Friday 1 March 2024

The real doctor

“Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no doctor ?” Jeremiah 8. 22

Jesus came for those who need a doctor. His words and his action are a balm for the wounds of our life.

The balm of Gilead had the reputation of calming pain and healing wounds (Jeremiah 46. 11). It was one of the main export products of the land of Canaan (Genesis 37. 25 ; Ezekiel 27. 17). This substance was valuable as, for us, a medicine and we experienced its effectiveness.

But Jeremiah speaks in the moral sense. The pain of his heart is immense in the face of the ruin of the people of God. "My heart aches within me [...] I am broken by the pain of the daughter of my people, I am in sadness, fear seizes me" (Jeremiah 8. 18-21). He then asks these painful questions : “Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no doctor ?”

The answer is not long in coming, but God will give it to Jeremiah, positive and more wonderful than he could have anticipated :

- A balm, that is to say the return to the promised land : "I will gather the rest of my sheep from all the countries where I have driven them [...] They will be fruitful and multiply" (Jeremiah 23. 3).

- A physician, that is to say the Messiah who will take care of his people : “Behold, I will give them healing and health, I will heal them, and I will open to them an abundant spring of peace and faithfulness” ( Jeremiah 33. 6).

What a precious balm in all the words of God to Jeremiah! Even if he also had to announce terrible facts : "When Jerusalem was taken [...] [the king of Babylon] had Zedekiah's eyes put out [...] The Chaldeans burned the king's house with fire and the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 39. 1-8).

As with Jeremiah, God provides the balm for our suffering. When we are in a difficult and painful situation, he assures us, in his mercy and power, that he can and wants to give it to us. He revealed to us the doctor who applies the balm. So all our hope is in Jesus.

My God, thank you for your promises and for Jesus who fulfills them !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Sunday 18 February 2024

“Me, I am the resurrection”

"Jesus said to her [Martha] : I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even though he were dead, will live ; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this ?" John 11. 25, 26 New Revised Version

Jesus, by his resurrection, conquered death and delivers from death those who believe in him ; he gives them eternal life. They find a trusting relationship with God, in their earthly life and for eternity.

In the universe, everything tends towards death : the stars die, the mountains erode, the most resistant trees eventually fall, not to mention men and animals. Only God does not change: he is “the Same” according to the name he gives himself (Deuteronomy 32. 39).

Man is made in the image of God, according to his likeness, he has received the breath of life from him and enjoys a special relationship with his Creator and a life without end. But, because of their sin, Adam and Eve, driven out of the garden and deprived of the tree of life, die and transmit death to their descendants. thus, the fault of Adam and Eve results in the death of the body, but also, for the entire human race, the interruption forever of the happy relationship that God had established with them.

Then Jesus intervened to deliver those who believe in him from death and bring them into the realm of eternal life. From then on, believers possess it and it allows them to regain a trusting relationship with God. Additionally, it is a different relationship than innocent Adam, because they know God as their Father.

Why is this so ? Because Jesus, by his life and by his death, perfectly accomplished the will of his Father and he defeated the devil who had the power of death (Hebrews 2. 14, 15). Resurrected, he has the power of resurrection, he is the resurrection, and soon our Lord, the Savior of our soul and body, will “transform our humble body, making it like his glorious body” (Philippians 3. 21 ). Then God will put “all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15. 25, 26).

Let us not forget that unbelievers will also be resurrected, but to meet as a judge the one they did not want to receive as their savior during their life here on earth. Therefore let us warn them : “Be reconciled to God !” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Saturday 2 September 2023

"Whoever sins against me wrongs his soul." Proverbs 8. 36 Darby Version

Attitudes without profit

Christians are urged to behave differently from the world in our way of thinking, reacting or planning. Suddenly, it happens to us to be in “overhang”, we feel a feeling of embarrassment and we have the temptation to conform to the world. Faced with this, the desire to obey the Lord and to please him must be our deep motivation, in fear of the consequences of sin in us. The following verses, which speak to us of attitudes without profit, are likely to challenge us :

- Lack of love

"If I distributed in food, all my goods, and if I delivered my body to be burned, but I have no love, it is of no profit to me" (1 Corinthians 13. 3).

“The treasures of wickedness profit nothing” (Proverbs 10:2).

- Meeting in church with dubious motives

"In commanding you this, I do not praise you : you come together, not for your profit, but to your detriment" because "when you come together in assembly, there are divisions among you" (1 Corinthians 11:17, 18).

- Replace a duty of love with a rite devoid of value

"It is I, Paul, who say to you : if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing" (Galatians 5.2; see Acts 15.24).

“What profit is there, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, and has no works ? (James 2:14).

- Talking about what does not edify

"Let there be no quarreling over words, which is to no profit, but to the ruin of the hearers" (2 Timothy 2:14).

"Behold, you trust in words of lies, which do not profit" (Jeremiah 7.8).

What a pity to indulge in such behavior! On the contrary, let us be submitted to God who says to us : "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your profit, who directs you in the way in which you must walk" (Isaiah 48:17) and which reminds us that "wisdom is profitable to bring success" (Ecclesiastes 10. 10). What encouragement to build our life with the Lord, because he tells us : "If you know things, you are blessed if you do them" (John 13:17).

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Sunday May 14, 2023

"Your youth is renewed like that of the eagle." Psalm 103. 5 Darby version

"Young people themselves become weak and weary. Even the best fall. But those who put their hope in the Lord find new strength. They soar like eagles, they run without getting tired, they advance without exhaust." Isaiah 40. 30, 31 Word of Life version

Let's learn from the eagle

In your service for the Lord, do you feel tired, exhausted ? Do you wonder how long you can keep going at the same pace ?

Many servants of God, in their great fatigue, cried out to God. And they asked themselves questions : Am I up to the task (2 Corinthians 2:16) ? Where to find new forces ?

Let's learn a lesson from the eagle. The Bible makes many allusions to his longevity, his strength, his speed, his keen eyesight (it is said that he can see a hare a mile away !). She also speaks of an inaccessible nest (Jeremiah 49. 16) and the care it takes of its brood. When the Bible tells us : "Your youth is renewed like that of the eagle", would it be eternal ? Of course not ! To understand the comparison, you should know that the eagle renews its plumage every year. Its ability to fly is however not affected : during its long period of moulting where it loses its feathers, it renews them in a symmetrical way. He also knows remarkably well how to save his forces by using the winds to glide, or the hot updrafts to rise in the air.

Likewise, the children of God, with renewed strength, can raise him above circumstances to consider everything from above, with him and like him. This renewal is linked to an attitude : to wait on the Eternal. It means relying on God alone to move forward, being calm and confident. "Hope in the Eternal ! Be strong, and let your heart be established ! Hope in the Eternal !" (Psalm 27. 14).

Do not seek to advance the gospel by multiplying activities. Paul was not free in his movements when, in prison in Rome, he wrote to the Philippians : "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has rather contributed to the progress of the Gospel" (Philippians 1.12). And he gives examples.

Let us trust in God : if he calls for a service, he grants the strength and the means to accomplish it.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)

Sunday 19 March 2023

"You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: for you he made himself poor when he was rich, so that by his poverty you might be enriched." 2 Corinthians 8:9

Enriched by the poverty of the Lord

Jesus comes to earth in a village in Israel. When he was born, his parents were housed in a place reserved for pets. His mother swaddles him and puts him in a manger intended for a completely different purpose. He lives and works humbly among his people, as a carpenter in Nazareth, a despised city.

During the three and a half years that his ministry lasted, he accepted the material help of a few women to whom he undoubtedly had the opportunity to do good (Luke 8. 3).

One day, on his way to Galilee and left by his disciples who had gone to buy food, he was seated, tired from the journey, on the edge of a well. He is thirsty but he has nothing to draw water from.

No text suggests that Jesus had money on him. When the tax collector asks Peter if his Master pays the tax required of every Jew for the particularity at the expense of the religious service of the Temple, the Lord does not have the didrachms (about two days wages of a worker) to do so. acquit (Matthew 17:24).

He had no home, no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58). He accepted hospitality from those who loved him (Matthew 21:17). When he enters Jerusalem to be acclaimed as king, he is seated on a donkey that he has borrowed from Peter and John in a nearby village (Mark 11. 1-11).

When he gathers his disciples, one last time in Jerusalem before being crucified, a person provides a dining room already prepared. Even his grave was meant for someone else!

He, the "heir of all" (Hebrews 1.2), by whom and for whom everything was created (Colossians 1.16), made himself poor and lived poor, from the manger to the cross, in the world his hands had fashioned ! For what ? To be accessible to all, even to the most deprived, to make us "the riches of his goodness" (Romans 2. 4), to make us children of God, his brothers, his co-heirs !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)