Day 117 Bible Reading - Luke 24: 6 (ESV)

Joshua 11-12, Luke 24: 1-35, Psalm 68: 1-6

Luke 24: 6 (ESV) 

“He is not here, but has risen.”

When I was reading bible commentaries for Luke 24, one pastor said the following about verse 6 - “these were some of the most important words ever spoken by an angel to men.” We don’t have a description of the resurrection, which many pastors have said that this fact makes the gospels more authentic because they don’t describe what happened or try to embellish it. We just have the two angels who tells the women that Jesus is not there, because he told them himself that he would rise after three (3) days. I like that the bookends of the life of Christ are angels making an announcement about him. The angels announced his birth to the shepherds and the angels announced to the women that he is risen. Without the resurrection of Christ, we would have a Christian religion. This simple fact and statement from the angels helped to spawn a brand new religion that eventually became one of the foundations of Western culture. And because we are all sinners, two things happened. One, there have been countless attempts from this point forward to prove the resurrection did not happen. And two, we as sinners feel our lives are saved by Christ because the resurrection did happen. Two sides of the same coin, always at war with each other, and where one could not exist without the other. With the only thing separating the two is the faith of the sinner.

Day 116 Bible Reading - Psalm 67: 1-2 (ESV)

Joshua 9: 16-27, Joshua 10, Luke 23: 26-56, Psalm 67

Psalm 67: 1-2 (ESV)

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.”

When I read verses 1 and 2 from Psalm 67, I immediately thought of The Blessing Song by Kari Job featuring Cody Carnes because of the line “make his face shine upon us”. In this song, they sing “make his face shine upon you”. I saw Kari Jobe in concert many years ago and I loved her music so much, I bought one of the CDs they were selling at the concert. A friend had invited me to go my first Christian music concert, and Kari was part of the line-up. I had never been to an event like that, and I was stunned to see so many people praising God at a music concert. I think that was the start of my road back to the church, after years of not wanting to ever get involved in a church again because of the politics I had witnessed in a church I had been attending. I’m glad my friend invited me and although we’ve lost touch, I still think of her very fondly.

For your listening pleasure, the live version of The Blessing Song by Kari Job featuring Cody Carnes from Elevation Worship:

Day 115 Bible Reading - Psalm 66: 63-65 (ESV)

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.

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