Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: grief

  • Endurance Toward the Cross

    Endurance Toward the Cross

    …let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

    looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, 

    who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame…

    Hebrews 12:1b-2a

    Jesus had walked… for three years (by comparison to eternity, a blink of an eye).

    Having been handed the baton of faith after more forty years of my race on the wrong path, I have walked with the Lord toward the cross a mere twenty years. Though I have endured the hardship of the race (a sprint in terms of time), a marathon of pain and suffering have not yet brought me in view of the finish line.

    By our certain faith we must press on toward the crown given by Christ Jesus our Lord until our time is come to pass on the baton of faith.

    Jesus has his face set toward Jerusalem. The crowds have followed. Many have fallen away. Some have been saved. Some have endured.

    Yet as in the life of the faithful widow; as in the life of the resurrected (Lazarus and others); as in the life of the weary Disciples and worn-down flesh of our Savior, the race is not finished.

    The race is not finished for Jesus as He looks upon Jerusalem. His race is not finished until the Cross.

    Neither has our race reached the finish line of faith until we, too, have drug the Cross of Christ to the sanctuary of the Holy Place of our rest.

    Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

    As we approach the HOLY WEEK of our Christian faith, I invite you to take sanctuary in our Lord Christ Jesus.

    Take a fresh look at the GOSPEL, the Good News of our Salvation in the Cross by the Sacrifice of the Blood of our Lord.

    READ once more the entire story of JESUS, through the witness of the Apostles John and Matthew; or the early witnesses of the church after Jesus’ resurrection: Luke and Mark.

    It may be helpful to some of you if I share a portion of my own witness, although your personal time in the Gospel is a better witness.

    We have begun the penitent season of Lent with a call to the church and a personal rebuke to many of us to get right with Christ Jesus in our relationships with others.

    I would be remiss to neglect my own history of sinfulness by contrast to the great grace, love and righteousness of our Lord in leading me into the path of His eternal blessings.

    Those who know me from the first two decades of my life have witnessed how I was raised in the church family. We all worshiped faithfully with Mom and Dad every Sunday. Then, like in most teens, rebellion. Like in most families, brokenness of relationship with each other followed. Most of us were isolated from God, set on our own paths.

    Those who know me from my twenties know that I participated in ‘church’ every Sunday, while I sinned greatly. I was married, as many once did in our twenties. (I did the right thing, though most do not bother with such commitment any more.) The wife of my youth broke her vow and ran back to her daddy. I thank the Lord that she became a Christian later and pray that she has remained faithful to the Lord and to her husband.

    Those who know me from my thirties know that the Lord led me to a faithful wife, a virgin, a Roman Catholic in belief, faith and practice. We married. She lived as a saint worthy of note in all her witness, while I attended church with her and all-to-frequently became enticed by several sins of the world. She remained faithful also to me, as I would never have been unfaithful to my wife in any desire for anyone else.

    By the continued grace of God, we had our only child, now a grown young woman of faith much like her mother (and also like her yet unmarried at just twenty-one).

    I will share the story of my salvation with you, God willing, during Holy Week on Good Friday.

    Viewing the race nearer the present: after the death of my wife I remarried a woman introduced to me by mutual friends. Though she claimed to be a Baptist, she had no relationship with Christ and with other Christians. (It should have been a warning sign, but I did not heed it.) She divorced me. I continued to hold onto the Lord.

    The Lord then led me a long way (from Florida to Pennsylvania) to my present Blessing, my wife Lissette. Lissette was a practicing Christian, member of a local mega-church. (We later moved, at my urging, to worship at a different church. As I said, the church is the people worshiping the Lord together in a place.)

    My wife stood beside me and raised her hands in praise to Jesus (something I only rarely did in my upbringing of ‘traditional, worship). She owned Bibles (English and Spanish). She had women’s devotional books. Lissette is a Christian… as I was a christian before I was born again in the Lord in my mid-forties.

    One more thing (about my wife): while we were dating (long distance) she discovered that she had cancer.

    I immediately prayed to the Lord, “WHY ME?” ( a most selfish question, for it was Lissette who had the cancer). The Lord had taken my beloved wife Becky from me after just twenty-three years. I loved Lissette. “Why me,” I asked the Lord… and the Lord’s answer was immediate and clear answer to my prayer:

    “Who better?”

    As God is my witness, I had prayed unceasingly on the bed of my grief in February, 1999. I had asked the Lord “Why?’ I had asked the Lord for proof of the continuing life of the soul of my beloved wife.

    I contended with the Lord. I wrestled with the Lord until He would give me proof of her resurrection. The Lord gave me clear and immediate signs and assurances three times.

    Finally, after three days, I let go of her soul; torn from me by the interruption of the death of one body, made one with mine.

    Life is a great mystery, death even more mysterious. Marriage is a great mystery, love even more mysterious.

    Praise the Lord, for healing my wife, Lissette, of her cancer!

    The indwelling of another soul with ours is incomprehensible to this finite mind of flesh.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God into the soul of the redeemed sinner is a mystery too wonderful and a love so amazing!

    I love my wife, Lissette. I love the Lord.

    Jesus Christ and my wife Lissette Harned are one with me. I cannot explain it.

    Divorce cannot separate us (though it is a good illustration of our unfaithfulness to God).

    As a grand ceremony in a place of worship or an authorized signature on a marriage license do NOT make a marriage; as a claim of a lawyer and signature of a magistrate do NOT make a divorce; a baptism, a catechism, a confirmation, an attendance star, a claim, a communion, a contribution, and MANY other things do NOT make a Christian.

    No work or law or righteousness will guarantee that a christian will receive the crown of glory at the concluding celebration of Christ Jesus.

    Only the Lord can save you.

    Will YOU ask Jesus, once more, to fill you with HIS LOVE?

    Only Christ Jesus can keep you… can keep my wife (and your beloved spouse)… can keep our children, our beloved family and beloved friends…; ONLY Jesus can save our loved ones; only Christ Jesus can save you for the joy and blessings of His love.

    Please pray for me, my wife, and our three beloved children (all young adults).

    As Jesus Christ approaches, the time and the place of the Cross are near.

    Which way will you turn?

    To whom will you look for the finish line of your faith?

     

  • Resurrection Before Jesus

    Resurrection Before Jesus

    Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son

    Nain Galileenain mapLuke 7:11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.

    12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

    (Recall that Jesus had told the people of Nazareth of Elijah being sent to a widow outside of Israel.)

    13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.

    The-Widow-Of-Nain,-1927And he said, “Young man, I say to you,arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

    Imagine… get the picture. A widow no longer has a husband to support her. A woman cannot (in this culture or most) support even herself. A son becomes responsible for taking care of his mother; but the son himself is sick and dies.

    It is a picture of hopelessness for this widow of Nain.

    Yet as the providence of God would have it, Jesus, God Emmanuel walks into town just as all wail for her great loss at the funeral. Jesus has compassion for her, touches the unclean bier with the unclean dead body of her son. He sits up!

    16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”

    17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

    It is the same compassion by which he has fed the multitudes and healed the sick (even from a distance); yet this time Jesus has done that which cannot be done without the Hand of God. He has resurrected a dead man.

    (There is a precedent the Jewish crowds would know well from a town of old nearby.)

    A woman once perceived another Prophet of God.

    2 Kings 4:

    Elisha and the Shunammite Woman

    Shumen map8 One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food.

    9 And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. 10 Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.”

    11 One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. 12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”

    (The woman is content to have the blessing of showing hospitality to a true Prophet of God.)

    14 And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.”

    (Again, as we have just seen in the story of Jesus, a widow has great need of a man to take care of her. The woman and old man have no son, considered to be a blessing to a faithful family of God.)

    15 He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. 16 And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your servant.” 17 But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elisha had said to her.

    What a joy for a woman to conceive a child, especially the miracle of conceiving after the age of traditional childbirth as demonstrated by several important faithful women of God throughout the many generations of the Bible. Such births are always witness to the power of God to bring forth life where there cannot be life (by the world’s ordinary standards).

    It seems like a conclusion of God’s story of witness; but like Jesus, Elisha travels from place to place as God instructs and this chapter of Elisha’s miracles is more like a conclusion of ‘Act One’ for this couple blessed by the Prophet. Elisha’s room is always ready for his unannounced return.

    18 When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. 19 And he said to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 And when he had lifted him and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died.

    Tragic. Yet a God who can bring life to a lifeless womb can restore life where and when the Lord pleases. We see now a remarkable faith of this woman (similar to that of the Roman centurion).

    21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out. 22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may quickly go to the man of God and come back again.” 23 And he said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.” 24 Then she saddled the donkey, and she said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

    When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite. 26 Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’” And she answered, “All is well.”

    ‘All is well,’ answers the woman whose only son has just died in her arms?

    27 And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

    Now, the grieving mother pleads to the Prophet:

    28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”

    Like Jesus did in Nain, Elisha shows compassion for the woman.

    29 He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.” 30 Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. 31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”

    32 When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in andshut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. 35 Then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house, and went up and stretched himself upon him. The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 Then he summoned Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” 37 She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

    This is but one demonstration of God’s power over life and death (the only one through the great Prophet Elisha). It is one of many demonstrations of God’s miraculous power to heal, even unto life. Jesus would, in addition to His own later resurrection after three days, raise a man from the dead as beloved to Him as this woman’s family must have been to Elisha: Lazarus.

    Later, Jesus is challenged by the Sadducees of the Temple of Herod about the resurrection. The witness of the Shunammite family at the time of Elisha was certainly recorded in their own Bibles! The evidence of Jesus’ miracles must certainly have been in evidence by many witnesses to all; yet they did not believe.

    Oh, you of little faith…

    Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

    How is your faith? Do you believe in life through Christ Jesus? Is He your Lord by faith?

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. –

    1 Peter 1:3-4

     

     

  • Redemption

    Redemption

    I want to tell you a story of an old woman and one of a young woman; a story of relationship and temptation.

    2 Samuel 5:7 Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.

    Scene I is in Jerusalem, about a thousand years or ten centuries after this record of Samuel from scripture.

    Luke 2: 36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

    The woman was married as a young virgin to a man named Phanuel (which means: the face of God). After seven years her husband dies and she has lived several decades as a widow. She was known to be a prophetess. She would not have been allowed at the Temple in the City of David as a Jewish widow had her prophecies not been shown to have been from God. As a Priest might speak at the bidding of God and as a male Prophet might obediently convey God’s words to God’s people, Anna spoke prophesy.

    The Lord had spoken through the Prophets of old during the time of the 1000 years (these 10 centuries before Christ), but God had kept silent while a captured people (conquered this time by the Romans) awaited God’s long-sought redemption once more.

    Jesus is brought to the Temple and Anna also confirms the identity of the Redeemer of God.

    Scene II is in Jerusalem at the same Temple not centuries later, but just three decades, only 30 years.

    Luke 4:  And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil…

    9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,

    “‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    to guard you,’

    11 and

    “‘On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

    pinnacle of TempleAgain, this is thirty years after the Prophetess Anna had thanked God for this same Son of Man, Jesus.

    Satan took Jesus, a man, human like you or me; born to Mary, descendant of David, to the pinnacle of the Temple and said (in effect), “Jump. God will protect you.”

    Jesus is hungry and has already refused to turn stones into bread as Satan tempted him to do as the Son of God, not just a righteous son of man.  Satan had already asked this Son of Man to bow down to him and promised Jesus power over the Kingdoms of the world IF only he, Jesus, the Son of Man would worship the fallen angel of God. Again, Jesus did not seek the power of this world, as many of us do.

    We will return to Jesus’ answer to Satan (which you may know); but first we fast forward beyond the Cross of the Hill of Calvary and the grave and the Resurrection and the Ascension back to the glory of God the Father and the early days of the church and His several appearances to many sons of men to the present.

    Scene III takes place in Mount Zion National Park, USA, twenty centuries later, 8 February, in the year of our Lord 2014.

    The young woman tempted at the pinnacle is just two years younger that the Son of Man of our earlier scene. Her relationship to her new husband is not one of a virgin to a man of God’s leading, but rather a relationship of sharing in his sport of tempting God for the temporal experiences of living life to its fullest.

    She jumped from the pinnacle of Mount Zion. Her parachute did not open. Angels did not catch her. Her body and life were broken on the cold stone below. Her husband witnessed her choice to tempt God, as he so dearly loved to do; and now he is a widower.

    On this very day (10 Feb. 1999) fifteen years ago, I, too, became a widower; yet not by my choice or by intentional choice of my godly wife. As God tears many a wife from her husband and many a husband from his wife, I became a widower when the Lord took my wife after a many month struggle against cancer to hold onto this precious life.

    Though God has joined many a man to his beloved help-mate, his wife; in almost every instance one will die before the other. A wife will become a widow, as had Anna; or a husband will become a widower, as has the poor husband who just witnessed the death of his wife.

     What does it mean that this man who did not jump would later willingly allow Himself to be lifted up on the Cross to die for you and for me?

    Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of the scripture (by which He would answer Satan, Pharisees and those who would manipulate God’s word to their own ends) became our redemption. What does that mean to you personally? What does it mean when Satan has lead you to the pinnacle of the choice of your action of life or your action of death?

    It is a question of slavery.

    God chose Abraham. God chose Isaac (and not Ishmael). God chose Jacob, who He named Israel.

    Jacob had twelve sons, sons (tribes or families) of inheritance of the land of the promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. However they betrayed their own brother, Joseph, and sold him into slavery for a price.

    Joseph was bought and sold into Egypt, where the Lord saved him and lifted him into the office of Prime Minister only under Pharaoh. Yet Joseph remained faithful to God. He asked his father Jacob’s blessing on his two Egyptian-born sons for his share of the promise of Abraham in a land now ruled by Pharaoh.

    Joseph’s land, given to the Israelites in Egypt, was not paid for or an inheritance. In fact, the price of redemption for Joseph had never been paid and by the generation of Moses, sons of Abraham; and the sons of Joseph (descendants of God’s promise) were once again slaves in the land of Egypt with no man to pay the price of their freedom.

    God saved them and forced Pharaoh to let His people go. Moses did not save them, but spoke for God, obeyed God, and gave God’s own people God’s own Law to obey; as they had once had to obey every law of Pharaoh. Still, even in the time of David and Solomon centuries later, God’s Chosen People had not had the price of their slavery paid. God’s Chosen were not yet redeemed in any way.

    Psalm 49 speaks of the sons of Korah (of the rebellion against God and Moses) stating:

    5 Why should I fear in the days of evil,
    When the iniquity at my heels surrounds me?
    6 Those who trust in their wealth
    And boast in the multitude of their riches,
    7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother,
    Nor give to God a ransom for him—
    8 For the redemption of their souls is costly,
    And it shall cease forever—
    9 That he should continue to live eternally,
    And not see the Pit.

    To rescue a sinner

    You must pay the price.

    Who can redeem the sinner?  (And we are all sinners, you and me and all sons of men of every time and place.)

    If you stand at the pinnacle of choice between life and death, what is the answer?

    Scene IV Returning to the Pinnacle of the Temple and the answer of the Son of Man two hundred centuries before this year of our Lord, 2014.

    Luke 4:12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

    And Christ Jesus began His three-year mission on earth as the Son of Man, calling men and women to repentance and grace, living and breathing the love of God our Father for His chosen family of the promise and of His chosen Bride, the church.

    Luke 4: 

    17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

    18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

    20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

     “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

    And of His fulfillment of scripture, this is what Jesus said: I AM the price paid for your sin and for the sins of all who are joined to Jesus as our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer.

    Satan will tempt you before God until the day your flesh will die.

    Who will you bow down and worship?  What is your answer:

    I will gladly follow your worldly temptation, lord satan…

    OR Jesus IS LORD?

    Do NOT put the Lord your God to the test. Trust ONLY JESUS CHRIST, who paid the price of redemption for your sin and for mine. He IS the one who taught us to pray (Luke 11:2-4):

    Our Father

    Who IS in Heaven,

    HOLY IS your Name.

    Your Kingdom will come.

    May Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.

    Give us day by day our daily bread

    And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.

    And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

     

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