God does not heal us or make us whole so we can return with more vigor to our old ways of selfishness and sin. Though He leaves us free to decide, He heals us to live a fuller life in Him.

Jesus often told those he healed to go and sin no more. But He could say to all of us today, ” Go and do your own will no more, but live fully in mine.”

To go and do our own will, to live a life focused on what we can get for ourselves—whether honor, riches, praise or human indulgences of every sort—would be an act of ingratitude and a total misappropriation of the love and generosity of God.

Let us be deliberate in our own response when God restores us to wholeness. Let us give our thanks by always living his will. By putting the old man away and living as a new creation in Christ.