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Scriptures teaches that Jesus suffered greatly on the night he was crucified. Read about some of his suffering:

Then they spit in Jesus’ face and hit him with their fists. And some slapped him, 
          Matthew 26:67

They made a crown of long, sharp thorns and put it on his head, and they placed a stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery, yelling, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and beat him on the head with it.
          Matthew 27:29-30

Then some of them began to spit at him, and they blindfolded him and hit his face with their fists. “Who hit you that time, you prophet?” they jeered. And even the guards were hitting him as they led him away.
          Mark 14:65

As they led Jesus away, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country just then, was forced to follow Jesus and carry his cross.
          Luke 23:26

Even the guards were hitting him…he wasn’t being punched in the face by people like me who throw wimpy punches. He was being punched in the face by Roman guards. Can you even begin to imagine how disfigured He must have been?

In an Easter devotional from a number of years ago, Chuck Missler makes the conjecture that the reason He wasn’t recognized after His resurrection was in part because he was so disfigured.  His beard half torn out and a scarred face. Maybe He even walked with a limp.

I have a large scar on my arm. I haven’t done anything to reduce it’s ugly appearance, because to me, it is a constant memory of God’s goodness to me at a time when I could have lost much of the use of my arm. I would rather carry the scar than have a “perfect” arm. The scar is more beautiful to me.

I have long been convinced that what we consider to be beautiful is vastly different from what God considers to be beautiful. Not in all ways, certainly. I’m sure he considers the same beautiful sunset you and I admire to be beautiful. But I also think He considers the scars of His saints beautiful. I think that we, His bride, are often most beautiful to Him when we are battle-scarred but have persevered; when we show the signs of one who has relentlessly taken the blows of the enemy and stood firm in Christ.

Missler says in his article “that the only man-made things in heaven are His [Jesus'] scars.” And yet, “the marks of His humiliation are also the marks of His glory.” Without the scars and the crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. Jesus’ glory is His willingness to die on the cross to save us. God’s glory is Jesus’ resurrection after His death on the cross.

Beloved, today is Easter – Resurrection Sunday. Christ has risen! He has risen, indeed! He has risen, carrying the scars for your sin and mine, so that we might also rise. His love for us goes beyond anything we have ever experienced or can imagine. Trust Him today with your life.

Have you been enjoying Hebrews as you’ve Rested at the River’s Edge with us this month? I sure have. I’ve especially enjoyed chapters 10-12. Let’s look at a passage in chapter 10:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
         Hebrews 10:19-23 (NIV)

If you’ve also been reading through the Old Testament with us, this passage makes so much more sense. Some of the references are still easy to miss though, and I can’t help but comment on them. They’re just too good.

V19: We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus – In the Old Testament, we read that only the high priest was allowed to enter the most holy place, and then only once each year. They entered in fear and trepidation, lest their sin not be atoned for and they be struck down by the holy and perfect God who dwelled in that place. But now, under the new covenant, we can have confidence to enter the most holy place because we enter by the blood of Jesus. In the Old Testament, they sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice upon the altar and other items in the temple. We no longer have to do that because Jesus’ blood has already been shed.

V20: By a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body – Jesus has opened a new and living way – one that surpasses the old way of sacrifice. There was a curtain in front of the most holy place that the priests entered through. That curtain was torn in two when Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27:51) – we now enter through His body. In other words, if we want to enter the most holy place, we must go through Jesus, the mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).

V21: And since we have a great priest over the house of God – Jesus is our great priest (Hebrews 4:14)

V22: Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water – Jesus made it possible for us to draw near to God. We are to approach Him sincerely, not in rebellion or flippantly. We can approach Him in full assurance because of what Christ has done for us – He has sprinkled our hearts with His blood to cleanse us from our guilty conscience. Again, the priests sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice to cleanse the Israelites from their sins, and they washed to purify themselves. Figuratively, Christ has sprinkled our hearts with the blood to cleanse us and He has washed us with pure water.

V23: Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful – The writer of the letter to the Hebrews is encouraging the Jewish believers, who would have understood all of the Old Testament references, to continue to follow Christ unswervingly. That last line – “for He who promised is faithful” – the entire passage is proof that God is faithful. He was faithful to His promise to send a Messiah, to save His people, to make a way for the entire world to be blessed by the sons of Abraham.

The writer then continues to encourage the Hebrews to be faithful, leading into chapter 11 which begins:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
          Hebrews 11:1

It’s being sure! It’s being certain even though we can’t see it!

What follows is a long line of people who demonstrated their faith through their actions. You know many of them, but what I especially love are verses 32 through 34. After going through a long list of people who make everyone’s top ten list of heroes of the faith, the writer of Hebrews almost sounds exasperated to me when he writes the following:

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
          Hebrews 11:32-34

The author is saying “Hey guys, I don’t have time to tell you all these other stories, but man, the things they did through faith – conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised, quenched the fury of the flames, and whose weakness was turned to strength. Wow! That’s the person I want to be! Our faith turns our weakness into strength. Hallelujah! That’s worth shouting about!

I know that Hebrews 10 and 11 were readings last Friday and Monday, but I didn’t get a chance to blog about them and they are chapters that speak so strongly to me. Tomorrow I’ll blog more about faith…Did you know that there is something beyond faith? Tune in tomorrow!

Paul Harvey died recently, but one of the most popular segment on his broadcasts was the one in which he always concluded “And now you know…the rest of the story.” He took a familiar bit of information and expanded on it by giving the back story or the previously unknown conclusion. His added information made the bit of known information come alive to listeners because they now knew…the rest of the story.The Old Testament very much provides “the rest of the story” for Christians. Yes, we can know all that we need to know for salvation, even all that we need to know to live a Godly life; but without knowing the rest of the story, we lack a depth of understanding of God’s character and ways and can develop a very lopsided and inaccurate view of God.

Develop an Appreciation for God’s Love of His People
The Christian who ignores the Old Testament is likely to have a lesser appreciation of God’s love for His people. The passages in Matthew (12:23) and Luke (13:34) where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”) has little context without the rich history of God calling Abraham 2,000 years earlier and consistently being faithful to the promise He had made with Abraham. The Old Testament reader follows God’s love from His creation of man in His own image through His initiation of a covenant with Abraham (and effectively all mankind), through His giving of the “perfect law that gives freedom” (James 1:25), through His protection of the wandering Israelites, through His preservation and leading of a (rebellious) people in all kinds of circumstances – always leading them toward an intimate relationship with Himself. Knowing these things gives God’s love a history, and love with a history is somehow more powerful than love discovered yesterday. I’m not sure I can adequately explain that except to say that one of the things that strengthens the love I have for my husband is knowing that he has loved me for a very long time. It doesn’t grow dim, it grows deep. God’s love has had a very long time to deepen. As a 21^st century Christian, I am the blessed recipient of that deep, deep love.Develop an Understanding of Your Role in God’s Unfolding Plan
In addition to lacking an understanding of the depth of God’s love, Christians who don’t spend time in the Old Testament may easily develop a misunderstanding of their role in the unfolding of God’s plan. A study of only the New Testament can lead us to believe that our salvation is primarily about us – what God did for you and me. And while it is true that God so loved each of us that He gave His only son to die for our sins so that we might each have eternal life by believing in Him, it is also true that all of history is about God preparing a people for Himself. My salvation is as much about God’s plan from the beginning of time as it is about me.

There is sometimes a tension in the Christian walk between the individual and the corporate expression and understanding of our faith. The answer to the tension is that we must take a “both/and” approach. Both individual and corporate worship are important. Both individual and corporate prayer are needed. Both individual and corporate sin must be dealt with. Our salvation must be understood both as an individual salvation, and as the salvation of a people destined to worship and serve God forever. As a Gentile, my salvation wasn’t Plan B. God always intended to bless all the nations through Abraham. Studying the Old Testament gives readers a greater appreciation for the “bigness” of God’s plan and His ability to follow it through thousands of years until it impacted their life. It can help us appreciate that we are a part of something so much bigger than what we might have previously considered.

See God’s Faithfulness Throughout History
Which brings us back to the topic of the faithfulness of God toward a people who fail Him regularly – I’m convinced that God’s faithfulness cannot be fully understood with just our New Testament record. Yes, the New Testament provides examples of God’s faithfulness. Yet I find that “the more the better.” Hebrews 11 gives a list of saints who “by faith” overcame the circumstances of their lives and trusted God. God rewarded their faithfulness with His own faithfulness. Reading the list in Hebrews 11 begins to build the faith necessary for the trials we will face, but it’s a poor substitute for reading the Old Testament accounts of those stories. And learning the stories in Sunday School class, as many children do, is akin to reading the Reader’s Digest version out of sequence and over a long period of time. Yes, we have the head knowledge of the facts (perhaps), but it’s going back to the Old Testament as a new creature in Christ that builds faith as we read of God’s faithfulness over and over and over again. Surely, if He has been faithful throughout history, even when His people lacked faith and behaved badly, surely He will be faithful to me! Reading the Old Testament builds my faith as I see the faithfulness of God.

Learn How God Works in the Lives of His People
In addition to helping the reader understand God’s abiding love for us and helping to build our faith, reading the Old Testament illustrates to the reader how God works in the lives of His people. The New Testament focuses on a period of perhaps one hundred years. The Old Testament covers 2,000 years (excluding chapters 1-12 of Genesis which covers the creation of the world up to the call of Abraham). Often, the New Testament teaches principles while the Old Testament illustrates those principles worked out through the lives of people who had a relationship with God. For example, James tells us that faith produces perseverance, bringing us to maturity. That teaching is demonstrated in the life of Joseph. The New Testament urges me to persevere; Joseph shows me how to do so. Additionally, a careful reading of the Old Testament teaches us much about how God speaks to His people. An excellent resource that illustrates this point is the book Developing Your Prophetic Gifting in which the author, Graham Cooke, uses the Old Testament examples of prophecy to teach his readers how to hear the voice of God. The Old Testament illustrates how God works in the lives of His people and how He speaks to His people by allowing the reader to walk through history with them.

Scripture is God-Breathed…Every Bit of It!
Finally, there are two critical reasons for Christians to broaden their horizons and pursue a study of the Old Testament: Scripture tells us that it is valuable and Jesus quotes it often. II Timothy 3:16-17 is a commonly memorized passage: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” This passage doesn’t say “The New Testament…”, it says “All Scripture…”. That verse alone tells me that there is much value in the Old Testament. Additionally, Jesus and the apostles frequently quoted from the Old Testament. It is clear that Jesus had a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament and many of His stories, parables and sayings refer back to it. Without some knowledge of the background of those passages, the quotes become a bit out of place and time…they lack “the rest of the story.”

As our church prepares to participate corporately in an extended fast, several things have been rattling around in my brain:

As we sample from the buffet of life, the more we eat of those things that have no nutritional value, the less room we have for the things that will nourish us.

Of course this applies to real eating – the more ice cream and cake I eat the less room I have for veggies & fruit. But it also applies to all of life’s activities. The more mindless TV I watch, the less time I have for reading or exercising. Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with ice cream and cake or even mindless TV. I’m just saying a steady diet of them makes us fat and weak, both physically and spiritually. And if we partake of those things FIRST, we close the door to those other things that can bring us great joy. Lord, help me to make good choices.

    “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
     “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
               Matthew 6:31-34 (NLT)

If we focus on what we’re giving up instead of what we’re gaining we’ll never be happy.

Which would you rather have – a life of contentment or a life of lack? You can have either life from the same circumstances. Again, I’m not saying that there isn’t real lack in some of our lives. But for most of us, we have a house in which to live, enough food to eat and people who love us. I want my focus to be on those blessings, not on what I lack. As we look toward the fast, I can look at things I might be giving up and feel bad about that, or I can look at what I hope to gain and be excited for things to come. Our culture is so acclimated to looking at what we don’t have and wanting bigger, better and more. Lord, help me to be content with You and not long for all those other things.

for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
              Philippians 4:11b-12

One of the purposes of fasting is to strip away all the things that grab our attention and turn it away from God – to help us realize that He is the source of every good and perfect gift and to be content.

Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven’s lights. Unlike them, he never changes or casts shifting shadows. In his goodness he chose to make us his own children by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his choice possession.
               James 1:17-18

This morning I’ve been humming a song we sang in worship yesterday…

I will wait…I will wait for the Lord. How good is the Lord, to those whose hope is in Him.
I will wait…and let God be God. I will wait, I will wait for the Lord.

(Thanks, Pastor Larry, for writing it.)

Be blessed, all!

          by guest blogger Phil Hovatter 

Perhaps you’ve gotten the same email that I have – the one about a couple from New York who wanted to retire in Portugal. After much searching, they found a real estate deal that looked pretty good. A nice piece of farmland whose owners had died 15 years earlier without an heir, so the farm was being sold by the government to pay for back taxes that had accumulated.

The reason why no buyers were interested for 15 years was that there was a major eyesore on the property. The original owner had erected an enormous “barn” – more of a warehouse, really, with large steel doors that were welded shut – and the cost to have it removed wasn’t appealing to most. The retired couple from New York considered the price of the farm to be such a bargain that the barn didn’t matter. But their first order of business after taking ownership of the property was to satisfy their curiosity. What could be lurking inside that big building?

What they reportedly found were cars – lots of cars. 180 cars. And not just any old beaters. These were great European cars – sports cars, classic cars, roadsters, and limited-edition cars, all covered in a thick layer of dust. Any one of them (if it were cleaned up a bit) would be gallery-quality. Estimated value: $35,000,000.

Nice story. Is it true? Not according to the Internet myth-busting website Snopes.com, but to tell you the truth, in my humble opinion, I find their “true” version is harder to believe than the email version. You be the judge.

All of this long rambling is just a prelude to a short parable I read today in Matthew 13:44. Jesus said,

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Hmmm. What struck me this morning was, why didn’t he just take the hidden treasure he had found and claim it for his own? Finders keepers, right?

But that’s not what the kingdom of heaven is like. There is one right way to lay claim to it, but there are many wrong ways.

Jesus makes this clear in a couple of other gospel passages. In one of His wedding banquet parables found in Matthew 22, the king came in to see the guests who had assembled for the wedding feast and “noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.” The king had him bound and thrown into outer darkness.

Again, in John 10, Jesus says,

I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

There is one valid way to enter the sheep pen, but many wrong ways.

So what can we learn from the man who found the treasure in the field? Claiming “finders keepers” isn’t the right way to take possession of the treasure. Buying the whole field is. The easy way is stealing. The costly way is legitimate.

It is a paradox that salvation is a “free gift,” yet costs us all that we have and all that we are. Giving of ourselves is the valid response to Jesus’ gift of eternal life. We offer our selves as living sacrifices as an act of worship. We hold our possessions with an open hand, sharing and giving freely to others who are in need. Once we were slaves to sin, but now we are slaves to righteousness.

These are the marks of a true disciple. Jesus makes it crystal clear in Luke 14:33 –

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

You’ve probably heard it said that when you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, the chicken contributed something to the meal, but the pig was fully committed.

There is only one way to lay legitimate, legal claim to the treasure in the field. We have to sell all that we have and buy the field. We have to go all-in. We have to make a total commitment of all that we have and all that we are. This is the pathway to eternal life. This is the cost of discipleship.

The Israelites are Moving On & So Are We

Well, as we just read in Genesis, Joseph’s family joined him in Egypt. Seventy of them, it reiterates in Exodus 1:5. But after a time, the current Pharaoh that Joseph had served died. And the Israelites multipled rapidly. And the new Pharaoh believed the Israelites were a threat to them. So he enslaved them.

You’ll read about all that in Exodus 1. Then you’ll read about how God hears the cry of his people and raises up someone to lead them out of slavery. That someone is Moses. The first half of Exodus is dedicated to the Israelites gaining their freedom from the Egyptians. The second half is dedicated to God teaching the Israelites how to be a people led by God. There is much we can learn about being a people led by God as we read the book of Exodus.

 We’ll also read the gospel of Mark. Most scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel to be written. Luke (and the book of Acts) were written shortly after Mark’s gospel was written. Then came the gospel of Matthew.

In January, we read Matthew’s gospel. It was written primarily to Jewish Christians — people who would already have a strong understanding of the Old Testament about A.D. 70. Mark’s gospel, on the other hand, was written primarily to Roman Christians — people who would not have such a strong understanding of our God and how He interacts with people. It was written about A.D. 64. The gosepl of Mark begins to “connect the dots” for the Roman Christians, who would have heard many stories about Jesus, but didn’t understand them in a greater context. You’ll find that it is fast-paced, moving quickly from scene to scene.

We’ll fill out the month by continuing to read in Psalms. The book of Psalms is actually broken into three sections, called books. We will complete the first book by reading through Psalm 41.

 Finally, we’ll finish the month by beginning to read the book of Esther.

Sounds like a lot of reading! We stay true to our schedule of 4-5 chapters five days a week, so it’s not nearly so overwhelming as it might sound. The daily reading plan for February is shown below.

Recommended Reading Plan for February

If you prefer to download a PDF of the plan, click here. 

To download a PDF of January’s reading schedule, click here. 

Most of the sermons I’ve heard on the parable of The Sower & The Seeds (Matthew 13:1-23) has been about understanding why some of the seeds we sow take root and grow while others do not.

But it’s about so much more than that. It’s also an instruction to us to tend the soil of our own hearts so that the seeds planted by others and by God can take root and grow.

I’m not much of a farmer…when I plant things I tend to let nature handle it from there. But what results is usually a very nice patch of weeds. I get frustrated at the constant need to weed, water, loosen soil, fertilize, etc. The truth is that I just don’t enjoy the process of gardening, although I love the results of good gardening.

Unfortunately, things are much the same in our heart. We can’t just whip it into shape by weeding out the bad stuff and planting good stuff, then letting it grow unattended. Because the bad stuff happens to us every day and much of that stuff wants to take root in the soil of our heart. Each day we must do the hard work of weeding out bitterness, hatred, lust, bad attitudes, and so much more (see Galatians 5:19-21) – that’s tending the soil well. And the result will be the beatiful fruit of the spirit – you know what those are – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22).

 Seeds will be planted in our lives – by us, by others, and by God Himself. They can only grow if the soil is well prepared and well maintained.

As I read through the book of Matthew, particularly chapters 5 through 9, I am struck by how easy it is to fall into establishing expectations about God and about how others should act if they know God. The Pharisees get a bad rap among Christians, and perhaps rightly so…somewhat. You see, if I were there, when Jesus was here on earth, I’m not altogether sure that I wouldn’t have sided with the Pharisees a fair amount of the time!

Jesus was doing and saying things that were totally blowing their minds. Yes, they had it all wrong in many ways but their wrongness came out of a desire to be obedient to scripture as they understood it (and had been taught it). To avoid sin, they had developed a very involved set of rules. Their desire was to not offend God. That’s a good desire. Yet they became slaves to their rules and lost the wonder of relationship with God.

It’s pretty easy for me to be like that. I am a much more disciplined person when I establish “rules” for myself. Having established those rules, sometimes I’m not able to live by them – I fall short of even my own rules. If I am not actively pursuing God in the midst of it all, I can fall into condemnation of myself. The enemy loves that. The point is, it’s not about living by the rules, it’s about pursuing a relationship with God. Sure, it’s OK to set up rules if they help you live the life God wants you to live, but don’t be a slave to the rules and don’t forget God’s grace.

God is all about grace. I ought to be all about grace. He is also exceedingly patient. I ought to be exceedingly patient. But it is so easy to fall into the trap of the Pharisees and establish a rigid set of rules that I believe I “ought” to live by. Sets of rules make it easy to know when I’ve done well and when I’ve failed. But sets of rules also lead to legalism and ultimately make me very much like the Pharisees.

Stage two of this process is when I extend the rules that I’ve established for myself to others. Oops! I’m become more pharisaical by the minute!

A few months ago, a friend and I were talking about changes that occur in the life of a believer and being careful not to place expectations on new believers, but rather extending grace to them as they learn to walk with Christ – allowing the Holy Spirit to do the convicting and changing instead of acting as if our nagging will help the situation. After a few minutes of talking, she said “but we do expect them to change, don’t we? And shouldn’t we?” I didn’t know how to answer her. Because yes, we do expect them to change, to become more like Christ as they grow in relationship with Him, and we should expect it because we know our God is wonderfully able to change even the most hardened person who chooses to follow Him. Yet, her tone and words conveyed a condemnation for those who didn’t change quickly enough to meet her expectations. And I found myself silenced because I know that deep within me, there is a tendency to establish expectations and then be disappointed when those expectations are not met. That’s a polite way of saying deep within me there is a tendency to judge others against my standards. Ouch! It sounded so much better the polite way.

Let me repeat myself: God is all about grace. I ought to be all about grace. He is also exceedingly patient. I ought to be exceedingly patient.

The Ten Commandments not withstanding, God is not about sets of rules. He is about relationship. And relationships develop at different speeds and in different ways. I must be careful to let God lead in each relationship He has, and not try to do the job of the Holy Spirit.

So let me encourage you in two ways: If establishing rules helps you live a godly life, establish rules. Then be willing to sacrifice those rules daily as you continue in relationship with God, because the relationship is always more important than the rules.

God’s love for you lives outside your rules – in other words, when you don’t live by your rules, God isn’t looking down at you and shaking His head wondering if you’ll ever get it right. Don’t let a slip keep you from pursuing God Himself. His love for you is deep and wide and long and high (Eph 3:18), and He has MORE grace to give to you every hour of every day. So you can keep up with those rules you’ve set!

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
                 Matthew 8:27

The disciples had been with Jesus. They had seen Him heal the man with leprosy, the Centurian’s servant, and Peter’s mother-in-law.

Then they followed Jesus into a boat to go to the other side of the lake. Jesus fell asleep. A storm came up. The disciples were afraid and woke Jesus. Jesus replies with the well-known rebuke “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Scripture records what happens next: “Then [Jesus] got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.” (v26)

And the disciples were so amazed, they asked “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

We can study Scripture and receive great understanding and revelation. We can worship and pray and experience the intimate presence of God. We can receive miraculous healings from the Lord. Yet no matter to what heights of glory we’re taken, I think we will continually be awed again, causing us to ask “What kind of man is this?” Because we just don’t have a clue. We catch tiny glimpses of His power and majesty -miniscule peaks into His glory really – and we begin to think we know Him. Then He calms the waters or tames the winds around us and we can’t do anything but sit back and say “What kind of man is this?”

I am tremendously awed, humbled and wowed by this. I am so glad, so blessed, to serve a God who is so over-the-top that I will never, ever, throughout all eternity really understand the power He has. I know…that’s poor writing…too many “so’s.” But there’s no superlative that is large enough. I am so glad and so blessed, and God is so over-the-top. And yet, He chooses to desire to have a relationship with me. And you, of course, too. He doesn’t need me or you. He just wants a relationship with us.

“What kind of man is this?”

If you’re reading through the Bible with us, you might find the following blogs by a friend who is also blogging as he reads. You’ll find that he’s much better at writing short blogs than I am.

 Click to read his blog on…

The Tower of Babel (Genesis 10)

The Beautitudes (Matthew 5) 

If you’d like to share your thoughts on a passage, e-mail me at sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com. Who knows, there might be a spot for you here.