These verses remind me of the old Hymn, “What a Friend I have in Jesus.” When our burdens are too heavy to bear…our friend Jesus is there, ready to take those burdens and offer support and comfort. When pain and sorrow fills our body…our friend Jesus is there at the right hand of God interceding, and pleading on our behalf. Yes, if we think about it, there really is no better friend than Jesus.
Tag: blood of jesus
Hebrews 1:3 ” The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. “
Maybe you’ve never heard the term – Shekinah Glory – but here in Hebrews it attempts to explain how Jesus was the perfect expression of the divine essence of His Father. God’s luminous presence was manifested in Jesus, and this splendor and light could not be dampened or hidden from sight…for God’s Shekinah Glory cannot be contained.
Matthew 8:8 ” The Centurion replied, ‘Lord, I do not deserve to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority…’ “
In this story, a Gentile Roman Centurion had approached Jesus asking Him to heal his servant. This commanding officer not only knew who Jesus was, but had witnessed and then understood the authority by which Jesus taught and healed the sick. For it was by this powerful authority he saw in Jesus that he related. It says that Jesus was astonished and commended him for his great faith and understanding of authority…and his servant was healed that day.
Matthew 8:20 “Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’ “
Jesus was implying that He was a sojourner here on earth. A stranger in a strange place only temporarily. That’s what it means to be in the world but not of it. (John 17:14) And as Believers, we too are sojourners in this foreign land…aliens and strangers just passing through…as we head to our heavenly home.
Mark 5:41 ” Little girl, I say to you, get up!”
The Greek word for “get up” has several definitions…all that could apply to young ladies around the world today. Wake up girl, and realize the potentially dangerous position you have placed yourself in all for the sake of popularity. Get up girl, and walk away from the relationships that are wrong…that fill you with fear and shame, or make you feel powerless. Rise up girl, and refuse to believe the lie that you’ll never amount to anything…that it was your fault…that there’s no way out…that you’re not needed or loved. Be mindful, that no one but Jesus will ever love you as much as He does. No one but Jesus will save your soul and give you eternal life. No one but Jesus will always be there for you, no matter what.
Wake up girl, and take a hard look at where you’re at…are you truly happy with your situation, or do you need to make a change? Jesus is waiting.
Ephesians 2:12-13 ” Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
We were all once, “…without hope and without God in the world.” We were separated from Him by a chasm so deep and wide… there was no way of getting across by ourselves. In this bleak darkness our desperation grew, and we felt the hopelessness of being abandoned. But God then provided the bridge across that vast chasm…it was in the shape of a Cross. The gracious gift of redemption and reconciliation was bound to this Cross as the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ, ran down it. Yes, we were all once hopeless and cut off from God…but then God built a bridge for us…in the shape of a Cross.
I John 2:1 ” My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”
As it tells us in Romans 8:34, at this very moment, Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf. Jesus is our advocate…one who comes forward on behalf and as the representative for another. He is then also our intercessor and substitute…standing in our place before God…intervening in our defense. We have no greater advocate than Jesus…no greater champion and friend.
John 4:13-14 ” Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thrist. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ “
Jesus spoke several times in John about this idea of water and thirst. John 6:35 says, “He who believes in Me will never be thirsty.” and in John 7:38, Jesus quoted the Old Testament from Isaiah 58:11, when He said, “You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Thirst is a very strong desire. It’s a longing to fill the dryness within us…whether with actual water, or spiritual water. For within us all is this God-shaped emptiness…but sadly, we will spend our entire lifetime trying to fill this emptiness with the wrong type of water. Arid and parched, we search for everything and anything to satisfy our thirst…but every time we think we’ve found it, the water dries up and we thirst again. It’s finally not until we find that Well of Living Water that we can drink and be fully satisfied.
Psalm 56:8 ” Record my lament; list my tears on Your scroll – are they not on Your record? “
The Lord hears and puts down in writing all my mourning and outcries. He keeps a record of every tear I have shed and places them in His wine-skin…or some translations say places them in a bottle. We may think that our grief and weeping goes unnoticed…but it’s never beyond the compassionate eye of God.
Ephesians 2:3 ” All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.”
All of us do it…we daydream. Pleasant fantasies that transport us from the drab and boring into over the top imaginings. But if we indulge in these musings more and more, they will soon take over our life…for the real world can never compete with fantasy. And it’s here in this verse we’re warned about willful pleasure-seeking thoughts. As humans living in a sinful world – ungodly thoughts are going to drop into our minds…thoughts that can even shock and embarrass us. Like, “Where did THAT come from?!!) But it’s at that moment we have to take captive that thought and make it obedient to Christ. (II Corinthians 10:5) For if we give in and allow these thoughts to have their way in our mind…our vivid daydreams will lead us farther and farther from God into disobedience.
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