Strength And Light

For my birthday this month, my aunt gave me a candle. The candle is in a small white holder that has the meaning of my name written on it. This is what it says:

Emily

Level headed, shy and retiring

A tower of strength in a crisis

I had heard that my name meant “strong and industrious” before. In church, I’ve heard about the importance of the meaning of names many times. However, even with this knowledge, I couldn’t see myself as “a tower of strength in a crisis”. I see myself as weak and emotionally driven when push comes to shove. As I contemplated this, the Lord reminded me of a scripture passage I had been meditating on.

 “Have you not known?Have you not heard?The everlasting God, the Lord,The Creator of the ends of the earth,Neither faints nor is weary.His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak,And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary,And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the LordShall renew their strength;They shall mount up with wings like eagles,They shall run and not be weary,They shall walk and not faint.” 

(Isaiah 40:28-31, NKJV)

I am not strong on my own. Jesus is the source of my strength. God has always given lasting strength to those who love, trust and follow Him!

In the next chapter of Isaiah, God promises strength again to those He has called.

               

You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,And called from its farthest regions,And said to you,‘You are My servant,I have chosen you and have not cast you away: Fear not, for I am with you;Be not dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you,Yes, I will help you,I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

 (Isaiah 41:9-10, NKJV)

          

There are crises in life. I can try and deal with them on my own and weaken myself and others in the process. Or I can draw on the strength God provides and be the tower of strength that He wants me to be. Just like my name says I am.

I found my name’s meaning on a candle. Candles provide light. When I rely on the strength God gives, I can truly love others and be a light in the darkness. If I’m relying on myself, I may gain praise for accomplishments, but people won’t see Jesus. As Jesus said in Mathew 5:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

           (Matthew 5:16, NKJV)

                
The Father provides the strength for His children to do what He has called them to do. That is why He gets the glory when I shine His light.

Walk in New Life

For Reference, read Mark 2:1-12, Mathew 9:1-7 and Luke 5:17-26

The other day, I was at church for a morning ladies Bible study. We always sit at tables to aid in discussion. The morning started with everyone singing worship songs. When everyone stood up to sing, the woman next to me joked, “Stand up, Emily.”

I want to emphasize, I know it was a good-natured joke. However, I can’t help thinking about times in Scripture when saying those words to a lame person actually had power. One in particular comes to mind. The story of the paralytic lowered through the roof to Jesus. It’s found in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. I love how the Mark account says that it was impossible to get the paralyzed man through the door:

Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

(Mark 2:2-5, NKJV)

I don’t understand why we give up so easily. I am guilty of it. We all have family members and friends who need to meet Jesus. Maybe they need emotional or physical healing. When there’s obstacles in the way, it’s easy to let doubt grow. I have done it while waiting for my healing. The problem is, doubt can’t co-exist with faith. While we can sit in doubt, faith requires action! In the book of James, this point is driven home.

If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

(James 2:16-17, NIV)

The men who made a hole in the roof and lowered the man to Jesus took action on their faith that Jesus can save and heal. They didn’t just tell this man, “Jesus can heal you” and wait around. These men worked to get him to Jesus and didn’t give up. They were not disappointed.

Jesus didn’t stop with forgiving the man. Forgiveness was the first step to full healing. The story continued with some teachers of the Law challenging Jesus in their hearts.

“There’s no way this man has the power to forgive sins. Only God can do that!”

I love Jesus’ response!

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” 

(Mark 2:8-12, NIV)

Jesus revealed His divinity to the doubters in the crowd by forgiving and healing this man. He had a desire to do that then and He still does now. The book of Hebrews makes this clear:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

(Hebrews 13:8, NIV)

Jesus fully removed the curse of sin in this man’s life. You see, the Jews believed that sin manifested itself in physical deformities like paralysis. Therefore, Jesus removed that sin by forgiving this man. Then He removed the symbol of that sin by healing him! He wanted everyone to know that He has the power and the authority to make anyone a new creation and give them abundant life.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

(2 Corinthians 5:16-17, NLT)

“The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

(Jesus, John 10:10, NLT)

When Jesus healed the paralyzed man, the people were amazed. I’m sure it wasn’t just the people who saw it happen who marveled. Anyone who saw this man walking after that must have been blown away too!

So let’s believe that Jesus will still do this now! This is no joke. He wants all who are sick and dead in sin to rise and walk in new life!

Let all that I am praise the Lord;
    may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
    and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
    and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
 He fills my life with good things.
    My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!

(Psalm 103:2-5, NLT)

(Scriptures are from the New King James Version, New International Version and New Living Translation of the Bible. Links courtesy of biblegateway.com) 

Putting Nothing Above the Lord

For Reference, read 1 Samuel 3-7

In my last post I talked about worshiping God above all else. He deserves all the glory, adoration and love. The Lord has continued to challenge me in this area. There’s a story in 1 Samuel that addresses this head on.

Basically, leading up to this, there were corrupt priests in the tabernacle at Shiloh. Eli the priest had two sons, Phinehas and Hophni, When they became priests, they did not follow God's Law regarding sacrifices. Sacrifices and offerings were how the people of Israel could worship God and have forgiveness for their sins. If they weren’t carried out as specified in the law of Moses, God counted that as disobedience. Under the leadership of Phinehas and Hophni, ignorance of God’s righteous Law continued year by year. Eli did nothing to stop it. The Lord warned him of judgement, he paid no heed. Then the Lord told a young Samuel the judgement was certain. The Philistines defeated the Israelites in battle and took the Ark of the Covenant. The ark is where the presence and power of the Lord dwelt at this time. Phinehas, Hophni and Eli all died that day, as the Lord had warned. He ended their lineage as priests because of their continual, deliberate disobedience.

Now we pick up in chapter five. The Philistines took the Ark to Ashdod and put it in the temple to Dagon, their chief god. Verses 2-5 read:

“When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set it in its place again. And when they arose early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and both the palms of its hands were broken off on the threshold; only Dagon’s torso^[ was left of it.  Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.” (NKJV)

God showed the Philistines that every idol must fall before Him. Only He is to be worshiped.

The Philistines weren’t surprised when the Lord brought sickness on them. The people had heard about how He dealt with Pharaoh in Egypt. They moved it to four more cities before finally returning it to Beth Shemesh in Israel. The people of Beth Shemesh eventually sent the Ark to Kirjath Jearim.  While all this is happening, even with the Ark back in Israel, the people were still practicing idolatry and straying from the Law.

Twenty years later, the Ark was still there. The Bible says the people felt like God had abandoned them.   God gave the Israelites a chance for victory over the Philistines with this command:

“Then Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you are really serious about wanting to return to the Lord, get rid of your foreign gods and your images of Ashtoreth. Determine to obey only the Lord; then he will rescue you from the Philistines.” So the Israelites got rid of their images of Baal and Ashtoreth and worshiped only the Lord.”
1 Samuel 7:3-4 (NLT)

The Israelites then experienced victory over the Philistines.

We are all, even now susceptible to idolatry. Whether we idolize dreams, friends, current celebrities or famous historical figures, it can happen at any time. Sometimes, we think we know better than to follow God’s plan, like those priests did. We can never experience total closeness to God if we put anything above Him, because when we do, He doesn’t have our whole heart. He wants to be loved with everything we are. That is His greatest commandment. 

Who Do We Worship...And Why?

Note: I am fully aware that I wrote one post and abandoned this blog. As cliche as it sounds, life got in the way. Now, however, I am committing myself to a post a week, every Wednesday, so check back often!

For Reference, read Acts chapter 3

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the healing of the lame beggar in Acts 3.

The reason may seem obvious, I am lame , just like the man laid at the gate in this story. It thrills my heart to read of a man healed of lameness in Jesus name. However, there is a much more going on here than a healing miracle. Jesus is being glorified.

Peter says in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." (NKJV)

Peter knew that only Jesus can heal, only He has the power, and only He should get the glory.

I have been moving towards a promised full healing miracle in my life for years now. One thing Jesus has taught me in this process is that  He is the only one to be worshiped, and this is not just because He can and will do miracles. That's made clear in the reason why He does miracles in the first place.

In Matthew 11, some disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked Him if He was the promised Savior. Verse 4-6 says, 

"Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.  And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”" (NKJV)

Jesus uses miracles to identify Himself as the Son of God. No man can do these things  by their own power. Jesus is deserving of worship as the Son of God. The miracles just put that on display!

That gets me excited to continue walking with Jesus.