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Showing posts from December, 2013

Find the Hidden Grace

In her classic autobiography The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her sister were forced to take off all their clothes during Nazi inspections at a death camp. Miss ten Boom stood in line feeling forsaken and defiled. Suddenly she remembered that Jesus hung naked on the cross. Struck with wonder and worship during that seemingly forsaken moment, ten Boom leaned forward and whispered to her sister, "Betsie, they took his clothes, too." Betsie gasped and said, "Oh, Corrie, and I never thanked him." Thanksgiving does not require bounty--just recognition of what our Savior has already done. When things are bad we often ask ourselves three questions: 1.      Where Was God? John 11:21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Q. We always seem to want to ask God where He was when we were being attacked, hurt, trampled on or abused.  Where was God when my husband or my chi

How God Heals

Mark 8:22-25 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"  24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." 25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. After my last posting someone asked about what we consider to be healing. This is an important question especially in an age where cessationists claim that the Gifts of the Spirit and miracles ceased with the completion of the Biblical Canon and the passing of the Apostles.  It is also important because when we talk about the here and not yet of the Kingdom of God we need to address how God heals. First let me say that I believe in physical healing. Yes, emotional healing

Power for Healing

Luke 5:17 One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. As we were discussing this passage in our group the other night it suddenly occurred to me that there was something in this passage that I had not noticed before in spite of how many times I have read this passage. This is the richness and the mystery of the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit that we can read the Bible every day and still derive new insights that are ripe for our needs of the day. I looked at several commentaries to see if someone had noted what I understood for the first time and I found that it wasn’t covered in any of the six tomes that I searched. This passage in Luke is early on in the earthly ministry of Jesus and so He is keeping somewhat of a low profile as evidenced by the previous verses where He instructs the man w