Faith and Healing Scriptures

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes we need to be reminded of God’s love and healing power when walking through life’s struggles. That time was last year for my family and I, when I went through one serious health struggle after another.

When struggles get too big, they can easily become all we see. So to help me keep my eyes focused on the Truth of God’s Word, I compiled the following list of Scriptures. I read them everyday—many times per day, in fact—to remind myself that the Lord Jesus is greater than anything this world can throw at me. My hope is that somebody else, maybe you, will benefit from this same list of Faith and Healing Scriptures.

Struggles in life will come, so let your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened as you read these Scriptures.

2 Corinthians 5:7
We live by faith, not by sight.

1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Psalm 55:22
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

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Where’s Our Focus?

~ Joe ~ 1 Comment

An alarm.
A splash of water.
A brush through the hair.
A cup to wake up.
A drive.
Catching up with friends.
ToDo lists.
Meetings.
Herding cats.
Phone calls.
Eventually getting some work done.
Another drive.
The wind down.
Family/personal time.
A different ToDo list, maybe.
Running errands.
The second wind down.
Falling asleep way too early.

And repeat…

Although the above is a highly generalized version of our day, it does show how they can be filled with many things to do. Unfortunately, it’s easy to loose focus on eternal things when we live like that for days, weeks, months and years on end. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves thinking more like an unbeliever than a child of God. So let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say about this topic to help us retain our focus.

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Hearing the Voice of the Lord and Acting in Faith

~ Joe ~ 2 Comments

Today I want to examine a very intelligent creature. A creature that is so intelligent that Jesus used them in parables to refer to us. They are, of course, sheep.

Okay, so sheep are not the most intelligent creatures on planet Earth but they do know how to do something very well…they know how to listen to their shepherd’s voice and follow him, and that’s what I want to look at today.

John 10:1-5
1 “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

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Dealing with Temptation

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Temptation. Giving into sin. We’ve all done it, and yet, we know it’s wrong. Sin is what separates the human race from God. It is why Jesus Christ was sent to die a horrible death on the cross to pay its penalty, which in turn, made it possible for all who believe in Him to be restored back to God.

Long ago, Jesus told a woman caught in adultery to “Go…sin no more” (John 8:11) and He tells us the same thing today. But how do we combat temptation when it seems like each one has been specifically customized just for our area of weakness? Let’s take a look a few Scriptures to find an answer.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

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Prayer – the Key to Our Spiritual Nourishment

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

John 4:27-34 says…

27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

34“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

I love how Jesus used many natural situations as illustrations for teaching spiritual truth, especially to his disciples.

This passage picks up right during the middle of Jesus’ witnessing to the Samaritan woman at the well. The woman just left Jesus to go tell people in her town about him when the disciples walked up to him to make sure he had something to eat. Jesus was keeping a busy schedule preaching the Kingdom of God to the surrounding towns, so the disciples were just looking out for his physical well being. I, personally, think it was a nice gesture. However, look again at Jesus’ reply in verse 32. “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Fortunately this is not one of his parables where he leaves us guessing what he meant. Instead, Jesus tells us what this “secret food” is in verse 34, when he says, “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
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Gifted to be Led

~ Joe ~ 1 Comment

It’s said that a good sports game is won by having a strong offense and a strong defense. The same is true in a battle. If you want to win a war, you must have strengths in both offense and defense. It’s not one or the other, but both.

The same is true with our Christian lives. However, I feel that most Christians are focused on just the defensive. After entering into a relationship with Jesus, they spend the majority of their efforts on staying away from temptation and sin by reading the Bible and praying for their own needs. Although these efforts are needed for a healthy spiritual life, they are defensive in nature.

So what does a good offense look like for a Christian? I would say it involves being led by the Holy Spirit in activities that impact the kingdom of darkness for God’s Kingdom of Light!
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How Much Yeast Have You Been Eating?

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Matthew 13:33
Jesus spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”

This is one of Jesus’ many “Kingdom parables” where He compares the Kingdom of God to something else in order to relate truth about how His Kingdom operates. And at first glance, this parable could be interpreted as God’s Kingdom positively affecting the world around it. However, I think if we dig a little deeper we’ll find something different.

In this parable Jesus used the Old Testament understanding of leaven along with an example from his culture to relate a truth about the Kingdom of God.

So what does the Old Testament (and parts of the New Testament) say about leaven? Well, according to the following passages, it is consistently shown in Scripture as exemplifying the presence of impurity or evil.

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Living by Grace through Faith

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

How does a person become a Christian? I think the majority of existing Christians would say that a person gets saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or by simply believing in Jesus or by accepting the free gift of grace from God. And any of these would be correct. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

However, when asked how a Christian becomes mature in their faith, most Christians will answer: by reading your Bible, doing daily devotions, praying often, going to every church service, getting connected to a small group, giving to the church and missions, by serving at your church, etc.

Not that doing any of those activities are bad––in fact, they’re all very good things to be involved with––but none the less, they are just activities. They are merely external events that we can choose to do.

Instead, I believe the way for a Christian to become spiritually mature is to live life the same way they received eternal life––by the grace of God through faith in Jesus. Let’s take a look at Galatians to study this a bit further.

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Abiding in Christ

~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

John 15:1-11 is a section of Scripture where Jesus teaches on our intimacy with Him and His Father. In it He talks about an abstract concept of “abiding in Him.” I think as church goers we think we have a good feel for what abiding in Jesus means, and maybe you do. But hopefully through this study we’ll be able to uncover some more truth about abiding in Jesus. I also hope each of us will be able to ask and answer the questions:

What does it mean to abide in Christ?
How do I know if I am abiding in Christ?
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