Bible in a Year : Isaiah 910; Ephesians 3
The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5
Following the park guide, I scribbled notes as he taught about the plants of the Bahamian primeval forest. He told us which trees to avoid. The poisonwood tree, he said, secretes a black sap that causes a painful, itchy rash. But not to worry! The antidote could usually be found growing right next it. Cut into the red bark of the gum elemi tree, he said, and rub the sap on the rash. It will immediately begin to heal.
I nearly dropped my pencil in astonishment. I hadnt expected to find a picture of salvation in the forest. But in the gum elemi tree, I saw Jesus. Hes the ready remedy wherever the poison of sin is found. Like the red bark of that tree, the blood of Jesus brings healing.
The prophet Isaiah understood that humanity needed healing. The rash of sin had infected us. Isaiah promised that our healing would come through a man of suffering who would take our sickness upon Himself (Isaiah 53:3). That man was Jesus. We were sick, but Christ was willing to be wounded in our place. When we believe in Him, we are healed from the sickness of sin (v. 5). It may take a lifetime to learn to live as those whore healedto recognize our sins and to reject them in favor of our new identitybut because of Jesus, we can.
What other pictures in the natural world do you see of the salvation God offers us? What has the healing He offers meant to you?
Wherever sin is, Jesus is there, ready to save.
Hi Everybody!
(((HUGS))))
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Good example of what can be done if one has both guts and a lack of worry about negative consequences. Some of the events of the HMS Glowworm were incorporated in Noël Coward’s ‘In Which We Serve’. The character of the destroyer commander Capt. Kinross RN seems to me to have more of Lt Cdr Roope than Mountbatten.
The good old days when men fought for God and country. Bad manners to an enemy were in bad taste.
What a great story about the tragically lost HMS Glowworm. RIP all the ones who perished aboard while it sank after pursuing and ramming the enemy. And thanks to those same enemies who rescued some of the survivors even though they were made POWs. That’s war.
Greetings to all at the Canteen!
To all our military men and women, past and present,
THANK YOU
for your service!
How's everyone doing this morning?