Look Intently

I want to show you something powerful in the story of Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness when the children of Israel were bitten by snakes. I believe it is going to release you to partake of the holy Communion with greater revelation each time you come to the Lord’s Table.

In the Numbers 21 account of this story, we read that even though many were killed by the snakebites, anyone among the children of Israel who looked at the bronze serpent was healed. The Hebrew word used for look in Numbers 21:9 is nabat, which means to “look intently at.”

In the same way, when you partake of the holy Communion, be conscious of Jesus and how He bore all your sins and sicknesses in His own body. Don’t partake with consciousness of the symptoms in your body.

Beloved, I know that the waves of nausea that immobilize you are real. The shortness of breath you have been struggling with is real. The pain that slices through your head with every move is real, just as the painful bites from the fiery serpents were real for the children of Israel.

Right now, I pray that every pain and every discomfort be removed from your body in the mighty name of Jesus. Our Lord Jesus called healing “the children’s bread” (Matt. 15:26). If you are a child of God, healing belongs to you.

But my friend, your healing will not come from focusing on your condition. Your healing will come as you do what the children of Israel did—they looked away from their wounds and looked at the bronze serpent lifted up on the pole.

Today, as you partake of the Communion, partake in remembrance of your Lord Jesus and not in remembrance of your pain. Look to Him intently and with the expectation He will save you and heal you.

See Him lifted on the cross, being judged with your disease. If you have a problem with your kidney, see Jesus’ kidney smitten with your disease at the cross. If you have a degenerative condition in your spine, see Jesus’ spine smitten with that condition at the cross.

When you see Jesus’ body smitten with your disease, it cannot remain in you. Even if you have a “terminal” disease others have died from, look to Him and receive your healing!

This devotional is taken from the book The Healing Power of the Holy Communion—A 90-Day Devotional.