Archive for Jesus
Making the Right Choice
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We make a thousand choices every day, beginning from the first moment our eyes open.
Will I get up now?
Or will I stay in bed a little longer?
Will I drink one cup of coffee or two?
Creamer or black?
Breakfast or not?
Check my email?
Facebook?
Twitter?
Shower?
Wash my hair?
Read my Bible?
Meditate?
Exercise?
In fact, our ability to choose is one of the ways that we are made in the image of God and it is one of the things that has confounded mankind for centuries. Why would God give us the ability – and the right- to choose incorrectly? Why would God allow us to make choices that would harm us – even to the extent of choosing heaven or hell? Well, that is a theological debate for another day – or not – I’ll choose later:)
I’ve often heard it said we make our own choices, and then those choices make us. How painfully true I’ve found that to be at times! But on the flip side, our good choices make room for a good results in our lives.
Jesus, the Healer of Broken Hearts
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If we believe that God is purposeful in His actions, then how significant is the fact that the first words of the first message Jesus preached were, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because … He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted…”? (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus came to heal broken hearts and not only as a side benefit; it’s one of his life purposes! That’s good news because all of us who are in this world have experienced the pain of having our hearts broken in one way or another. If we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we find that he moves throughout his days interacting with humanity and healing broken hearts. That healing takes many expressions. Today I want to look at how Jesus healed the heart of a woman as recorded in John 4 and what that healing means for us now.
Let’s take a look at the story.
Jesus was exhausted from his long trip. He had gone to the city well to get a drink of water. However, what followed was not a chance happening at all because we are told that Jesus “needed” to go through the region of Samaria; he was compelled to do so.
Jews did not have anything to do with Samaritans in those days. Samaritans were considered half-breeds and unclean by Jewish tradition. Yet Jesus, a Jew, chose to go through the middle of Samaria instead of making the usual trip around the area as most Jews did in order to avoid the Samaritans.
When Jesus Offers You More
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This morning I am contemplating the passage in Luke 17 which records the story of ten men who had leprosy being healed by Jesus. I am arrested by the response of the one … “and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice, glorified God, and fell down on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”
And my heart is drawn to this idea… “When he saw that he was healed…”
Sometimes our healing comes just this obviously. We look and we see. We are healed. At other times, our healing is a process; it comes piece by piece, particularly when Jesus is healing our hearts.
Today I am asking myself, and I hope you will ask yourself, how do I respond to God’s healing in my life? Can I see what He is doing in me?
All ten lepers could physically see that they were healed. Yet this one, he saw more. He saw the person of Christ. He saw His redeemer. The others were doing just what Jesus told them. They were going to the priests in order to be declared ceremonially cleansed which would allow them to reconnect with their world and their God. Yet this one…
My Bridge Over Troubled Waters
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In 1969, Paul Simon wrote a powerful song which he and Art Garfunkel recorded in 1970. The expression of Paul’s heart in the song conveys the message that he would be a friend when friends could not be found; that he, himself, would be a bridge over his friend’s troubled water.
I was so struck by this thought yesterday as I listened to a lovely lady share how she had endured so many difficult things, felt alone so often, but God had revealed to her through a prayer team at our church that He had been her bridge every time over those troubled waters. She had not, in fact, been alone. God was there.
How many times have we felt abandoned during our hard times? And truthfully, many people do abandon us, but one thing I have begun to ask God in the last couple of years is that He would show me where He was during dark moments in my past. I, too, find that He has been my bridge, and that often the way He has done that was through others as they became “bridges” for me to walk on. My heart was moved to write these thoughts…
The Bridge
I hear the water below me
The power of its rushing
Stirs the fear within me
Yet the other side
Beckons me to keep walking
This bridge under my feet
Gives me strength
Although it doesn’t completely
Take my fears away
Are You Tired?
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Isaiah 53:4 contains a beautifully mysterious phrase. Jesus carried our sorrows.
What an amazing thought! The very idea of “sorrows” invokes feelings of things that are weighty and burdensome. To know that there is One who will carry those things which are too heavy for me is a thought which comforts and encourages my soul.
Life is made of cycles and seasons, and you don’t have to live long to figure out that some of those are filled with sorrows and pain. When my life is filled with sorrows, I cry out for relief, longing to escape the place where my heart is torn apart. And Jesus answers. Sometimes his answer contain immediate rescue, but many times His answer carries this idea, “I will carry the sorrows for you.”
He always wants to carry our burdens, but we usually try to handle life in our own ways, carrying things in what we believe to be our own strength. The problem with that is, well, we don’t really have any strength! It is an illusion. Nothing reveals our lack of strength any more than sorrow and pain. When life becomes unbearable, then we are either driven to the feet of Jesus to ask for help or we are moved to reject him because we misunderstand his heart.
