Matthew 9:36-38

But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

Encouraging Words

This passage has always encouraged me in my understanding and belief in just how much God loves us and cares for us. This is also a passage that helped to prevent me from ever embracing the doctrines of election and predestination. Jesus looked out over the whole crowd and saw a sea of sheep who were lost and looking for a shepherd. He did not say, “Look at those over there, they are my sheep and I love them, but those over there, they are goats and they don’t get any of what I have to offer!” No! He saw His lost sheep throughout the entire crowd. If anything, He was angry with the leaders of the synagog, the teachers, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees for not being shepherds to His lost sheep. It would not surprise me if He is just as angry today at all of the pastors, priests, evangelists, teachers, and other leaders in the church who are selective in who they think should be receiving His salvation. The scriptures show that Christ Himself said over and over again that He came into the world to save all of His creation, all of mankind, from the ravages of spiritual death that entered into His creation through Adam and Eve. If He is claiming all of creation to be redeemed by His grace and mercy, then who am I to say who is His and who is not. I must live my life knowing that I am not worthy to receive His grace, but at the same time hope that all of us that make up the sea of mankind will receive His grace. Glory be to God.

Psalms 18:46 (17:47 LXX)

The Lord lives, and blessed is my God.
Let the salvation of my God be exalted,

Encouraging Words

The psalmist proclaims here everything that I believe about my God. God is alive, He has not disappeared as so many naysayers would like us to believe. He is both our blessed God but also the God of blessings, pouring them out upon His beloved creation. And most importantly, my salvation, my eternal salvation from death and separation from Him, rests entirely in Him and He has graciously provided that salvation to all of Ho’s creation through His Son? Glory be to God!

Numbers 18:1-3
Now the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, “You and your sons and your father’s house with you shall bear the sins of the holy things, and you and your sons with you shall bear the sins of your priesthood. You shall also bring your brethren, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, to yourself, and they shall be joined and added to you, and minister liturgically with you and your sons with you before the tabernacle of testimony. They shall perform your guard duties and the duties of the tabernacle, but they shall not come near the holy vessels and the altar, lest they die—they and you also.

Personal Challenge

In the New Testament, we are told that we are a part of the priesthood of Christ. As we follow in the footsteps of our Lord we begin to step into the role of being one of His priests here on earth. Our church fathers would have been very familiar with this passage and the expectations of those who had been set apart by God to be the priests in the temple. They took this newly found role, as a follower of Christ, of being a priest to the world around them, very seriously, They knew that the holy vessels of the new covenant, given to them, were more important than their own lives. Is it any wonder that Christianity has remained intact for over 2,000 years? As a priest myself, it is imperative that I glorify my Father in all that I do, guarding and protecting the holy things, the gospel, that Jesus passed on to us, His followers. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Matthew 9:24

He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him.

Personal Challenge

Jesus had been traversing the countryside for a while before this event. He had already performed many miracles, taught many lessons, and clearly given the people many opportunities to recognize that He was someone special. He was obviously not your typical rabbi. And yet, with this preponderance of the evidence, He was not recognized as Lord as He moved into the crowd to raise this young girl from the dead. The crowd ridiculed and mocked Him. Jesus made it very clear that if the world around Him hated Him enough to brutally beat Him and crucify Him, then those of us who claim Him as our Lord and try to follow Him, will also be ridiculed and mocked. As we follow Him, we try to love our neighbor, we try to be merciful to those in need, and we try to not succumb to the ways of the world and submit to sinful thoughts and desires. It grieves us when by doing these things, we get ridiculed and mocked because we are trying to guard our hearts and minds against those images and sounds that defeat our attempts to be like Christ. Our only response is to continue to love those who God has put in our lives and yet still guard our hearts and minds. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Psalms 18:32 (17:33 LXX)

It is God who girds me with power,
And He made my way blameless;

Encouraging Words

God is so awesome! As I look back on my I can see how Much He has always been there for me. Given the age that I am at now and the time in my life that I gave my life over to Him and decided to let Him hold the reins, that works out to be half of a century that God has girded me with His power. Even though I more often than not, scramble to grab the reins back and do things my own way, with my own feeble and misdirected power, He has always, always remained there for me. He has been there in the good times when everything has been running along smoothly. But more importantly, He has been there when things were going really rough. I have found that it is usually in these times that I doubt Him and wonder where He is, but as I look back, it is obvious that He was there guiding me, loving me, giving me the power to push through, and most importantly, making my way blameless by forgiving me of my sins and stubbornness, applying His abundance of mercy and grace to me, and showing me His unconditional love. Glory be to God! Thank you, Father!

Numbers 14:18

‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth, taking away lawlessness, wrongdoings, and sins; but He would not cleanse the guilty by repaying the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’

Encouraging Words

Once again, context is so important when reading the Scriptures. This quote is not coming from Moses or any other human. In this passage, God is so fed up with the nation of Israel for their stubbornness and self-focus that He is ready to walk away from them as His chosen people. They have consistently broken the covenant with Him. Then Moses steps in on their behalf. Here he is quoting what God Himself had said about His relationship with mankind. God, Himself claims that He will be longsuffering with us as we continually reject Him and His love for us. He alone is abundant in mercy and truth, and because of this, He will take away our lawlessness, wrongdoings, and sins. He promises to not punish us for the sins of our fathers but will deal with each of us for our own personal sins. God promises to love us so much that He will provide for us a way to be cleansed of our sins and to have our hearts softened toward Him and our fellow human being. He did this by sending His Son to become one of us, to live a life in the flesh without sin, to die for us, and to be resurrected victorious over death for us. Glory be to God?

Matthew 9:2

Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”

Personal Challenge

Once again Jesus shows the people that are following Him, how important their faith is in the working of miracles. In this story, it is the faith of the paralytic’s friends that contribute to his healing. We so often get to the state of expecting God to do everything that we want and when we want it. The truth of the teaching is that our faith plays a significant part of the work that He chooses to do in our lives. The challenge is laying aside our own pride and expectations that we have full control of our lives and destinies and put our faith in Him, and Him alone. Glory be to God!

Psalms 18:1-3 (17:2-4 LX)

thus he (David) said:
“I will love You, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my foundation, my refuge, my deliverer;
My God is my helper, on Him I will hope,
My champion, the horn of my salvation, and my protector.
I will call upon the Lord and praise Him,
And I shall be saved from my enemies.”

Encouraging Words

Even though this passage uses the words “I” and “my” a lot, the psalmist, king David, is not spouting off about all of the things that he is going to do, or has already done. He is proclaiming how much his God, our God, has been there for him. Our God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is our strength in every situation. He is our foundation, our refuge, and our deliver. What was true for David can be true for us. God is a helper in whom we can put all of our hope and trust. And as we put more of our hope and trust in Him, We will clearly see how He is our champion, the horn of our salvation, and our protector. We can go through this temporal life without any fears, whatsoever, of what is going on around us. We will not concern ourselves with conspiracy theories of this world, but relish in the truth that we are no longer of this would. Glory be to God!

Numbers 12:3

(Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men on the face of the earth.)

Personal challenge

It is absolutely amazing, how much is packed to this one, little parenthetical verse. You must know the rest of the story however to get the full power of this statement about Moses being more meek, or humble than all the men on the face of the earth. Moses was selected by God to see Him and hear His voice in the burning bush. He was chosen to confront Pharoah, one of the most powerful men of his time in order to lead God’s chosen people out of Egypt. He was chosen to go to the mountain top and receive the ten Commandments from the hand of God, not once, but twice. And this list goes on and on. God did not choose him because be was some bold, in your face, type A personality. He chose him because he was meek. For 40 years Moses lead a stubborn, stiff-necked group of people, millions of them, through the dessert. He was not boastful about it. He did not do it pridefully. At one time he even offered up his life on behalf of these sinful and obnoxious people when they kept defying God. This meek and humble man would not be recognized today as the most important leader of the world. Maybe we need to start asking God to help us to see things His way and to think like Him. Lord, have Mercy! Lord, have money! Lord, have mercy!