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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends.
Once again I begin by offering you HOPE and HELP from God’s Word in the face of global health and financial chaos. Today is March 25, and I find some powerful truth in Psalm 25.Would you open your Bibles with me?
I live in America, but the COVID-19 news coming to us from Italy, Spain, France, the UK ,and some parts of North America, seems almost beyond belief, doesn’t it?
Psalm 25 says: “To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in You I trust, O my God.”
Is that true of you my friends? Where are you turning for HOPE; in whom are you placing your trust for your health TODAY? God invites us to trust in HIM!
“Show me Your ways, O LORD, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me for You are God, my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” (Ps. 25:4,5)
Are you seeking God’s help and God’s answers in this global tragedy? Only God understands Coronavirus COVID-19, far more than any scientist or medical specialist, do you agree?
So are we daily asking God to guide us, as we try to navigate each day in these crazy times? Are we asking God to teach the minds and hearts of those desperately working on antidotes for COVID-19? Are we praying for all those in leadership roles who are making the decisions which affect the nations where this plague is running wild?
Oh, you might say, can we really ask God to instruct leaders and scientists who don’t even acknowledge that God exists or who apparently have no desire for any relationship with Him? Yes, for the good of our world, Yes! “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in His ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way…” (Ps. 25:8,9)
And here it is even more clearly: “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you do not acknowledge Me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none beside Me. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and I create disaster; I the LORD do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:5-7)
Yes, God is sovereign over this COVID-19. Do you believe that? God understands it. God has either allowed it or caused it! He is longing for our world’s population to turn to Him, to seek Him, to worship Him! The greater the desperation, the more people will finally turn to God.
So today my “Walking with Jesus” friends all around the world, I’m calling us to PRAY that God will guide leaders making huge decisions which affect millions of lives. Also that God will guide scientists and those researching for an antidote, a solution to the global spread of COVID-19! But mostly I”m asking us to pray that God will awaken in the hearts of millions of people, a hunger for God, and that they’ll turn to HIM, a global spiritual renewal! All for HIS glory!
Now let’s rejoin Jesus and His friends, as we walk with them on their journey toward Easter. Yesterday we were in Samaria and John chapter 4, where Jesus first had a remarkable encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well, and then He accepted the invitation of the Samaritans, and spent two days in their village with them. John tells us many people trusted in Jesus as a result of those days, (John 4:41) and we can assume the Jewish men walking with Jesus also had their eyes opened and learned a great deal more about God’s love for all peoples in the world.
They continued their journey north toward the Galilee region, and John 4:46-54 gives us another remarkable miracle of Jesus. This time Jesus was approached in Cana by a “certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.” In response to the man’s request for help, Jesus said “You may go. You son will live.” And John tells us that as he was returning home, the man was met by servants coming to meet him with the wonderful news that his son was healed. When discussing the details they realized it was exactly at the time Jesus had assured him that his son would live!
Now this brief story does not mention the five men who had been traveling with Jesus over these past days. We don’t know if they returned to their homes and jobs once they all arrived back in Galilee, but it is safe for us to assume word spread quickly about this remarkable miracle from a distance! My friends, do you see how each miracle shows us something more majestic about Jesus and the miraculous powers He had? Here, Jesus had only heard of a sick boy, no further details. And without moving from where He was, the boy was cured as Jesus spoke the words, despite the fact nearly 30 miles separated them.
Dr. Luke tells us Jesus went home to Nazareth, only about 4 miles from Cana. Jesus had been away several weeks, maybe months, and the stories of His miracles undoubtedly were becoming known in Nazareth.
Luke 4:14-30 tells us “…on the Sabbath day Jesus went into the Synagogue as was His custom. And He stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written:
‘The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.”
Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him, and Jesus began by saying to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
I suspect Jesus paused, a long pause right here. Slowly His gaze moved intently from person to person. Jesus had grown up in this town. He undoubtedly knew every man in the room by name, and they knew Him. Their gesture of allowing Him to read the Scripture that day was sort of a ‘welcome home’ from His travels.
But He had done more than just read the Scripture. Jesus had intentionally searched for and found Isaiah 61:1,2 and He read it authoritatively. They all knew it by heart, it was one of the most revered Scriptures, promising that one day God would send a Messiah for His people. I have no doubt when Jesus finished reading they would all have said “Amen”, which means “may God bring it to pass!” But then, as Jesus was rolling up the scroll He did the unthinkable, He personalized the Scripture by saying “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
It was another ‘defining moment’ in history!
Jaws would have dropped open, eyes widened, men would have begun stroking their beards, looking at one another, but before any could speak, as you see in Luke 4:23-27, Jesus continued. His brief but powerful speech roused them, stirred them up to action. Listen to Luke’s description of what happened next: “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Jesus out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.”
If you visit Israel today, the bustling town of Nazareth is a must visit. While 2000 years have passed, the town has evolved as most any town. Newer homes have replaced older ones, and the town has grown in size, but it’s still not very large, and some of it is still built on that same cliff. Standing there, it’s not difficult to see this historic event. Jesus is rejected by His hometown. He’s run out of town and nearly killed. Not because of any criminal or immoral act, but because He claimed to be the living fulfillment of Isaiah 61, God’s promised Messiah!
I cannot explain how Jesus walked through the angry crowd without being grabbed and thrown over the cliff. It was another miracle. But it was a miracle that changed everything. Jesus left Nazareth that day and focused His mission, His miracles, His time and even His love on other places and other people. Hometown Nazareth had rejected “Immanuel”!
May I ask...is Jesus welcome in your town or city my friends, where-ever you live in the world? Or has the same thing happened in your town over the years?
Was there a time in the past where God was more welcome, more honored in your town than today? Could it be one of the main reasons God has allowed this COVID-19 plague around the world is so that villages, towns, cities and huge mega-cities would invite Him back, repent of their rejection of God and do as Psalm 25 says: “To YOU O LORD, I lift up my soul; in YOU I trust, O my God…Show me Your ways O LORD, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth, for YOU are God my Savior and my HOPE is in YOU…”
My friends, what do you suppose God might do in response, if the people of your town genuinely turned to God and said this those verses of Psalm 25? Could it be, that’s what God is waiting for in this global plague, this pandemic of fear? God could stop this COVID-19 in an instant, couldn’t He? If all around our world, villages, towns, cities would turn to God in repentance, what do you suppose God might do in response? Could it be the halt of COVID-19 is not awaiting a vaccine, it is awaiting people finally turning to God in repentance?
Could it start with your town, and my town?
Join me in listening to “He Will Hold Me Fast”.
Oh my I hope it blesses your soul.
I’d like to hear what you think of it after you watch it?
Click to read today’s chapter: Psalm 25; Luke 4. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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