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!

Matthew 8:23-27

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Personal Challenge

What a perfect example of how our lives get so easily out of alignment with our Lord. The disciples have been following Christ for some time now. They have seen Him perform miracles. They know that He is the Son of God and that He was always taken care of them, then as the storm around them begins to rear its ugly head, they immediately abandon all that they know and believe about their Lord and begin to worry. Jesus is right there on the same boat, sleeping like a baby. If the boat sinks, He goes down with it too. And yet they ignore this truth and begin to worry for their lives. God loves us and cares for us. He sent His Son to show us that love and to provide for us a path to Him. We must put our trust in Him and not the things of this world. When the world tries to upset that trust we can rest assured that no storm is too big for our God and follow Jesus’ example…take a nap and let the storm pass. Jesus is our resting place.

Psalms 17:1-9 (16:1-9. LXX)

Listen, O Lord of my righteousness;
Attend to my supplication;
Give ear to my prayer that is not with deceitful lips.
From Your face let my judgment come;
Let my eyes behold uprightness.
You tested my heart, when You visited me in the night;
You tried me in the fire, and found nothing unjust in me.
That my mouth might not speak of the works of men,
I held to hard ways because of the words of Your lips.
Restore my steps in Your paths,
That my footsteps may not slip.
I cried out, because You listened to me, O God;
Incline Your ear to me, and hear my words.
Magnify Your mercies,
O You who save those who hope in You
From those who rise up against Your right hand.
Keep me as the apple of Your eye;
In the shelter of Your wings, You will shelter me
From the face of the ungodly who trouble me.
My enemies surrounded my soul;

Encouraging Words

I love how the psalmist walks through so many of the ways that we can reach out to our Lord to guide us through our journey of life. Our Lord is always there for us, even when we choose to ignore Him and do things our own way. He does this because He loves us so much, and in that love, He also does not remove the consequences of our poor decisions. He will continue to walk with us through these consequences so that we can continue to grow and mature. In the end, we are still the apple of His eye and under His shelter. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Numbers 6:24-26

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be merciful to you;
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” ’ ”

Personal Challenge

There used to be a day when the greeting and the salutation that was given to another was very important as a part of the relationship. We have lost that in our day of busy-ness and instant gratification. I know that I am guilty of this. I often give the very brief and often times disinterested, “Hello!” hoping that the other person will do the same so that we can both get on with our lives. However, if I am expected to love my neighbor and put their needs above my own, then maybe what God wants me to do is to take the time to truly engage with the other person and show them that they are important. This means that I have to set my own agenda aside. It means that I most be sincerely interested in them and their lives. It means that I will have to slow down and give time to those around me. Wow! Am I ready to do this? Am I willing to? Only by the grace of God and with His help. What a difference there would be in our world if those of us who profess Jesus as our Lord would begin to live our lives this way. Lord, help me to show your love this way.