Ps 4:8, “In peace, I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O YHWH, make me dwell in safety.” Sleep can be the process of rest and waking that we go through every night, but Scripture also speaks of death as sleep (Jn 11:11; 1 Thess.4:13-18). The one who lives in covenant […]
Job 36:15, “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” He delivers the afflicted by their affliction….another way to say this is that the Lord uses adversity and suffering as a means of deliverance and sanctification and healing for those who experience adversity and suffering. Affliction is made to
Is 55:10-11, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty…” Rain that falls on the fields is never wasted…it
Matthew 16:25, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I’ve written a lot on this verse and on passages like it, but it is a truth that I easily forget and so need to be continually reminded of. Living to preserve,
Matthew 15:30, “…they put them at His feet, and He healed them.” Matthew’s language in this section is almost a verbatim reproduction of Isaiah 35:5-6a where YHWH’s coming to His people brings about miraculous healing. And yet, in both Isaiah and here in Matthew, the sort of healing that is recounted—and especially the way
2 Corinthians 1:8-9, “…we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had receive the sentence of death. But this was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Disciples of Jesus are not promised an easy time
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1 Peter 2:24-25, “He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, you have been healed. For your were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” If you trace the parallelism
John 13:7, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand after these [things].” One truth we can derive from this text is that the resurrection of the crucified Christ (the “these things” He refers to) is the illumination of His person and work. He is not known aright until
Psalm 119:45, “…I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.” Our natural mind tells us that doing “whatever we want” is the path of freedom, but that is like the man with an anchor tied around his neck saying that true freedom is to follow wherever his anchor leads….Not
2 Corinthians 1:5, “…just as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, so through Christ our comfort also abounds.” The phrase, “just as” at the beginning of this verse refers back to what Paul has been talking about in the preceding verses, namely, the afflictions which he and others believers suffer. This is important
1 Corinthians 15:20, “But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Just as the first rays of morning on the Eastern horizon mean day is at hand; just as the first buds on the trees tell us that Spring has come; and just
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Ezekiel 37:12-13, “Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am YHWH, when I open your graves…” The people of God will be raised from the grave of their spiritual exile only
Psalm 124:7, “We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken and we have escaped.” This was one of the Psalms that was sung during my time at the abbey of Gethsemani last week. As soon as I heard it, the attached image sprang to my mind. I’d
2 Corinthians 12:10, “for the sake of Christ, then, I am content (or “well pleased”) with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am when, then I am strong.” How can Paul be content with—or even embrace—his sufferings? This is not only counter intuitive, it is counter nature. We do not move toward
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Psalm 103:15-17, “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him…” And in
Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for YHWH; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”
Hebrews 12:11, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who have even trained by it.” And, in Christ, this sin-searing, peace-creating discipline is always in love, never in wrath.
John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” There simply are not many paths to God….there is one—Jesus Christ. This is not a human invention….it’s not something the Church developed to monopolize power (I’m not saying it has
Luke 1:35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” The incarnation reveals the Trinity. Yes, when the Word takes on flesh, He does not only reveal the Father, but He reveals the
Isaiah 19:21-22, 25, “And YHWH will make Himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know YHWH in that day…And YHWH will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to YHWH, and He will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them… ‘Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work
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