Focus: Divine Injury

Text: Gen.32:25.

"He touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him."

Have you ever been touched by God and left permanently injured? I mean radically touched? I am not talking about feeling God. I am not talking about ordinarily knowing about God, but having an encounter with him that leaves a mark on you. That touch that is deep and total. The kind of encounter that takes something out of, and puts something else into you. Something leaves God to you. 

Do you remember the Biblical woman of issue of blood? On encountering Christ her chronic condition left her, and Jesus said, "Virtue has gone out of me." The result is that she was made whole, meaning that before the encounter her life was split into parts, and nothing was together.

But there's another kind of encounter in which the 'old you' is shattered and a 'new you' springs up from the rubble of the old. Christ enters your space, and divine crisis ensues. Ask the Virgin Mary. She has a story in this regard. From the moment Christ entered her space her world was torn apart. Nothing remained the same. Christ in her space was uncontainable, uncontrollable, and unmanageable, and she knew it. Simeon, by the Spirit, says to her, "(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" - Lk.2:35.

Christ in you is a mystery. Christ in you means tearing down the old man bit by bit and making room for the divine nature in you. It is the new wine in an old wine skin. It shatters. It's uncontainable in an old skin. Don't try controlling Christ; he controls you. "As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God." Amen.

(To be continued)

Bishop Moses E. Peter