A HEALING HOME
God loves homes. Of course, He does. He designed the first home and He wants all His people to be settled in a home. The Bible is filled with references about living and eating together in our homes.
The word “dwell” occurs 468 times in the Bible. I also discovered 31 different Hebrew words and 16 different Greek words, each revealing different truths about dwelling in our homes. As I continued to search, I found 23 Hebrew words and 31 Greek words in the New Testament about eating meals and sitting around our tables. That’s over 100 words! And I am sure I haven’t exhausted my limited study.
Can I share one of these words with you? It’s a new discovery to me. I found this word in a story Jesus told about the master of the house looking for a wise manager to care for his household while he travels away (Luke 12:42).
The word for household in this story is therapeia. It is the source of our English word therapy. It means “serving, attending to medical needs, curing, healing.” In other words, our homes should be homes of healing. This takes motherhood to another level. You are a healer in your home, bringing healing to the body, mind, soul, and spirit of each individual.
Begin to see yourself as a healer. Look upon your home as a healing home. We live in a sinful world where sickness and sin often mar relationships and family lives. However, although the devil wants to destroy, God loves to restore and heal. He wants to anoint us with His healing anointing to make our homes places of healing. Our job as mothers is to continually watch for every weakness, every hurt, every gap in the breech—and to bring healing.
It’s a similar picture to the word “fold” in the Old Testament. In Ezekiel 34 God promises to bring His scattered people back to their folds (to their homes). The word “fold” is the Hebrew word naveh and is used to describe home—God’s home, our homes, and even homes for flocks and wild animals. God wants all His creation to enjoy a home. A lovely home. Yes, this word means, “lovely, pleasant, satisfying.”
God was angry with the shepherds of Israel because they did not feed their flocks and guard their folds. He says: “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! (notice the exclamation mark!) should not the shepherds feed the flocks?” (Ezekiel 34:2).
The same exhortation comes to us as mothers as He warns again in verses 3-8:
You have not fed your flock,
You have not strengthened the weak,
You have not healed the sick,
You have not bound up the broken,
You have not brought back the strays,
You have not sought to go after the lost,
You have let your flock be scattered,
You have let your flock become a prey, meat to every beast of the field.
The above admonitions are part of our mothering and healing anointing.
The word therapeia occurs only two other times in the Bible and both are about healing:
Luke 9:11 where Jesus “spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing (therapeia).”
Revelation 22:1, 2 where it talks about “the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing (therapeia) of the nations.” When we bring healing to our marriages and families, we ultimately bring healing to the nations. Such is the power of healing homes.
Let’s look at a few ways we can bring healing to our homes.
1. HEALING WORDS
We have power to heal or destroy with our words. You are either enjoying or enduring your marriage according to the words you have spoken and are speaking to one another. Is your marriage unhealthy? You can build it up again with healing words. Are your children exasperating you? You can see their lives change with healing words.
Proverbs 15:4: “A wholesome (marpe) tongue is tree of life.” The word marpe is similar to thereapeia. It means “a cure, medicine, therapeutic and healing.” Your words can heal wounds, bring comfort, lift up sad hearts, and inspire to greatness.
Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health (marpe) to the bones.”
Proverbs 12:18: “The tongue of the wise is health” (marpe).
Proverbs 13:17: “A faithful ambassador is health” (marpe).
Proverbs 12:25 (TLB): “A word of encouragement does WONDERS.”
2. HEALING TOUCH
Your loving touch can bind up the brokenhearted and revive crushed spirits. The power of touch begins at the birth of a baby and continues throughout life. A baby that is not touched will not grow or develop normally. Touch is necessary for the health of all relationships. Science proves that to be touched, patted, hugged, and caressed slows your heart rate, decreases your blood pressure, strengthens your immune system, and halts the progress of disease!
Affectionate touch releases oxytocin, that wonderful calming, stress relieving, bonding, and love hormone. You can’t get too much of oxytocin! When we show affectionate love to one another through skin contact (the largest organ in our body), that physical touch also ministers to our soul and emotions.
Of course, the Bible is far ahead of science. God understands the power of touch and has already shown us how He wants us to live. Titus 2:3-5 tells the older women to teach the younger women how to “love their husbands” and “love their children.”
The word for “love your husband” is philandros, meaning “to be friendly (seek to be your husband’s best friend) to show tangible love by touching, cuddling, hugging, and caressing.” The word for “love your children” is philoteknos meaning “to show maternal, affectionate, and physical love to your children.”
We naturally do this with our little babies and toddlers, but we must remember to continue this tangible affection as they grow older. That’s the wonderful thing about having another baby. Breastfeeding mothers are inundated with the wonderful love hormones of oxytocin and prolactin which release floods of love, not only for the new baby, but spreading to the rest of the children, even the older ones.
That’s why daycares are such a counterfeit. Children are protected and fed, but they are deprived of a mother’s continual healing and loving caresses and cuddles throughout the day.
3. HEALING EXPRESSIONS
The way you look at your husband and children brings healing or disappointment to them. How often do you smile? Do you smile at your husband each time you look at him? Do you continually smile at your children? Smiles are healing and powerful. Frowns are negative and destructive.
4. HEALING FOODS
We cannot have a healing home without serving healing foods. We as mothers have a responsibility to learn and study the best foods to feed our husbands and children. One of the most common words in the New Testament for food is trophe which simply means “nourishment.” Therefore, if the food we give to our families does not nourish them, we can’t call it food!
It is not in God’s heart to dish up inferior food. He leads His people to “good pasture” (Psalm 23:2; 103:5; and Ezekiel 34:14).
I am surprised to see mothers allowing their children to drink sugar-filled pop! And they fill their pantries with sugar-filled, chemical-filled, packaged, and devitalized “white” foods. Do they not read the ingredients? I don’t believe we should take a package off the shelf without first reading the ingredients.
Refined sugar is the root of many diseases and most processed foods are filled with it. And what about all the words you cannot even pronounce? Most of them are chemicals and even cancer-forming. And yet many mothers think they are food! Let’s throw out all the “whites” and start thinking “nourishment.” Serve your family fresh foods, wholesome foods, nutrient rich foods.
But I hear many mothers saying, “I can’t afford healthy foods!” I don’t believe it. Healthy foods are basic. It is less expensive to purchase some good Old Fashioned Oats and cook it up for your family for breakfast than purchase packaged cereals. I don’t know how families can afford to buy packaged cereals. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t anyway.
Eggs are nutritious and cheap. Cook them for your children rather than the more expensive packaged foods. Keep to the basics of ground beef, brown rice, legumes, and loads of vegetables and fruit. Add extra “healthy” foods as you are able, but you won’t go broke on the basics if you are running short of money. And you’ll have less medical expenses.
5. HEALING TABLE
The table in your home is a place to bring healing to your family. God intends us to eat food together. Around the table. Yes, this is the picture God gives of a family—sitting around the table together (Psalm 128:3). I love how one writer calls it
We come together, not only to eat, but to enjoy one another. Make your table a place that draws the family. Spread a tablecloth. Start saving pretty tablecloths (even from secondhand shops). Light candles. Come prepared with a question or subject to discuss together at the table.
We don’t gain any benefit from eating in isolation. We find healing in gathering together. Nor do we find healing from iPhones. They are inanimate objects. True fellowship is not clicking Like and adding “friends” on Facebook and Instagram. It’s another counterfeit for the real thing like so much in our society today. Please don’t allow iPhones at your table. They are the height of rudeness. We are to be engaged with one another.
Acts 14:17 says: “Nevertheless He (God) left not himself without witness, in that he did GOOD , and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, FILLING OUR HEARTS WITH FOOD AND GLADNESS.” Do you notice that food is meant to fill our hearts as well as our stomachs? If it doesn’t feed the soul as well, it has not fulfilled its true purpose.
Food is not meant to stand alone. God associates food with soul nourishment. Do you get bored at mealtimes? Invite another family to join you. At least once a week. It adds spice to your life as well as gladness and joy.
6. HEALING TRUTH
How blessed we are to have God’s Word. As we fill our hearts and minds with His Word, it brings healing to our souls. It brings healing to our children’s souls and spirits. Proverbs 4:20-22 says: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and HEALTH to all their flesh.” Once again, the word “health” is marpe meaning “cure, medicine, healing.”
This is why we love to read God’s Word at the end of our meals as we sit around the table together. We feed our bodies with natural food, but we dare not allow our children to leave the table before we serve food for their inner souls. It is impossible for them to be healthy spiritually without receiving daily infillings of God’s healing truths. Although the amazing thing is that this Scripture tells us that God’s Word not only makes us healthy spiritually, but physically as well. It’s health to our flesh!
If we are building a healing home, we’ll be filling it with God’s Word. We’ll be filling our souls and bodies with His Word. We’ll be richly filling our children with His Word (Colossians 3:16). We can’t have a healthy body without having a healthy heart. Proverbs 14:30 says: “A sound (marpe) heart is the life of the flesh.”
Psalm 107:20: “He sent forth his word, and HEALED them, and delivered them from their destructions.”
7. HEALING PRAYERS
Jesus not only prayed for people to be healed, but laid His hands upon them. Touching, anointing with oil, and praying all go together to bring healing to people. Jesus not only healed everyone who came to Him, but He also gave us His authority to bring healing to people.
A twin word to therapeia is therapeuo. It means “to serve, to restore to health, to care for, to wait upon, to treat medically, to heal.” This word is constantly used when Jesus healed people, e.g. Matthew 95 and Luke 4:40. But Jesus also used this word when He commissioned his disciples to bring healing to people.
Mark 3:14, 15: “And he (Jesus) ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, And to have power to heal (therapeuo) sicknesses, and to cast out devils.” The word “power” is exousia and means “permission, authority, executive power.” Jesus passed on His authority to His disciples, and to us, His disciples today.
Luke 9:1: “He (Jesus) gave them power (dunamis) and authority (exousia) over all devils, and to cure (therapeuo) diseases.”
James 5:14-16 gives us God’s mandate for healing in our homes and amongst the people of God: “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
8. HEALING LOVE
There is nothing more powerful than God’s love. God’s love forgives, restores, heals, and makes us whole. As He heals our souls, we reach out with His love to heal those around us. No matter what the situation, no matter how bad the relationship, it is not too hard for God’s love to heal. And He wants to heal through us—as we forgive those who have wronged us, bless those who have spoken against us and slighted us, and love those who hate us and speak against us. Love always conquers.
We release healing with phileo love (affectionate and friendship love). We release healing with eros love (sexual love) in the sanctity and protection of marriage. This love has the power to heal emotional pain and even physical pain. But most of all, when our natural love runs out, we love and pour out healing with agape love, God’s unboundless love which loves in the face of hatred, hostility, rejection, and resistance. We love with the beautiful name of Jesus for His name “is as ointment poured forth” (Song 1:3).
Let’s build healing homes and consequently heal the nations.
And remember, your meal table should be “face to face table fellowship.”
NANCY CAMPBELL
To discover 20 things that God associates food with in the Bible, go to FOOD TWINS.
https://tinyurl.com/DinnerTimeConversations
