Day 115 Bible Reading

Joshua 8, Joshua 9-15, Luke 22: 63-71 Luke 23: 1-25, Psalm 66: 13-20

Luke 22: 63-65 (ESV)

“Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him.  They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him.”

Verses 63 to 65 from Luke 22 illustrate what Jesus experienced before he was crucified. If you watch the movie The Passion of the Christ which came out in 2004 and directed by Mel Gibson, you will see a graphic and perhaps a very realistic depiction of these verses. In David Guzik’s bible commentary on these verses, he said the following:

·         It was important that Jesus demonstrate that the proper replay to hate is not more hate but love. Christ did nothing during this beating. He did not fight.

·         Christ endured the beating to demonstrate his own trust in God, and he did not defend himself.

·         Christ faced the abuse from the Roman soldiers so that those who are abused, beaten, and humiliated can find refuge in a God who knows firsthand what they’ve experienced.

 

The well-known English pastor Charge Spurgeon also noted that Christ’s persecutors could not make him give way to anger. They did not destroy his mercy or his love. They did not make Christ want to stop what was happening to him because he wanted to save us as sinners.

 

I find the depiction of these verses very hard to watch, and it makes me cry every time I watch this scene. But this scene is a reminder of what Christ endured and suffered for us, and his obedience to his father’s will. I always think to myself whenever I watch this scene that I do not have the right to say how horrible my life is, because nothing in my life is as painful and degrading as what Christ had go through at the hands of the Roman soldiers.

Thank you for viewing my blog!

 It appears there are folks who are finding my blog and reading my posts.

THANK YOU! 

I am touched, truly. If I can just make one person smile or think a new thought, that makes happy. Everyone should have that feeling that people view and perhaps appreciate your creativity. 

Wow - progress is made on updating the blog

 It's taken all day, but I've the following:

• Got rid of the subscribe code that wasn't working at the bottom of the page.
• Managed to get Google 4 analytics to work.

I was ready to cry 😫, but YAY! I got it all done. I was so happy with myself that I sort still know how to code a tiny bit in HTML.

I need to more things to update the blog, but I am happy that I made progress today.

Updated the look of the Blog

I decided my blog needed to be updated, so I change the look and rearranged everything. I think it looks better. I hope you agree. If there are widgets you think I need to add, let me know in the comments. 

Day 114 Bible Reading

Joshua 5: 13-15, Joshua 6-7, Luke 22: 39-62, Psalm 66: 1-12

Luke 22: 43 (ESV)

“And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.”

After reading bible commentaries for today’s verses, I found verse 43 from Luke 22 to be the most poignant. Jesus was praying to God and saying “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” God’s answer to Christ was to send an angel to strengthen him. Sometimes when we pray to God to lift a burden from our lives, what we get instead is the feeling of being strengthened by God so we can go through the burden and experience it. I know what this feels like, and it seemed to me very cruel at the time. But when the experience of the burden was completed, I realized it was for my own good and it strengthened me instead of weakening me. God was right as always, and in my agony, I doubted his intentions for my life. But as the years go by, I’ve come to believe that God always has my best interests in mind and will always act in a way that always benefits me.

Christ knew this. He never doubted his father’s love for him. Christ took the burden of the cross for us because he loved us, because it was his father’s will for him. And if it wasn’t for Christ’s love for us, we would be paying the price for our own sins.