to speak to the customers. And she said I I did that. I've helped more energy. And she said I got to know them by their first name and there were regular ones coming in and I would look down at the end of the line and hey Joe, same thing as yesterday. And he would say yes and when he get to the counter, it would already be made. And she said that's how I started. And she said people I got to know, I got to know their birthdays. And she said while I was fixing coffee, they were standing waiting.

I would sing Happy Birthday to you fixing the coffee, singing Happy Birthday to them. She said one morning a lady came in that she had become acquainted with. She was so down. She was crying. She told her she said my husband died. She said I walked from behind the counter, put my arms around her and prayed for her. When's the last time you you really got close to somebody and prayed for them? A lot of hurting people. She prayed for them. She said she works at Starbucks. She said I wouldn't work any other place now.

And she said when I would make them their cup of coffee, every person coming through the line, I would hand that cup of coffee to them early in the morning and I would say here's a cup of love. Here's a cup of love. And she said it caught on. Friend, be a love carrier. Be a carrier of love. You can carry a virus. Surely you can carry the spirit of Jesus. The spirit of love. Come on, somebody say praise the Lord.

Guest (Male): Praise the Lord.

Pastor Jack Morris: Praise the Lord. Love is contagious. Come on, everybody smile. Come on, look at you. Look at it. Look at one another. Put a smile on your face. Jesus smiled. Somebody said Jesus never smiled. Well, yes he did. He had to because children would go to him. They loved him and children don't go to sourpuss faces. Jesus always had a big smile. He had God's joy in his heart. But the absence of love or the presence of love brings about something in your emotions, even in your body. Love. Years ago, there was a lady here at the church named Elaine Saunders.

Some of you may remember her, but I think the majority of us don't. But when you go out into the narthex or the lobby, look at the information counter. Elaine Saunders' name is a plaque on that counter. That counter was placed there in memory of her. She was a saint. Do you know that there are saints that walk through the Largo Community Church? Yeah. Saints of God, people who are sanctified, who have been set apart by the love of God and now have the love of God in them. But here is Elaine Saunders. She was a saint, a wonderful lady.

And I remember coming to this altar with her. It must have been before a service or after a service, but people were milling around. And she had breast cancer and she eventually died of breast cancer. Kept coming back. And she left this world and I know where Elaine is today. But Elaine worked over on South Dakota Avenue or beyond South Dakota, but every not I don't know whether it was every evening, but when she would come home, she would go by South Dakota Avenue to the children's six six sick children's hospital. And she would go in and she would hold the babies and love the babies and just rock the babies, Elaine would.

See, she was given away love. Research is has it well established that babies who don't receive love, I mean true love, very often die. The first they one of the first things they stop is they stop cooing to the person that is holding them or or taking care of them. Uh they they these babies need hugging and Elaine would hug them. And and then the baby baby will stop eating and then the baby will not make any sound at all and the baby will become just completely limp. And then it's just a matter of time until the baby dies.

From the time we're born in this world, we need love. God is love. God is love. And this is the important thing, friend. The person who receives love receives healing in their emotions, even in their bodies. And the person who gives love also receives love and receives healing. Even Karl Dr. Karl Menninger said the one who gives it and the one who receives it, they both receive love. So, friend, if you want to get well and be happy, then be a person of Jesus, a person of love. There was a woman patient in in Sweden.

This happened a few years back, but not many years back. And this woman was an old lady, elderly lady. And she was in the hospital for 3 years. And nobody liked her. Nobody liked this lady. The nurses didn't like her. The nurses tried to stay away from her and tried to avoid her. And all this lady would do would sit in a rocker all day long and rock with her eyes closed. And people would only come by and minister or serve her when they had to. Well, they hired a new nurse. And this new nurse saw the condition, heard about the condition.

And you know what the new nurse did? Got a rocking chair and pulled it right up alongside of the elderly lady's rocking chair and she just started rocking with her. Hey, think about it, friend. Give somebody a little bit of time other than just family. I mean, somebody who needs love. And she just rocked. And ever so often, the new nurse would reach over and just pat the old lady on her hand. And after a few days, that elderly lady opened her eyes. Nobody remembers her opening her eyes or speaking for 3 years in that hospital.

And she opened her eyes and turned to that new nurse and said you are very kind. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody say that to you? You are very kind. And now this what happens doesn't always happen. It may or may not. I'm I'm not here to say it's going to happen. But in 2 weeks after 3 years, that elderly lady went home. Love has healing power in it. And love just doesn't happen in the air. It happens in your mind and your heart, in my mind and my heart. Love is the greatest force on earth.

We think that military, politics, finances, education, this is power. Well, it is power, but it is very limited power and it doesn't go very far. But love never fails. Isn't that what it says?

Guest (Male): Yeah.

Pastor Jack Morris: Love never fails. It never runs out of energy. It never fails. That nurse tried unconditional love. And it worked. And it healed. Sometimes when we anoint a person and ask God to bring about healing, healing can't get in unless love is in there. Healing and love unite to bring glory to God and salvation to the body and to the soul and to the mind. Hey, be a carrier. Be a carrier of love. When we come to this altar, if this isn't love, then the oceans dry. If this isn't love, then sparrows don't fly. Remember the song?

This is love. And you and I come and we take it and we take it and we take it and there are sick, hurting, lost people all around us and we just keep taking it like it's only for me. It's for me to share and to give and to bless others. You become Jesus to a hurting world. Love comes to earth. Love came from heaven. Love. Love is the product of another world. The world that you are claiming you're going to very shortly. I hope you get there because it's a world of love. And I don't want you to feel out of place up there.

Jesus cares for you now that he cares for all people also. Jesus brought God's love and came in a human body in this world. What do we have here? Hate? Bloodshed? People shooting each other, killing each other, prejudice, racism? Do you love this world? We must we keep praying Lord, heal me. I don't want to die. Be blessed with God's love. Jesus was a carrier. He was infected with love. He was filled with love. God infect all of us here this morning. When we come to this altar, remember God loved you and he expects you to do something with this event.

Don't just take it and get up and walk out and be the same person. No. This this altar changes hearts. It changes lives. Like the song says, go ahead, drive the nails in my hand. Go ahead, drive the nails in my hand. Can you say to somebody that ignores you, go ahead and ignore me, but I won't ignore you because Jesus won't ignore you. And I don't ignore people that Jesus won't ignore. You may not need to say that to anybody but to yourself and to the Lord who knows you don't have his love in you.

Go ahead, Jesus said. Drive the nails in my hand cuz I'll rise again. Hate no power on earth can tie me down. Death can't keep me in the ground. Come on, friend. Enjoy a blessed resurrection today and become the person that at least we say we are. The person that Jesus is and be filled with Jesus. Just give him another body to live in, your body. And go out and enjoy the blessing of God and spread the joy and the blessing of God. We're going to come to the altar just a moment. We're going to kneel or some of us are.

Some of us are going to stay in the pew. But I want you to experience God's love today. I want you to experience something beyond a little wafer and a little grape juice. This is nothing unless your mind is stayed on Jesus. But this can have healing power if you become a conduit of Jesus healing. And if you're sick today, remember this. God's love. Coming through the word, through the worship, through the singing, through the praying and through one another. There's some sick people in here this morning. There's some sick people having some very serious problems.

Catherine, the Starbucks woman, while she was working at Starbucks, her husband contracted a a dread blood disorder and had to have one of his legs amputated. And her boss that stayed there and kept encouraging her. After about the third time, she would come up to maybe me or you and say I've I've got to leave this job. We would say I've heard enough about it. Go ahead and leave it. No, he would say stay here. Stay here. And she stayed and she loved all those people. And people were healed and blessed and she prayed for those that were were comfortable with the prayer.

But her husband lost his leg. And Catherine went over to the hospital and there she waited. And in walked her boss. Go to the hospital and love somebody. Rock a baby. Put your arms around somebody here today and give them a hug. Go out of your way. Let me go out of my way to love and to hug and to embrace. And I know some of you don't want to be touching one another yet and that's all right. But you can at least smile at a distance, pray at a distance. There's a lot more you can do other than just run off and wait for something else.

No, God is here. And you are here. And you've heard the truth. God is love. Praise the Lord.

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