Oh, What a Savior!
Luke 4:16-21 (NKJV) 16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Do you remember your childhood heroes? I remember mine. First there was Mighty Mouse, with his song, “Here I come to save the day, that means that Mighty Mouse is on the way.” There was Tom Terrific on Captain Kangeroo, a boy who, with the help of a magic hat, could change into something else that would help him fight villains. And then, of course, there was Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Along with his alter ego Clark Kent he kept Metropolis safe, and his friends Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson and Perry White knew they could depend on him no matter what.
But then I met Jesus, the real hero, who came to live among us and then died for us.
Oh, what a Savior, oh hallelujah
His heart was broken on Calvary
His hands were nail scarred
His side was riven
He gave His life-blood for even me. (Marvin Dalton)
There were many heroes in the Bible, but none like Jesus. David, Gideon, Joshua were all heroes, but only Jesus came to set the captives free, not from their earthly strife but free to receive eternal life. When I arrived at church today I was ready to worship, and the first song was about Jesus being our hero. How awesome is that?
Jesus is our hero, and it is only when we come to terms with Who He is, and Who he came to Earth to be, that we can enter into Kingdom living. May we open our eyes and open our hearts to the truth of the gospel, and may we take the name of Jesus with us wherever we go.
In the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Make every Effort
(NRSV) 2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today let’s look at Peter’s letter to the churches in Asia Minor who were under attack both from false teaching and dissension within the church. Peter encourages the churches to make every effort to build up their faith through goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and love. It is no less important today to build ourselves up by seeking holiness.
How do we seek holiness? There is no better way to become strong in the faith than through Bible Study and Prayer. The more I am in the Bible, the more I want to stay in the Bible. There is something both mysterious and revelatory in these ancient texts, yet as truth after truth is opened up we find both the strength and the divine understanding to grow and to take others along with us.
Likewise, we should do a self-check on a regular basis to determine if we are behaving as true Christ followers. Responding in anger? No. Withholding forgiveness? No. Taking God’s name in vain? No.
May we always model Jesus in everything we do and say.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have You Not Heard?
(NRSV) Is 40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
I have been reading the Bible for most of my 74 years, and I have noticed certain phrases stand out to me. “Come and see,” the wonderful invitation from Jesus to His disciples; “Watch and Pray,” the cautionary phrase Jesus spoke in the Garden the night He gave Himself up for us; and, of course, “Have You Not Heard,” the question Isaiah posed to those under captivity to the Assyrians. In other words, “Have you forgotten Who God is and all that He has done.”
The Hebrews had been in captivity to the Assyrians for more than forty years, and their perspective was one of a perpetual captive. The hope we have in God is not transitory, nor is it conditional. Our hope in God is a confident expectation that God will accomplish all He has set out to do.
When I was suffering from my first heart attack at age 50, a strange phenomenon occurred; my eyesight was impacted and I was unable to read anything. But I could still write. It was then that I began to write my devotionals as well as resuming poetry, a lifelong pursuit that began when I was six years old.
I am closing today with one of my poems from that time more than twenty-four years ago.
Hope
Hope drifts in on angel’s wings, barely
disturbing the air, the room, we
hardly know it’s there.
Yet, it arrives, unhurried, but
not unwanted.
We see it in the
face of a friend, the
trace of a smile, or simply
a kind word. It is the promise
of good things to come, the
assurance that we are not alone. It is
what gets us through another day
when we think we cannot go on.
May we know, understand and believe that we can place our hope in the Lord, and that He will sustain us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Seeking Holiness 