I'm Never Alone

The last few days I’ve been working through this daily devotional online. The website is called Setting Captives Free and the course I’m taking is called By His Wounds. The website has many daily devotional courses that help you work through different habits/addictions. The courses are full of scriptures, testimonies and a pastor’s commentary that leads you through the 60 day course. I just finished the third day of the course.

I’ve attempted to complete this course two other times, this is my third attempt. The farthest I’ve made is 28 days. I’m hoping to complete it this time. I know I need to get back into a spiritual structure of growth again.

There was a verse that was shared in today’s study that really touched me.

“The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.” - Isaiah 53:5; The Message

I know why Jesus was beaten and placed on the cross. I know why He had to die for us. I know that because of His death, I can now talk to God myself. And that I can now go to Heaven. I also know that we can now be healed by the Holy Spirit because Jesus sent the Spirit to us after He resurrected and went back to Heaven.

My sin placed Jesus on the cross. My self-hate, my anger, my depression, every wrong thing I have ever done and ever will do – put Jesus on that cross… I knew this, I know this.

“He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.”

Jesus’ bruises make us healed. His pain makes us whole. I found healing and I am whole, because of Jesus.

With every strike on Jesus’ back I became free. Every nail punctured through Jesus’ skin, I became whole. Because Jesus died, I’ll never be alone.

I never got it before. It never became real to me. I never truly understand how glorious this was - till today.

Mathew 26:40-41

"Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." - Matthew 26:40-41
The above verses describe the scenario leading up to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. Jesus knew He would be betrayed, and knew He needed strength from above to endure the coming events, so He sought His Father in prayer. And it is right here that Jesus instructs His disciples, and us, on how not to fall: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." Be vigilant. Watch against a developing chain of events that lead to a fall into sin, and remove a link in the chain. Watch for familiar areas in which you are tempted; watch for the uprising of the flesh; watch out when you are tired; and watch out for when you have just had a high spiritual experience. WATCH. But don’t just watch. Watch and pray. Pray that God will keep you from falling. Pray that He would give you grace to endure temptation without giving in. Pray for power from above to extinguish the fiery darts of the devil. - taken from the By His Wounds course from SettingCaptivesFree.com

Whose Your Master?

"Once subdued, you are pushed to isolate yourself from anything that might free you or might conflict with its power over you. It lets you survive just enough to have the strength to serve it and, at the same time, puts you through whatever it takes to numb your mind to its cruel control." - Randy from the 'By His Wounds' course provided by Setting Captives Free.

Have you Forgotten How to Be Sorry?

"Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses a man's conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God--against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight. Conviction of sin, the marvel of forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God's grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man's respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for the gift of tears. If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry." -Oswald Chambers