SCARS

(Part 2)

By Dr. Victoria Moots

The amount of scar tissue formed depends on how deep and how wide the wound is. That means something to us spiritually also. Eph. 3:18-19 tell us of the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of God which passes knowledge. What does that mean to us? It means that no matter how deep, how wide your emotional scar is, His love can go deeper, can go wider than anything you have ever experienced. Why? Because Jesus experienced all our emotions. He became a man; He became like us. He suffered emotional wounds. His friends turned against him, He was betrayed, He experienced grief, His father died, He thirsted, He hungered, He was tired. There is nothing that you have experienced that Jesus hasn’t already experienced for you. And so His love is deeper, higher, wider than our wounds. It passes our knowledge to understand that. We just need to experience it. How do we comprehend it then if it passes knowledge? We lay hold of it by experience, then we know how great his love is. Whatever emotional need you have, don’t think that He can’t heal it. His love goes deeper and wider, and then He draws us up to Him, just like the fibroblasts. He draws us to Him to bring about the healing.

So scars are necessary. We need to not pick at the scab, not get impatient, give the Lord time to work in our lives.
We need to keep hands off both physically and spiritually as I said before.

The scars of Jesus tell a story of love and obedience to the will of His Father. He could have avoided them. But what did He pray in the garden? “Not my will but thine be done.” He said, “I come to do thy will oh God.” So he went through the process of obtaining those scars because of His love for us. The scars in his hands will be seen by the world. But he had another wound. The scar from the wound that pierced his heart was only seen by those who were close and intimate with Him. He was behind closed doors because in order to show that wound, he had to pull apart his clothing, to partially disrobe. Only those that were close to him and became familiar with Him were allowed to touch His wound.

In Phil. 3:10 we read that Paul desired to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering. He desired to be close and intimate with the Lord. He wanted to know Him in the power of his resurrection. The power of his resurrection was evidenced by the fact that he had scars in his hands and side. Paul said I want more than just evidence, I want to fellowship with his suffering, being made comfortable to his death. He wanted to enter in to the suffering, that Jesus experienced, not just the physical suffering, when the soldier took that spear and pierced into his heart. He wanted to understand the emotional pain that Jesus experienced when He hung there on the cross, the emotional pain of being made sin. He wanted to enter into that kind of suffering. If you just wanted to enter into the physical suffering you could just take a nail and hammer it into your hand. That wouldn’t even begin to compare to His suffering. The physical suffering, though very great, was only part of the suffering he experienced. The other part was that he had to be made sin for us and He willingly did that. If we want to know Him like Paul did, then we will get behind closed doors and we will handle Him. Paul said in Gal 6:17 “I bear in my body the mark of the Lord Jesus,” he gloried in the scars that he received as a result of preaching the cross because it glorified Christ. He gloried in the cross. He didn’t want to know anything except the cross.

We can glory in the scars that we have received after we have healed as it glorifies Christ. It is Christ in us. God allows circumstances in our lives that sometimes hurt us and leave scars. As we yield to the healing process, the scars can become testimonies of the Christ life in us, the resurrected life of Christ life in us.

I have a friend who had been in prison who was always afraid that people would bring it up to him. They would keep picking off the scab and causing pain. I told him that you need to turn it over to the Lord and turn it into a testimony. The next time someone says something you need to say, “I’m so glad you brought that up because I want to tell you what the Lord did for me while I was in prison. If I hadn’t gone to prison I wouldn’t have had healing for my soul.” Then they can quit talking about it because they don’t want to hear your testimony. You can do the same thing whenever someone tries to bring up some things in your face. You can, through the power of the Holy Spirit, turn that scar into a testimony. God doesn’t remove the scars. They are there for a reason.

Did you know that Jesus had no scars before he was crucified? How can I say that? Only the risen Christ had scars. As the Lamb of God, He was without blemish or spot. So that means He had no scars. He was perfect. In Exodus 12:5 it tells us the Passover lamb had to be without blemish or spot. In I Peter 1:18-19 it reminds us that Christ was that perfect lamb. He had no scars. He was slain as the Passover Lamb for our sin. That’s where he obtained these scars. Now He will bear those scars for eternity. Why? As a reminder to us and to the world that our sins will not be remembered and that we will not be forgotten. Those scars are His for eternity.

Will ours be? I will answer that question later. So why are those scars in His hands now? In Isaiah 49:16 it says, “Behold I have graven Thee in the palms of my hands.” What does that mean? The nail scars! When He looks at His hands, He sees us. He says, “That’s Vicky, I died for her.” When He looks at His hands He sees each one of us individually. You can put your name in there. Those scars are His for eternity.

In the natural people don’t want scars. They feel they mar their appearance. Surgeons and lawyers get rich from scars because our of vanity and pride. We desire the flesh to be perfect on the outside. Billions of dollars are spent on cosmetics and plastic surgery to cover up or try to remove scars. Are we doing the same thing spiritually, trying to cover up our scars?

The scripture says that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. That means you are going to have scars. Some will have physical scars for suffering for Jesus, some will have emotional scars but you are going to have scars and you are going to have suffering. Why? That we may reign with Him. As we yield to the Lord we are going to accumulate scars, many scars. Those scars in our lives are marks of obedience to the will of God. We learn to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering. When our suffering gets to be too great for us we can get behind closed doors with Jesus, and get close and intimate with the Lord and say to Him, “You have those scars because of me, Thank you Lord. I thank you for the scars that I have received because you are conforming me to your image.”

So do we have enough scars in our lives that the world could identify the Christ Life in us? Are we covering those scars up; are we hiding them? Or are we allowing the Holy Spirit to use them as testimonies of healing? Don’t hide your scars. The flesh is not perfect. He takes away the old and gives us the new; we are regenerated. Someday our sin and suffering scarred bodies will be healed. We are going to have glorified bodies and I know we will not have scars in those bodies. Why? Because the scripture says we are going to become His spotless Bride. No scars! So until then, let’s allow scars to become testimonies of what Christ has done in our lives, what He’s done for us and in us.