Category: Lent

Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
    he shall be high and lifted up,
    and shall be exalted.
¹⁴ As many were astonished at you—
    his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
    and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
¹⁵ so shall he sprinkle many nations.
    Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,
for that which has not been told them they see,
    and that which they have not heard they understand.

Who has believed what he has heard from us?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² For he grew up before him like a young plant,
    and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    and no beauty that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he opened not his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
    and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people?
⁹ And they made his grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
¹¹ Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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O Lord, God of my salvation,
    I cry out day and night before you.
² Let my prayer come before you;
    incline your ear to my cry!

³ For my soul is full of troubles,
    and my life draws near to Sheol.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am a man who has no strength,
⁵ like one set loose among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
    for they are cut off from your hand.
⁶ You have put me in the depths of the pit,
    in the regions dark and deep.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
    and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

⁸ You have caused my companions to shun me;
    you have made me a horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
⁹     my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord;
    I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you work wonders for the dead?
    Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
¹¹ Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
    or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
¹² Are your wonders known in the darkness,
    or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

¹³ But I, O Lord, cry to you;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
    Why do you hide your face from me?
¹⁵ Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
    I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your dreadful assaults destroy me.
¹⁷ They surround me like a flood all day long;
    they close in on me together.
¹⁸ You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
    my companions have become darkness.

audio content by 1517 Network

Reflection

1. As noted before, the Psalms are the Songs of Jesus. In light of this write how Psalm 88:9 and 16 sheds light on Matthew 26:39, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. . . “?
2. Like above, how does Psalm 88:18 she light on Mark 14:50 “And they all left him and fled.”?
3. Earlier this week from the reading of Psalm 69, it was stated, “There are times (in our own lives) where Good Friday seems to last all week.” Ponder this in light of today’s comments by Chad Bird: “This is a Good Friday kind of Psalm. It places us in the tomb with the Christ with the knowledge that Good Friday will not last forever.”

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

In our happiest times we do not want to die. The wish for death rises only when our suffering seems unbearable. What we really want in those times is not death, but relief. We would love for the good times to come again. We would like the pain to go away. We would like to have our loved one back from the grave. We want life and happiness.

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy.

God made us that way. “He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We are created in God’s image, and God loves life and lives forever. We were made to live forever. And we will. The opposite of eternal life is not annihilation. It is hell. Jesus spoke of it more than anybody, and he made plain that rejecting the eternal life he offered would result not in obliteration, but in the misery of God’s wrath: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).

And it remains forever. Jesus said, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). This is an unspeakable reality that shows the infinite evil of treating God with indifference or contempt. So Jesus warns, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’” (Mark 9:47-48).

So eternal life is not merely the extension of this life with its mix of pain and pleasure. As hell is the worst outcome of this life, so “eternal life” is the best. It is supreme and ever-increasing happiness where all sin and all sadness will be gone. All that is evil and harmful in this fallen creation will be removed. All that is good—all that will bring true and lasting happiness—will be preserved and purified and intensified.

We will be changed so that we are capable of dimensions of happiness that were inconceivable to us in this life. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined . . . God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). It is true every moment of life, now and always: For those who trust Christ the best is yet to come. We will see the all-satisfying glory of God. “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). For this Christ suffered and died. Why would we not embrace him as our treasure, and live?

from John Piper: Fifty Reasons Jesus Came To Die at Desiring God

Reflection

1. In what way does humanity express that the longing for the human heart is to live and be happy?
2. How does “We were made to live forever” change you perspective on a. what was lost in the fall of Adam and b. your future?
3. How does Psalm 16:11 shed light on this quote above from John Piper, “This is an unspeakable reality that shows the infinite evil of treating God with indifference or contempt”?

Save me, O God!
    For the waters have come up to my neck.
² I sink in deep mire,
    where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
    and the flood sweeps over me.
³ I am weary with my crying out;
    my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
    with waiting for my God.

⁴ More in number than the hairs of my head
    are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
    those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
    must I now restore?
⁵ O God, you know my folly;
    the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

⁶ Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
    O Lord God of hosts;
let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
    O God of Israel.
⁷ For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
    that dishonor has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my brothers,
    an alien to my mother’s sons.

⁹ For zeal for your house has consumed me,
    and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,
    it became my reproach.
¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing,
    I became a byword to them.
¹² I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
    and the drunkards make songs about me.

¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
    At an acceptable time, O God,
    in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.
¹⁴ Deliver me
    from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
    and from the deep waters.
¹⁵ Let not the flood sweep over me,
    or the deep swallow me up,
    or the pit close its mouth over me.

¹⁶ Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
    according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
¹⁷ Hide not your face from your servant,
    for I am in distress; make haste to answer me.
¹⁸ Draw near to my soul, redeem me;
    ransom me because of my enemies!

¹⁹ You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to you.
²⁰ Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹ They gave me poison for food,
    and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.

²² Let their own table before them become a snare;
    and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.
²³ Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see,
    and make their loins tremble continually.
²⁴ Pour out your indignation upon them,
    and let your burning anger overtake them.
²⁵ May their camp be a desolation;
    let no one dwell in their tents.
²⁶ For they persecute him whom you have struck down,
    and they recount the pain of those you have wounded.
²⁷ Add to them punishment upon punishment;
    may they have no acquittal from you.
²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
    let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

²⁹ But I am afflicted and in pain;
    let your salvation, O God, set me on high!

³⁰ I will praise the name of God with a song;
    I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
³¹ This will please the Lord more than an ox
    or a bull with horns and hoofs.
³² When the humble see it they will be glad;
    you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
³³ For the Lord hears the needy
    and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.

³⁴ Let heaven and earth praise him,
    the seas and everything that moves in them.
³⁵ For God will save Zion
    and build up the cities of Judah,
and people shall dwell there and possess it;
³⁶     the offspring of his servants shall inherit it,
    and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

audio content from 1517 Network

Reflection

In today’s reflection in place of questions there are several thoughts. These thoughts are a combination of actual statements made in the Psalm itself or from Chad Bird’s commentary. The purpose is to hover over these statements mentally. Ponder each of them. Some may take more time than others. If you are one who journals, write your thoughts.

1. The wrongs I have done I have not hidden from you.
2. Zeal for your house consumes me.
3. There are times Good Friday seems to last all week long.
4. Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies.
5. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. (consider this statement along with Hebrews 10:4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins)
6. No matter what our emotions tell us, He (God) is with us.

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. 1 Peter 3:18

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13

When all is said and done, God is the gospel. Gospel means “good news.” Christianity is not first theology, but news. It is like prisoners of war hearing by hidden radio that the allies have landed and rescue is only a matter of time. The guards wonder why all the rejoicing.

But what is the ultimate good in the good news? It all ends in one thing: God himself. All the words of the gospel lead to him, or they are not gospel. For example, salvation is not good news if it only saves from hell and not for God. Forgiveness is not good news if it only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only makes us legally acceptable to God but doesn’t bring fellowship with God. Redemption is not good news if it only liberates us from bondage but doesn’t bring us to God. Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in the Father’s family but not in his arms.

This is crucial. Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God. There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart just because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change. You don’t need to be born again to want these things. The devils want them.

It is not wrong to want them. Indeed it is folly not to. But the evidence that we have been changed is that we want these things because they bring us to the enjoyment of God. This is the greatest thing Christ died for. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Why is this the essence of the good news? Because we were made to experience full and lasting happiness from seeing and savoring the glory of God. If our best joy comes from something less, we are idolaters and God is dishonored. He created us in such a way that his glory is displayed through our joy in it. The gospel of Christ is the good news that at the cost of his Son’s life, God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with what will make us eternally and ever-increasingly happy, namely, himself.

Long before Christ came, God revealed himself as the source of full and lasting pleasure. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). Then he sent Christ to suffer “that he might bring us to God.” This means he sent Christ to bring us to the deepest, longest joy a human can have. Hear then the invitation: Turn from “the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25) and come to “pleasures forevermore.” Come to Christ.

From Fifty Reasons Jesus Came To Die: John Piper

Reflection

1. In the second paragraph John Piper writes a line of thought which begins, “Forgiveness is not good news if it only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only makes us legally acceptable to God but doesn’t bring fellowship with God . . .” Explain why this is true. (if help is needed to explain, look at the third paragraph)
2. The phrase, “seeing and savoring Christ” is a significant trait of a life transformed by the gospel. Reflect on the passages Psalm 16:11 and Hebrews 11:25 in light of your own life. Meditate upon these passages and write/ponder the significance of finding eternal joys in Christ contrasted to the fleeting joys in this life.

Dr. D Blair Smith

Malcom Muggeridge famously observed that “the depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.” On the face of it, this observation rings true. And yet, we often hear expressions of absolute disgust at humanity alongside affirmations that “he’s basically a good person.” Why do we resist what seems so self-evident?

The roots of our resistance emerge from our hearts. References to the “heart” are replete in Scripture, because it is the Holy Spirit’s way of referencing our whole being or person. We see this even in our common manner of speaking. For example, when we talk about a person’s truly appropriating an idea or practice, we say, “She really took it to heart.” That is, it became a part of who she is through her regular thought and practice. When the Bible wants to address who we are as human beings, it speaks of the heart.

It’s quite a jolt, then, when we read in Jeremiah 17:9 that the human heart is “deceitful above all things” and, in the King James Version, “desperately wicked” (ESV “desperately sick”). If this is said of the heart, according to a biblical anthropology it must be said of human nature. Human nature, in its natural state, is “desperately wicked” or depraved. And the reason that humanity is unwilling to admit this is because our wicked hearts are “deceitful above all things.” We are in double trouble: we are sick and unwilling to admit it, which means we will never look for a cure on our own.

But we might think, maybe this is just an Old Testament thing. Maybe this is Jeremiah doing his “jeremiad” thing. Maybe this is a judgment given when Israel was in a really bad place, and things got better with time.

If there is going to be any lasting spiritual remedy for humanity, it must address the root problem—our desperately wicked hearts.

The problem with these suggestions is Jesus’ own teaching. In Mark 7, He makes a point of highlighting what defiles a person. Much like the fascination many today have with “self-care” through eating the right foods and engaging in healthy practices, the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day established traditions such as the proper washing of hands, pots, and even couches. However, for many Pharisees, these went beyond “self-care” to having a role in securing one’s righteousness before God (vv. 1–13). This approach presumes that the basic human problem comes from the outside. Jesus teaches the exact opposite:

“Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when [Jesus] had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:14–23)

In teaching against a twisted understanding of humanity, Jesus makes precisely Jeremiah’s point: the human heart is the enduring problem. The human heart is what makes men and women wicked and causes them to do wicked things. Thus, if there is going to be any lasting spiritual remedy for humanity, it must address the root problem—our desperately wicked hearts. And that is exactly what Scripture teaches: true religion starts in the heart.

King David is the great biblical figure of the heart. He is commended to the people of God because he was a man after God’s “own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). And he pursued God because his own heart had been touched by God’s grace. Perhaps the greatest testimony to this is what David did when convicted of sin. After finally seeing his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah for what they were, he petitioned God in Psalm 51 for a clean heart.

A heart apart from God’s grace is desperately wicked but doesn’t know it. A heart touched by God’s grace might still slip into wickedness, yes, but it will knowingly turn in repentance and faith in God and find cleansing in His grace.

If David’s prayer of repentance reminds us that the cleansing of our hearts comes through a source outside us, the writer to the Hebrews points us to the specific source of that cleansing: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean” by the blood of Christ (Heb. 10:22–23). The cleansing of our desperately wicked hearts comes through an application of the blood of Christ shed once and for all on the cross. Once cleansed, though, where does a Christian heart go?

The Christian’s heart is strengthened through the Word of God. Later in Hebrews, when the writer is encouraging good teaching and warning against strange teaching, he says, “It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace” (13:9). He makes clear the content of that grace is Jesus Christ, who “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (v. 8).

Scripture never says a cleansed heart cannot sin. Just look at David. But unlike a wicked heart that doesn’t know its own sickness, the heart cleansed by the blood of Christ knows it needs to—and wants to—grow in the grace of Christ. The Christian knows there are no inherent resources for this growth but only comes as we receive good teaching from the Word of God and the Spirit writes that very Word on our hearts (Heb. 8:10).

Reflection

If you wanted a lighter presentation of this you can watch a video presentation done for the youth ministry. It can be found by CLICKING HERE. This link will take you to the Donnels Creek Youth Ministry web site, CrossTrain.Me.

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame;
    in your righteousness deliver me!
² Incline your ear to me;
    rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
    a strong fortress to save me!

³ For you are my rock and my fortress;
    and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
⁴ you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
    for you are my refuge.
⁵ Into your hand I commit my spirit;
    you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

⁶ I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
    but I trust in the Lord.
⁷ I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
    because you have seen my affliction;
    you have known the distress of my soul,
⁸ and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
    you have set my feet in a broad place.

⁹ Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eye is wasted from grief;
    my soul and my body also.
¹⁰ For my life is spent with sorrow,
    and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
    and my bones waste away.

¹¹ Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
    especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
¹² I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
¹³ For I hear the whispering of many—
    terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.

¹⁴ But I trust in you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵ My times are in your hand;
    rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
¹⁶ Make your face shine on your servant;
    save me in your steadfast love!
¹⁷ O Lord, let me not be put to shame,
    for I call upon you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
    let them go silently to Sheol.
¹⁸ Let the lying lips be mute,
    which speak insolently against the righteous
    in pride and contempt.

¹⁹ Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
    which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
    in the sight of the children of mankind!
²⁰ In the cover of your presence you hide them
    from the plots of men;
you store them in your shelter
    from the strife of tongues.

²¹ Blessed be the Lord,
    for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
    when I was in a besieged city.
²² I had said in my alarm,
    “I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
    when I cried to you for help.

²³ Love the Lord, all you his saints!
    The Lord preserves the faithful
    but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
²⁴ Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
    all you who wait for the Lord!

Reflection

1. What is the difference between shame and guilt?
2. Read and consider the following passages: Genesis 1:27; 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 5:17. As a believer that is in Christ:
   • In what image are you?
   • Where is identity?
   • From where is your worth?
3. In our Psalm at verse 9-10 it mentions, distress, the eye wasting away with grief, and strength failing because of iniquity. Chad said this a way our bodies give expression to the anguish going on within us. Today, at this moment, what are some of the things you are working on inside of you? God is the one who comforts and delivers through these. If you have time right now, bring these things to the Lord in prayer.

from the Hidden Streams podcast

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Romans 5:10

The reconciliation that needs to happen between sinful man and God goes both ways. Our attitude toward God must be changed from defiance to faith. And God’s attitude to us must be changed from wrath to mercy. But the two are not the same. I need God’s help to change; but God does not need mine. My change will have to come from outside of me, but God’s change originates in his own nature. Which means that overall, it is not a change in God at all. It is God’s own planned action to stop being against me and start being for me.

The all-important words are “while we were enemies.” This is when “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). While we were enemies. In other words, the first “change” was God’s, not ours. We were still enemies. Not that we were consciously on the warpath. Most people don’t feel conscious hostility to God. The hostility is manifest more subtly with a quiet insubordination and indifference. The Bible describes it like this: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).

While we were still like that, God put Christ forward to bear our wrath-kindling sins and make it possible for him to treat us with mercy alone. God’s first act in reconciling us to himself was to remove the obstacle that made him irreconcilable, namely, the God-belittling guilt of our sin. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

When the ambassadors of Christ take this message to the world, they say, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Do they only mean: Change your attitude to God? No, they also mean: Receive the prior work of God in Christ to reconcile himself to you.

Consider this analogy of reconciliation among men. Jesus said, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). When he says, “Be reconciled to your brother,” notice that it is the brother who must remove his judgment. The brother is the one who “has something against you,” just as God has something against us. “Be reconciled to your brother” means do what you must so that your brother’s judgment against you will be removed.

But when we hear the gospel of Christ, we find that God has already done that: He took the steps we could not take to remove his own judgment. He sent Christ to suffer in our place. The decisive reconciliation happened “while we were enemies.” Reconciliation from our side is simply to receive what God has already done, the way we receive an infinitely valuable gift.

from Fifty Reasons Jesus Came To Die: John Piper

Reflection

1. “While we were sinners, we were reconciled to God.” According to this passage from Romans, for those who are saved and in Christ, what did God do first?
2. According to Romans 8:7; Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 4:17-18, how is humanity that is outside of Christ defiant toward God?
3. How does the “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” of Romans 1:18 help explain that “Most people do not feel conscious hostility to God”?
4. After reading the passage below, meditate on God’s saving word beginning to end. Then write/ponder your reaction. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” (Romans 5:10)

To you, O Lord, I call;
    my rock, be not deaf to me,
lest, if you be silent to me,
    I become like those who go down to the pit.
² Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy,
    when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands
    toward your most holy sanctuary.

³ Do not drag me off with the wicked,
    with the workers of evil,
who speak peace with their neighbors
    while evil is in their hearts.
⁴ Give to them according to their work
    and according to the evil of their deeds;
give to them according to the work of their hands;
    render them their due reward.
⁵ Because they do not regard the works of the Lord
    or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down and build them up no more.

⁶ Blessed be the Lord!
    For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
⁷ The Lord is my strength and my shield;
    in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
    and with my song I give thanks to him.

⁸ The Lord is the strength of his people;
    he is the saving refuge of his anointed.
⁹ Oh, save your people and bless your heritage!
    Be their shepherd and carry them forever.

Reflection

1. In what ways is God your “rock”?
2. In the commentary on this Psalm Chad Bird said, “when life seems out of control or when life feels out of control . . . ” What are the significance of those words, “seem” and “feel.”? To what reality do those words point?
3. For meditation or pondering long, think and write/consider your reaction on the thoughts expressed in this audio clip:
   • “The Lord joins us in the bottom of the pit in that every experience we have (joyful and painful), God as a man experienced as well.”
   • The things that afflict us, afflict him.
   • Jesus in a pit.

from the Hidden Streams podcast

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

[He] healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” Matthew 8:16-17

Christ suffered and died so that disease would one day be utterly destroyed. Disease and death were not part of God’s original way with the world. They came in with sin as part of God’s judgment on creation. The Bible says, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope” (Romans 8:20). God subjected the world to the futility of physical pain to show the horror of moral evil.

This futility included death. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). It included all the groaning of disease. And Christians are not excluded: “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit [that is, those who trust Christ], groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).

But all this misery of disease is temporary. We look forward to a time when bodily pain will be no more. The subjection of creation to futility was not permanent. From the very beginning of his judgment, the Bible says God aimed at hope. His final purpose was this: “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

When Christ came into the world, he was on a mission to accomplish this global redemption. He signaled his purposes by healing many people during his lifetime. There were occasions when the crowds gathered and he “healed all who were sick” (Matthew 8:16; Luke 6:19). This was a preview of what was coming at the end of history when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4).

The way Christ defeated death and disease was by taking them on himself and carrying them with him to the grave. God’s judgment on the sin that brought disease was endured by Jesus when he suffered and died. The prophet Isaiah explained the death of Christ with these words: “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The horrible blows to the back of Jesus bought a world without disease.

One day all disease will be banished from God’s redeemed creation. There will be a new earth. We will have new bodies. Death will be swallowed up by everlasting life (1 Corinthians 15:54; 2 Corinthians 5:4). “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isaiah 65:25). And all who love Christ will sing songs of thanks to the Lamb who was slain to redeem us from sin and death and disease.

from John Piper: Fifty Reasons Jesus Came To Die

Reflection

1. What does this writing teach about God’s original creation and heart disease, diabetes, cancer, physical therapy, allergies, cold and influenza?
2. What was the purpose of Christ miraculously healed some while he was on the earth?
3. Meditation Exercise: “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). This will be covering two extremes. a.) Ponder the great amount in loss of life and quality of life through the centuries. Consider that Christ not only came to pardon sin but to heal sickness (the very sicknesses with which you have suffered). b.) Thinking long on regarding a world without all of these issues. Ponder the greatness of God in no more condolences and no more sympathy. Let your mind focus in praise that there will be no children’s hospitals and Red Cross. Pray a prayer of thanksgiving.