jesus – Page 36

Visual Exegesis: The Life of Every Living Thing

Posted on April 23, 2017April 23, 2017 by elizabethprata

Chris Powers of Full of Eyes creates exegetical art, still and moving images, intended to point people to the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Son. His work can be found on Youtube, Patreon, and his website, fullofeyes.com. There are study guides to accompany the videos, tracts, and art- free to use for the edification of the global church and the exaltation of Jesus’ name.

Today’s presentation is called The Life of Every Living Thing. Below Powers’ illustration is the artist’s statement.

Job 12:10, “In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

It was tough to come up with a verse picture today. I spent most of my time reading this morning in Genesis considering some of the patterns we see in the Creation week….some wonderful stuff there, but nothing that seemed to lend itself to a picture. I also read a bit in Job and came across 12:10…..I was hesitant to make the picture that I did because it is similar to another that I did a few months ago, but–since I try to get these done early without spending TOO much time on them, I went ahead with this design.

I’m also studying the “hypostatic union” right now (the orthodox understanding of Christ as one Person–God the Son–with two natures–divine and human) for a Wednesday night class I teach at our local church….that’s got me thinking about some more of the glorious realities we see in Christ….one of which is that He–as God the Son–is sustaining the universe (“in His hand is the life of every living thing…”) even as His hands are pierced and His creaturely life ebbs away. It’s an “old” truth but one that ought always to stagger….the sovereign mingling of omnipotence and helplessness that we see at the cross is unlike anything the world can produce and a self-authenticating witness to the beauty of God’s Name.

So, I hope that this picture echoes both the idea that the God-Man upheld the life of the universe with His hands even as His flesh was pierced on the cross AND that, the piercing of His hands was also the means by which He purchased the life that He was upholding. All created life–at least all terrestrial life–would rightly have been extinguished because of sin had not the wrath a ten thousand justly-deserved Noahic floods been stored up to be poured on on the Beloved Son at Calvary.

discernment, Uncategorized

The biblical worldview is that there is the righteous and the wicked

Posted on April 22, 2017April 22, 2017 by elizabethprata

When you read chunks of the Bible at one time, patterns and themes emerge that may not be as noticeable as when you read just a few verses more deeply. That’s why both kinds of study are valuable.

In reading the Psalms, one immediately notices David’s worldview. It’s stark, solid, and biblical. With David, there are the righteous, and the wicked. Period.

We live in times where Christians are pressured to blur those lines. We’re told to accept and tolerate all manner of sin, value any and all professions of faith even if they’re unaccompanied by fruit, and to view all people as inherently good. Failure to do the above invites catcalls of “Pharisee”, “judgmental”, or worse.

However, when we blur those lines, the loss to the church is that mission fields shrink and disappear. Doctrinal lines are dismissed. Sadly, if we don’t know who is in and who is out, who do we evangelize?

I found this article from a church in MO, called The Righteous and the Wicked. I don’t agree with their KJV-only stance, but I do agree with this article.

We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the lord Jesus, and sanctified by the spirit of our god, are truly righteous in his esteem while all such as continue in impenitence and unbelief are in his sight wicked, and under the curse; and this distinction holds among men both in and after death. …

This article also emphasizes the fact that with God, there is no middle ground. With men, we see much middle ground or gray area. With God it is all black or white, right or wrong, for him or against him. Joshua made this very clear in Joshua 24:14,15 when he demanded that Israel make a choice to either serve God or not serve God. “Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. 15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

The Bible makes it clear so many times, using opposites in a plethora of descriptions. This verse from Isaiah 5:20 is just one:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

The verse presents three of the stark opposites:

Evil-Good
Darkness-Light
Bitter-Sweet

We read of those who are cursed and those who are blessed.

Those who are dead and those who are living.

There are those in Christ and those who are in outer darkness.

There are those who draw near, and those who fall away.

There are those who are hot, and those who are cold. The middle ground of lukewarm is something Jesus hates!

The sad thing is that some of these unsaved, evil people are professing Christians. Others are simply true Christians who are stumbling. Without practicing biblical discernment, we are losing our ability as a global church to detect the difference. This is to our detriment. The biblical worldview is that there is either-or.

We need to be mindful of the two-path approach to Jesus. Now, we don’t have the omnipotence that God does. When I try to have these conversations with fellow believers, they quickly shut it down, saying, “Only God knows the heart.” That is true. I can’t see the heart of people to say with the same certainty as God that a person is saved or not saved. I’m not omnipotent. But discernment doesn’t require omnipotence. “You will know them by their fruits,” Jesus said, twice in the same lesson. (Matthew 7:15-20). He gave us the ability to discern the difference between a thistle and a fig, the difference between a grape and a thorn.

He didn’t say, ‘You won’t know them.’ He didn’t say, ‘You may know them, perhaps. Try again later.’ He didn’t say, ‘Stay quiet because only God knows the heart.’

Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (Matthew 7:20)

I’m not saying to go around and make unsound declarations about people’s position in Christ. But I am saying two things that revolve around this concept – inconsistency and hypocrisy in Christian life brings reproach upon the cause of truth.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; (2 Peter 2:2).

So for that reason,

1. Remember that there are two roads and two roads only. Societal pressure, cultural tolerance, personal timidity add to the reluctance of people to remember that. The biblical worldview is that it’s either-or with nothing in the middle! The middle road with mushy doctrinal lines is lukewarm. Jesus hates lukewarm. Do not tolerate sinners among you who preach false doctrine! (Revelation 2:20).

2. If you see a long-term pattern of sin in a person or a long time of no fruit, it is allowed and even commanded by His word, to do something about it. Some of these verses are aimed at pastors but it is also incumbent on lay-people to both edify and rebuke in sincere concern for their restoration. (1 Cor. 5:1-13, 1 Timothy 5:20, 2 Timothy 4:2, Titus 1:13, Galatians 2:14, Ephesians 5:11…)

In an attempt to be kind, or caring, or non-judgmental, we too often allow a believer (or a non-believer “believer”) to go on their wicked path. The believer, if he is a believer, loses rewards every moment he continues on his course of sin. More importantly, professing believers who continue on a wicked path bring reproach onto the name of Jesus. (Romans 2:23-24). The professing person who is self-deluded and not a believer at all, may, in fact, be shaken out of their deluded complacency unto salvation if one confronts them about their lack of fruit.

Even if they aren’t shaken out of complacency or a sinning path, and the Lord hardens them further instead, His glory is manifested in that person as a vessel of wrath. Plus, you are giving Him glory by obeying. Just as the result of our salvation discussions is left to the Holy Spirit, sin-correcting discussion results are also left to Him. Sometimes the person will be amenable, sometimes they will become angry and then amenable, and sometimes they will get mad and stay mad. If you have prayed, if you have been diligent to follow His statutes, if you’ve removed the log from your own eye, if you’ve spoken with a sincerity for the betterment and concern for the person, then leave the results to the Spirit. You’ve done your part.

The Takeaway:

There are two roads. There are the righteous and the wicked. The two roads people travel lead to His domain, whether it is the kingdom of Light in heaven or His domain of Outer Darkness in the Lake of Fire. After death, there is a great gulf fixed, that none many travel from one to the other. Speak the truth in love to those who you have concerns for before the roads become unalterably fixed after death.

As David said in Psalm 6:5,

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?

Matthew Henry is concise regarding this verse, and of today’s concept, his comment on Psalm 6:5 is a good way to end it:

6:1-7 These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent to awaken conscience and mortify corruption. Sickness brought sin to his remembrance, and he looked upon it as a token of God’s displeasure against him. The affliction of his body will be tolerable, if he has comfort in his soul. Christ’s sorest complaint, in his sufferings, was of the trouble of his soul, and the want of his Father’s smiles. Every page of Scripture proclaims the fact, that salvation is only of the Lord.

Man is a sinner, his case can only be reached by mercy; and never is mercy more illustrious than in restoring backsliders. With good reason we may pray, that if it be the will of God, and he has any further work for us or our friends to do in this world, he will yet spare us or them to serve him. To depart and be with Christ is happiest for the saints; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the church.

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The Sad Story of the Wind Phone

Posted on April 18, 2017April 18, 2017 by elizabethprata

The lost are in the night, the cold, the outside. The lost are stumbling around, leading each other into a pit. They know not what they do. They dwell in a land of darkness with no hope.

For that reason, we can have compassion and pity.

This week I read an article that pulled at my heart strings. It was one of those articles that evoked pity, but also gratitude. I say gratitude because the Lord transferred me from the Kingdom of Darkness into His kingdom of Light. I have hope for an afterlife, the assurance of His more sure word on what is going to happen.

The phone of the wind. CC BY-SA 4.0

Wind Telephone
A disconnected rotary phone for “calling” lost loved ones offered a unique way of dealing with grief in disaster-stricken Japan.

When Itaru Sasaki lost his cousin in 2010, he decided to build a glass-paneled phone booth in his hilltop garden with a disconnected rotary phone inside for communicating with his lost relative, to help him deal with his grief.

Only a year later, Japan faced the horrors of a triple disaster: an earthquake followed by a tsunami, which caused a nuclear meltdown. Sasaki’s coastal hometown of Otsuchi was hit with 30-foot waves. Ten percent of the town died in the flood.

Sasaki opened his kaze no denwa or “wind phone” to the now huge number of people in the community mourning the loss of loved ones. Eventually, word spread and others experiencing grief made the pilgrimage from around the country. It is believed that 10,000 visitors journeyed to this hilltop outside Otsuchi within three years of the disaster.

The article goes on to assure the reader that the wind phone is meant to be used as a one-way communication. In other words, the people dialing the rotary dial and speaking their grief to the wind do not expect to hear anything in return at all. It’s just a symbol, a process, and an activity to help people feel more in control during their time of grief.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Not knowing about what happens after death is a number one issue for the unsaved. They might utter it, or they might never utter it, but we know that the gaping maw that is the great, unanswered question of eternity always lurks behind their thoughts. We know this because they are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) and the wrath abides on them all the time. (John 3:36). As Paul said, If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15:19).

We Christians have the assurance of a sinless, perfect afterlife with Jesus. We also have the promise of loving attention by a God who hears our prayers. (Psalm 34:15). We do not need a wind phone, we have the ear of the Almighty God! What praise there is in that! We are encouraged to take our supplications to Him, He hears us from His mighty temple. (Psalm 18:6).

Doesn’t it just tug your heart strings to see something like a wind phone atop a lonely hill in Japan? Doesn’t it pierce you, knowing the sadness and grief of the lost will not be salved? But doesn’t it also pierce you (as it does me) to have the ability to pray to the Holy One, and not? While the lost are installing phantom phones to whisper their grief into the wind, we are assured we have the ear of the High Priest at our disposal.

Pray more. Jesus is the God who sees and hears. He knows the voices of His sheep. Our griefs, supplications, petitions, cares, burdens, praises, and joys reach Him even though He is an unutterable distance away. But He is this close, too, inside us, knowing our sinews and heartbeats. He knows what we will ask before we ask it. He knows the need to be comforted even as we clasp our hands and open our mouth. He is great, attentive, wise, and concerned. Pray more. And tell the lost before they need a wind phone, that there is One who will listen, if they repent.

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David’s brave prayer

Posted on April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 by elizabethprata

In Matthew 16:24-26 we read,

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

We know that passage means we turn our back on the kingdom of darkness and everything it represents, including self-aggrandizement, self-absorption, selfishness, anything self, &etc. We know we are supposed to die to self. We know we are supposed to hold others in higher regard than ourselves. We know it is written that we should be willing to lay down our life for our friends.

It’s hard.

Very hard.

Oh, does the flesh rebel against this.

We read in Psalm 7:3-5, the following prayer by David.

O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.

In that section of the Psalm, David is saying that if he has violated his Godly principles and done evil to a friend, may the Lord crush him. He is saying that if he has done evil to an enemy without cause, may him be trampled to the ground without honor.

Barnes Notes explains,

repaid friend with evil – The meaning here is simply that if he were a guilty man, in the manner charged on him, he would be willing to be treated accordingly. He did not wish to screen himself from any just treatment; and if he had been guilty he would not complain even if he were cut off from the land of the living.

plundered enemy without cause – The allusion here is to the manner in which the vanquished were often treated in battle, when they were rode over by horses, or trampled by men into the dust. The idea of David is, that if he was guilty he would be willing that his enemy should triumph over him, should subdue him, should treat him with the utmost indignity and scorn.

No wonder David was a man after God’s own heart. It is a hard thing to pray. Because, God will do it.

Sometimes I try to pray this kind of prayer. The words stick in my throat. Or, as the words come out, I soften them. I am a weakling when it comes to the battle between myself and others. ‘Lay my glory in the dust’? I am far from mastering that.

Praise God for the Psalms. They are comforting yes, but they are convicting too. Lord, help me by giving me the strength to more deeply obey Your principles. As I take up my cross today and go down the dusty road, give me the strength to truly care for others beyond myself, in spite of myself, denying myself.

EPrata photo

prophecy, Uncategorized

He is Risen!

Posted on April 16, 2017April 16, 2017 by elizabethprata

Jesus accomplished the work God sent Him here to do. He did it perfectly, sinlessly, and died on the cross after absorbing all God’s wrath for sin. He even endured a horrific separation from the Father. Jesus had only ever known perfect harmony with God and love and sweet communion. O! To be cruelly dismissed from His presence! Jesus was not afeared of the pain of the crucifixion as much as he was dreading being separated from God. It was the loneliest moment in history forever.

He endured that separation and bore the wrath, so we would never have to. We can come into sweet communion with the Father, justified, sanctified, and someday, glorified.

God was pleased with His Son, and resurrected Him from the dead.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:24)

prophecy, Uncategorized

Holy Week: A Personal God

Posted on April 11, 2017April 11, 2017 by elizabethprata

God is a personal God. Even the thunderous, Mt. Sinai, pestilence-bringing, smiting God of the Old Testament. Yes. Especially the Old Testament God. And of course in the New Testament God is a personal God, too. We see Him in Jesus, who is both fully man and fully God. He had come to serve. He did so meekly and humbly, even washing feet.

We read in Genesis that God created the worlds, He did it personally and carefully, with precision. He spoke them into life.

‘In the beginning, God said’… He spoke.

And God said, And God said, Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24.

When it came time to form man, God did not speak. He did it Himself, personally, and with His own breath.

then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature… (Genesis 2:7)

Therefore, we see that God’s intimate formation of the world got even more intimate when He made man.

It gets even better.

Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we have an even more intimate relationship with Him and He with us. We are His body, His blood covers us. We are IN Him.

It is holy week, so it bears thinking about Him on a special level. We are “in Christ”. We read it in 1 Peter 5:14; Philippians 1:1; Romans 8:1, Colossians 3:3. We have it explained in Galatians 3:26-28-

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

John MacArthur explained about what it means to be “in Christ” in his inimitable way in the sermon, Under the Law, or In Christ? He opened the salient portion of the sermon this way before going on to spend time expounding what it means to be In Christ. I recommend the sermon.

To ask the question, “What is a Christian?” That question is simply answered, right here. A Christian is one who is in Christ. That’s all. You can imagine following the teachings of Buddha, following the teachings of Confucius, or following the teachings of Muhammad, but you can’t imaging anyone saying, “I’m in Confucius. I’m in Buddha. I’m in Muhammad.” There’s no such thing as a Christian who isn’t in Christ. You see, we’re not following the teachings of a man, we’re in union with Him. If that boggles your brain, you haven’t heard anything yet. In Christ.

We have a personal God. We have a loving God. He is expressly concerned with His creation, and particularly concerned with His children.

It is holy week. Hallelujah to the Lamb!

encouragement, Uncategorized

El Shama: A God who hears, He is a God who listens

Posted on March 25, 2017 by elizabethprata

Doesn’t it just crush you to pray to Jesus…and know He hears us? It’s incredible, and a privilege we always remember in gratitude.

As Isaiah cried in his wonder and grief, “I am a man of unclean lips!” (Isaiah 6:5). In my case, a woman of unclean lips. Why should I be able to use these lips to pray to Jesus when I am the chief of sinners, wretched woman that I am? What is man that God should be mindful of us? (Psalm 8:4). Why should He hear us?

But He does.

Though ‘El Shama’ is not an official name of God, it refers to the fact that God hears…He listens. God told Hagar to name her soon to be born son Ishmael. Ishmael is is a combination of el and shama, “God hears” or “God listens”. The name would be a reminder to Hagar and all who knew them that He heard Hagar’s cry in the wilderness. (Genesis 16:11). He listens.

Psalm 17:6 says

I have called on you, for you will hear me, O God: incline your ear to me, and hear my speech.

Gill’s Expositions says of the Psalmist’s plea in verse 6,

“for thou wilt hear me, O God; God is a God hearing prayer; he is used to hear his people, and they have frequent experience of it, and they may be assured that whatsoever they ask according to his will, and in the name of Christ, he will hear; and such an assurance is a reason engaging the saints to a constant calling upon God, Psalm 116:2; and such confidence of being always heard Christ had, John 11:41;”

1 John 5:14 says,

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

Did Peter forever relive his anguish each morning of his remaining life, when he heard the rooster crow the day awake and remembered his own perfidy? Owww, Peter, I understand your grief, the pain of betraying Jesus in word or in deed from our own sinful actions. Yet…Jesus prayed for Peter. Luke 22:32. He did not pray for Judas. Both men betrayed Jesus, but Jesus prayed for Peter.

If you’re a Christian, Jesus prays for you, too. It’s staggering to consider that the God of the Universe prays for us. He hears us, and He prays for us. We have a superlative God, One who is true and kind and loving and compassionate. Sister, no matter what you are going through, Jesus hears your prayer and He takes your cares to the Father in prayer. Be encouraged.

be strong verse

encouragement, Uncategorized

Losing my salvation

Posted on March 18, 2017March 18, 2017 by elizabethprata

John MacArthur has famously said on more than one occasion, “If I could lose my salvation, I would.” His comment is a succinct but devastatingly incisive statement about the fallenness of man. The fleshly part of man wants to be in control. It wants to be king of our lives. Even Christians who understand our own depravity and desire to work FOR God soon find that if they do not carefully reign in the flesh, that we are not participating in our own sanctification, but we’re bossing God around and replacing Him with the idol of works.

MacArthur wasn’t guessing when he said what he said. I’ts grounded in the bible. There is biblical precedent for his statement.

God instituted a Doctrine of Works. Don’t bristle. Stay with me. In Genesis 2, God told Adam,

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-16).

As Martyn Lloyd Jones said of the Doctrine of Works in his sermon “The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament“, the Genesis verses are obviously a doctrine of works. God told Adam to–

–work the Garden
–keep the Garden
–not eat of the fruit.

The inheritance of the reward from God was entirely dependent upon what Adam did or did not do. This is works.

It failed.

It failed immediately and utterly. Adam failed to work correctly for his reward from God. Since we are all in Adam from the moment of birth, from the moment of conception even, (Romans 5:12, Psalm 51:5) we, too, will fail to please God with our works. (Hebrews 11:6).

Once again Lloyd Jones, “If man in a perfect position didn’t keep the covenant of works, then what is the point of God making a new Covenant of Works? And indeed He didn’t. He then made a Covenant of Grace.”

We cannot, cannot, inherit any reward from God based on our own works. We have proved this. It was tried, it failed, it’s done. God made a Covenant of Grace which is that we receive a reward from Him based on HIS choice, HIS will, HIS election, HIS grace. Our reward is all based on faith, and guess what? The faith we have is also a granted gift from Him. (Galatians 3:22). It is a faith that HE keeps for us and in us. It’s sealed. (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13).

This knowledge of works v. faith has import for those who are in a works-based religion – which is to say everyone else in all other religions, even atheism. Mormons try to reach god through their covenant of works. Catholics try to pile up works so as to acquire enough to please God. Islam teaches “To those who believe and do deeds of righteousness hath Allah promised forgiveness and a great reward,” (Surah 5:9). And so on. And so on. And so on…

Our working out of our salvation through fear and trembling is a result of the sovereign choice of God to dispense faith and repentance to us. It’s based on our knowledge of the above, that our works while in the flesh count as filthy rags. It’s all Jesus, from start to finish, including His reward to us. We receive a glorified body so that we may no longer sin against Him. We become sons, adopted to His family, and thus co-heirs. We receive manifold and eternal mercies in heaven. Most of all we receive HIM. Jesus is our treasure. In His grace he shared Himself with us, gladly, voluntarily.

Praise God for the Covenant of Grace. Because, if I could lose my salvation, I would.

riches of his grace verse

Uncategorized, visual theology

Love One Another: By Chris Powers

Posted on March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by elizabethprata

Chris Powers is creating visual resources for the global church. As an artist, Powers illustrates and animates theological concepts, and along with his explanations based on and in scripture, he presents thoughtful and beautiful tracts, studies, and videos for the brethren to consume freely. His work can be found on fullofeyes.com, and at Patreon under Full of Eyes, and of course Youtube at his channel Full of Eyes.

Here is one of his latest illustrations.

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Artist’s Statement. By Chris Powers.

Love One Another

Jesus’ call to obey His commandment (s) (there are, I believe, two commandments in view when John uses the plural “commandments”, 1) to receive Jesus as the Son and Revealer of God, and 2) to love as He has loved us. I think a strong case can be made that these two commandments are the Johnannine version of the two Great Commandments upon which all commands depend)…So, where was I? Right: Jesus’ call to obey His commandments comes in the context of His call that we abide in Him and His words abide in us (this being, I believe, synonymous with us abiding in His love, v.9). It is only by abiding in Christ–that is, by receiving Him as He declares Himself to us in His words and works–that we will bear the fruit of obedience to His commands, namely, Christ-like love. And this intimate, Spirit-enabled receiving of the Son (which is to receive the Father in the Son) such that God-revealing, Christ-like, self-giving love is born in us–this is the heart of life itself.

So, in today’s picture I tried to show at least two things: First that our love only comes from God’s love in Christ (thus all the branches streaming from the wound). Secondly, that our love is an imaging of God’s love in Christ (thus the fruit borne by cruciform saints).

encouragement, Uncategorized

A Mother’s Agony

Posted on March 16, 2017March 16, 2017 by elizabethprata

Luke 2:34-35

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

We know that the people whose lives are recorded in the Bible were real. Abraham, Noah, Daniel, Hagar, Rahab, Mary…and the others, were all real people who lived a life on earth with all their joys and trials, and heartaches and triumphs. They did their jobs, sang and laughed, worshiped, prayed, ate, relaxed, and did everything real people do.

Sometimes we read about their lives on the pages of the Bible and as inspired as we are, we tend to think of these people as object lessons, as in, what can I learn from their lives that will inspire me to further obedience or knowledge of Christ?

I see people close to me going through difficulties and heartaches. Some have aging parents in poor health, some are experiencing grief because of death, some are parents with ill children or have children who have received dread diagnoses.

The Lord saw fit to place me in this era and in this nation, where, as a Christian, I am not currently being stalked, hunted, killed, persecuted, or arrested. I know our brethren in the closed countries are, but as of now I personally am not. Sometimes I feel guilty about that, but then again, this is when and where the Lord created me, He appointed times and seasons for everything, so I cannot speak back to the Potter.

I think some of the greatest agonies ever endured. Number one has to be the separation Jesus endured when God withdrew from Him on the cross. “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” Jesus cried. (Matthew 27:46–47). The glory and intimacy He had enjoyed for all eternity with the Father was broken, and Jesus was alone in the dark, spiritually bereft.

If there is a number two agony someone had endured, could it be Jesus’ Mother, Mary, watching her Son hung up as a criminal, beaten, tortured, and dying in front of her eyes? Most mothers believe in their sons. Moms tend to err on the side of their innocence, proclaiming their son’s non-guilt to anyone who would listen. However of all mothers who ever lived, Mary alone knew she had a perfect Son. He never did a wrong thing. He never harmed anyone. Growing up, He treated everyone with perfect courtesy, perfect consideration, perfect attention, perfect honor, perfect trust, perfect love…the list is infinite because Jesus’ qualities as God were perfectly and fully manifested in His human life.

So for Mary to see her beautiful Son, hung up as the lowest criminal, on the most dastardly method of execution ever invented, must have been a grief only mothers can conceive of, and even all other mothers can’t know the depths of her spiritual and motherly despair.

Jesus knew His mother’s temporal agony would be great and her future as a widow would be uncertain. The Lord is good and kind.

When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27Then He said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” So from that hour, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27)

He also knew her spiritual agony would be great too. As Barnes’ Notes says,

Yea, a sword … – The sufferings and death of thy Son shall deeply afflict thy soul. And if Mary had not been thus forewarned and sustained by strong faith, she could not have borne the trials which came upon her Son; but God prepared her for it, and the holy mother of the dying Saviour was sustained.

The Lord of all is so great, kind, wonderful. He is the originator of our faith, the pinnacle of perfection. And yet even as he looked ahead to the sure knowledge of imminent separation from the Father, a moment none of us can even plumb the surface of, never mind the depths, Jesus cared for His weeping and agonizing mother. He sustained her in her faith and spiritually carried her through her agony.

Whatever agony you endure, especially if you are a mother, remember Mary. Remember that even though her crisis was one that no other mother can even attempt to understand, we can still sympathize. It gets even better, because Jesus is there to help us, sustain us, give us the courage to endure. He did for Mary. He will for you.