Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There in Jerusalem was a pool called Behtesda having 5 porches. There lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed waiting for the moving of the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had.
Now we come to a man who had been diseased for 38 years and Jesus asks him "Do you want to be made well?"
I have to presume that if this was asked, the man had to be aware of his disease. Yet as I pondered that question I wondered if there were those diseased that would not want to be made well and therefore the question. Then as i further thought why would a person not want to be made well i looked back on my life. Looking back over my life I lived for myself before Christ. I thought I had a pretty good life. Yet when I became aware of my disease of sin I could not do anything about it. I was powerless to heal myself, just as this man had been powerless for 38 long years.
It is only by the grace of God that Jesus comes to us offering to make us well. Offering to pay the price for our diseased life. Just as he spoke health into this man's life telling him to pick up his mat and walk he will do for us. He offers us life by His sacrifce. Paid in full for us to be made whole. Praise God for the Son who walked obediently even unto death. Praise Jesus Christ who despised the shame of the suffering and the cross for the joy set before Him. What was that joy? It was the joy of seeing us in need of Him. It was the joy that our answer to that question, DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE WELL would be yes! YES! Wash me clean and I will be clean in deed!
I thank you for reading and I hope it has stirred your heart in gratitude that Christ came to you and now you live for Him.
Keep the Faith
Opal
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Jesus said "Take up your cross" . . . How?
Jesus said in Luke 9:23 "Then He said to them all. If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."
So this morning in my quiet time I asked the Lord to help me make this personally my verse, my life line to Him. I so want to understand what it means for my life to "take up my cross daily and follow Him". I am passionate about His word and I share that passion every time God's Provisions is open and each Sunday in SS. I know the Lord uses me on this computer to touch lives. Yet I feel lacking in my Spirit. It is to be a daily filling and a daily dying and a daily following the LORD!
How does that look? I've begun to reazlize it means that I must lay down my possessions. I must lay down my pleasures. I must lay down my self. I so want the Lord ot fill me to overflow for Him! My heart breaks at the thought thay my LORD would be ashamed of me yet if I look back over my life since He washed me into His blessed righteousness I find myself lacking. I have had great moments of being a part of His gratness and I am truely forever grateful. Yet that verse says I am to DAILY deny myself and take up my cross. MY CROSS? The cross was a symbol of shame, guilt, suffering and rejection. So as I take up MY cross I must surrender to Him and be identified with Him in surrender, suffering, rejection and sacrifice.
Until we understand and come to the LORD with a griefed heart to desire to daily walk with Him we will find ourselves lacking. Being used by Him, no doubt, for if we give the LORD only a portion of ourselves He will use what we surrender but He desires our WHOLE lives not just a portion.
Jesus Christ is calling us to disciplship. (Warren Wierbe says disciple is like an apprentice. A disciple is more than a student who learns lessons by means of lectures or books. He is one who learns by living and working with his teacher in a daily "hands on" experience.)
The world will look on such a life as foolishness but oh to know the life that would glorify Christ daily!
It was the prayer of my heart that the Potter would see the flaws in my life and cut them out or just smash my heart and start over yesterday morning. He has begun this morning to speak of my daily walk with Him. PRAISE HIM! He hears us when we pray and want to show us His ways!
My prayer for each of you that has taken the time to read my thoughts that your heart has been stirred to understand the life that glorifys Christ.
Keep the Faith,
Opal
So this morning in my quiet time I asked the Lord to help me make this personally my verse, my life line to Him. I so want to understand what it means for my life to "take up my cross daily and follow Him". I am passionate about His word and I share that passion every time God's Provisions is open and each Sunday in SS. I know the Lord uses me on this computer to touch lives. Yet I feel lacking in my Spirit. It is to be a daily filling and a daily dying and a daily following the LORD!
How does that look? I've begun to reazlize it means that I must lay down my possessions. I must lay down my pleasures. I must lay down my self. I so want the Lord ot fill me to overflow for Him! My heart breaks at the thought thay my LORD would be ashamed of me yet if I look back over my life since He washed me into His blessed righteousness I find myself lacking. I have had great moments of being a part of His gratness and I am truely forever grateful. Yet that verse says I am to DAILY deny myself and take up my cross. MY CROSS? The cross was a symbol of shame, guilt, suffering and rejection. So as I take up MY cross I must surrender to Him and be identified with Him in surrender, suffering, rejection and sacrifice.
Until we understand and come to the LORD with a griefed heart to desire to daily walk with Him we will find ourselves lacking. Being used by Him, no doubt, for if we give the LORD only a portion of ourselves He will use what we surrender but He desires our WHOLE lives not just a portion.
Jesus Christ is calling us to disciplship. (Warren Wierbe says disciple is like an apprentice. A disciple is more than a student who learns lessons by means of lectures or books. He is one who learns by living and working with his teacher in a daily "hands on" experience.)
The world will look on such a life as foolishness but oh to know the life that would glorify Christ daily!
It was the prayer of my heart that the Potter would see the flaws in my life and cut them out or just smash my heart and start over yesterday morning. He has begun this morning to speak of my daily walk with Him. PRAISE HIM! He hears us when we pray and want to show us His ways!
My prayer for each of you that has taken the time to read my thoughts that your heart has been stirred to understand the life that glorifys Christ.
Keep the Faith,
Opal
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