Praise the Lord for this new day in our Lord's kingdom, filled with promises and
paved with His grace. He blessed us in His His House yesterday. It was a
bright and beautiful day. Jesus shines in us makes our lives brighter by His
love and power. Snow is beginning to melt around here (or it was yesterday, at
least). We drove by one of the rivers and saw that various birds including
water fowl are congregating by the open waters of the streams. They looked
and sounded cheerful and jubilant.
In the Church calendar we are celebrating the
Lenten season, the 40 Days before Easter excluding Sundays. One of the major
themes of the Lenten season is forgiveness. Romans
5:.8 "But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ
died for us."
In I Samuel 26, there is a great story in the account of David. I have
always wondered why David is called a man after God’s own heart, because David
had a lot of screw-ups. He committed adultery, put out a hit on the lady’s
husband, and had some very negative parenting issues in his life, but God, in
the New Testament, calls David “a man after my own heart.”
There is an account where David represented a threat to Saul, the king,
because David was going to be anointed as the next king. Saul was pursuing
David with an army of 3,000 men. One night, while Saul was on this pursuit out
in the wilderness, King Saul and his army were camping. David, with a few of
his men, snuck into the camp at night while the army was asleep. They came up
to King Saul, who was asleep on the ground and had his spear in the ground next
to him. They slept, not with the pointed end into the ground, but the blunt end
in the ground in case the enemy would come or attack, so that your weapon was
right next to you. David grabbed Saul’s spear. One of his men suggested that
David should pin him to the ground right away, because he eventually would kill
David. David responded, “How can I raise my hand against God’s
anointed?” Despite all of Saul's attempts to murder David, David saw his enemy
as anointed by God. David snuck out of the camp, spent the night on a hill
overlooking the Israeli camp, and yelled to Saul the next morning,
lifting Saul’s spirit. Saul, suddenly humbled, realized that David could have
taken his life, and he apologized to David.
What is amazing is the fact that David forgave Saul. In the fullness of
time Jesus came as the Son of Man who has the authority to forgive sins. In
Mark 2:i ff we read that Jesus was in the house, preaching. When Jesus is in
the House something good always happens. People hear the Good News. There is
power in the Proclaimed Word. "He speaks and, listening to His voice, new life
the dead receive."
In Mark 2 a group of friends had the holy boldness to bring their friend
who is paralyzed to Jesus. Because there was a crowd around Jesus the friends
made a big hole in the roof and dropped the paralytic on his mat before Jesus,
interrupting His preaching. Jesus stopped preaching and riveted his full
attention on the four friends. He was moved by their faith. He commanded the
paralytic, "My son your sins are forgiven. Take up your pallet and rise up and
walk." Jesus had many critics who questioned Him that day. Jesus declared that
the Son of Man, as described on Daniel 7, has authority on earth to forgive
sins. The paralytic believed in Jesus. He received forgiveness and the healing
that followed.
We are often tempted to stay detached, uninvolved, at the edge of the
crowd. The Lord calls us to come to Him and live. It is not very pleasant to
be paralyzed and on a cot, but if we are then we do not have many
responsibilities. Once we meet Jesus face to face, and receive His forgiveness
and healing, we will find ourselves on our feet, dancing, with jubilant feet,
going into the world to be His witnesses. WOW!
In Christ,
Brown.
http://youtu.be/eOY0mjjmx8Y
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