The Beauty of Scripture

Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment ~ Matthew 9:22   There are so many beautiful stories which surround our Lord, but for me, this one and the woman at the well in Luke attract me beyond all the others. In her culture, this woman was ostracized. She would not have had a touch, a look, a friend or a spouse, for she was dirty and “unclean”. Not only that, but an impure woman would not dare touch a man’s garment, for in her touch, they would become defiled and would not be able to perform their religious tasks, or enter the temple to worship. But, reach out and touch him she did, and in her act, she was made whole. What made her reach out? What caused her to look beyond her circumstances and her fear to even dare to do such a thing? Certainly, she must have known Jesus had healed others by His touching them, but for her to reach out and do the touching? That is faith! No wonder Jesus turned...

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed ~ Isaiah 53:4, 5   Many other faiths believe in Jesus Christ in some way. For the Isalm, He is a most-beloved prophet; the Druze faith (an Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious group) believe Jesus is one of God’s important prophets and the Messiah; the Baha’i Faith believe him to be one of the manifestations of God. Buddhism and other world faith’s have no real interest or view of who Jesus is. Christianity is the only faith group which sees Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah and Redeemer, the Lamb that took our sins and was slain in our stead. We as Christians are the only faith group to have a Saviour which died for us; no other religion lays such a claim to their leader. We are indeed saved by grace. Je...

The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him ~ Nahum 1:7   Faith brings us into a relationship with God, and with that comes his blessedness. To trust God means that we have placed our full confidence in him, that we have submitted to his laws and his ways, that we have received him fully in all that we are and have. The Lord is one we can trust in for he is good. In times of trouble he is our comforter. When we suffer calamities of life, and if we happen then to indulge in thoughts of whether God cares, or if God really is good, our hearts become alienated from God. We become impatient, we murmur and complain, we doubt. We may all have those feelings at one time or another, but to let them remain within us blocks our reception to the Holy Spirit. We learn from these times, hopefully, and our hearts learn to trust in the God of the good times and the bad. In our bad times, God reveals himself to us in a different way – as our stronghold, a...

Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise ~ Jeremiah 17:14   This is a cry for help, for healing, and for saving grace. It is one who is expressing a deep concern about salvation, and a sincere desire to receive that which they are asking for. It is the cry of one whom it seems is at the bottom of the barrel and has no where to turn but to the Lord for help. Most often, that is the place we have to reach before we do cry out for God’s aid. For some of us, we cannot reach back to God unless everything has been stripped away from us that is temporal. Then we stretch our soul toward God for him to Heal and Save, two words our world is crying out right now. We are living in a very sick world in these days with this pandemic, but not only with the pandemic, but our moral compass is way off base as well. We must cry out for God’s forgiveness! God’s healing, which goes deeper than the healing of a physical sickness, deeper than bodi...

Lord  my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me ~ Psalm 30:2   In your times of distress and trouble, where do you turn? David knew the God who would deliver him, and save him from his trouble, and if you believe in Jesus as I do, you too know whom you can turn to when you need help. We are living in a world right now which is in desperate need of help and healing! From what I read, at this point there are more than sixteen million people infected by COVID-19 with more than 648,000 deaths! Not only that, but because of COVID-19, many people are unemployed and at least 265 million people are at risk of famine, as states the Dennison Forum. On top of that, people are losing their businesses; I expect they will also lose their homes due to the inability to make mortgage payments, and the devastating list goes on! I myself and healthy and know no one directly who has suffered in such ways, but more and more people are in the category of first-hand knowledge of such p...

In a loud voice they were saying:  “Worthy is the Lamb,   who was slain,   to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength    and honor and glory and praise!” ~ Revelation 5:12 Seven in the Bible is the number of perfection, and here are seven attributes given to Jesus Christ, but though these “receivables” are perfect they can in no wise fully describe the worthiness of the Lamb of God. However, the angels are singing or saying the praises of the Lamb of God with exuberant voices which could be heard in the all of heaven. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain for our sins, who took on our pain and shame. To Him belongs the power to rule over all things. Many in our world believe power should be theirs, others are given power by others, but not one of us deserves the power over all things or can live up to receiving that power without corruption. Jesus however can and does receive this power. Wealth or abundance too belongs to Him, for He owns all things. We clai...

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,   neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord ~ Romans 8:38, 39   The Apostle Paul is utterly and complete convinced of God’s love and care. He puts forth a series of contrasts to encapsulate the all of life we may encounter so as to leave nothing untouched by the love of God. If we were to suffer the most painful trial of persecution in death, or to encounter angels (and here, Paul is not thinking about good angels, but of evil spirits), or any other powers, none of these should separate us from the love of God. Are you so confident in God’s love? These are such comforting words in times of difficulty when so much we do in this life can at times separate us from each other. We are living in a time that is becoming called “Covid fatigue” because...

He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken ~ Isaiah 25:8   In 1 Corinthians 15:54, the Apostle Paul gives an overview of the first part of this verse when he says, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’" Paul, here, is referring to the resurrection of Jesus, and in that event, death ceased to have its power and triumph. In Isaiah’s time of writing, the land of Israel was under the effects of war, with the promise of peace coming with the Messiah. Forever, or victoriously, death will be vanquished permanently as something they longed and looked for. What a day that will be, they declare! When not one will have to face the death of a loved one again, or their own death, and when all the disgrace from the earth ...

“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. “For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions” ~ Daniel 6:26, 27   How wonderful will be the day when this mandate is over the whole of the world – that every man, woman and child must worship the God of Daniel! It will happen when the New Jerusalem takes place, when Jesus returns and claims this world as His. We who believe in Him long for that day! Ever more so our world is taking on every other god there is, and they follow blindly. I was just reading an article about Christian believers in China and how they are increasingly persecuted for believing in Jesus Christ. We must keep them in prayer as they stand up for Jesus and live in constant fear of the government and its p...

The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? ~ Psalm 27:1   Today is a cloudy and rainy day, a day so dark that I really need a light on in my home to bring any semblance of brightness to it. Darkness is the emblem of trouble, distress, sorrow. Do you ever have those days when all seems dark? Especially in these days of covid when life is having a real struggle to come back to some kind of normal. The news is depressing to listen to, the world is a mess of emotional upheaval, and every time we seem to take a step forward we end up taking two steps back with covid. Yet, there is a light that cannot be extinguished, a light which is my source. David knew this light as Yahweh, we know this light as Jesus Christ. He saves and delivers me from the darkness around me. The psalm is entitled in most Bibles as ‘To or For David’. The Syriac has, ‘For David on Account of an Infirmity that Befell him’. David kne...