“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5). Understanding what Jesus did for you on the cross will help you to connect your faith to God’s healing power. God loves you….He already made provisions for your body long before anybody ever thought you’d ever be around. That’s called a God who loves you, a God who cares, a God who’s on your side, a God who wants to make sure you are blessed in everything in your life. He wants you blessed in the city and blessed in the field. And most importantly, He wants you healed in your body. Isaiah says, “Surely, he bore your griefs….” The word “grief” means sickness, disease and pain. “Sorrow” means pains. In other words, surely He hath borne our sicknesses, diseases and pain. The word “borne” means to suffer punishment for something. So we can conclude that somebody deserved punishment, somebody deserved to suffer, somebody deserved to have cancer and AIDS and sickle cell and lung disease and heart disease, and other disease. Who was it? It was me and it was you. We were born in sin, our forefather’s sin, Adam’s sin. We deserved to have all that, but Jesus bore that punishment in our place on that cross. He took in his body every sickness, every disease, every pain, every AIDS, every cancer cell, every lung disease, every heart disease, every kind of sickness and disease for you and He bore it away for you. Why? So you don’t have to have it. With every stripe Jesus took on His back, He was looking at you. With every stripe He bore, Jesus was thinking about you, knowing that if He took it, you would not have to. Now that is love. You don’t have to be sick. You don’t have to die prematurely. You don’t have to lay down to the devil and say, there’s nothing I can do. There’s one who’s already done it for you. His name is Jesus. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. —-An excerpt from Daily Devotionals by Keith Butler