The healing power of Jesus

"When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'  Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 'Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?' - Mark 2:5-7 (NIV)

Jesus of Nazareth by all accounts was an extraordinary man.

During only three years of public ministry, he turned the world on its head and changed the course of history. He healed the sick, gave speech to the mute and sight to the blind. He rocked the religious foundation of the day to its core, enough where they gave him over to the authorities of the day, the Romans, to be mocked and publicly executed, though that was not enough to stop him either.

One thing that Jesus did while on earth, and continues to do now, is heal sin. By virtue of being God in the flesh (see John 10:30), he could forgive the sins of people for good, with true, eternal effect. He made and continues to make that gift available to anyone who believes in him and confesses their sins (see Romans 10:9-10).

In this video, Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, in his Easter sermon in April 2011 at Seattle's Qwest Field, talks about Jesus being able to heal sin.

Who is God?

“I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” Isaiah 45:5 (NIV)
Who is God?

As we finished celebrating Easter, which marked the resurrection of Jesus Christ, one question comes to mind: who is God? What makes God stand out? What bother with Him in the first place?

The Bible explains a few reasons why God is who He says He is:

• He is Creator of all we see. (see Isaiah 64:8)
• He is everywhere (see Psalm 139:7-10) 
• He knows everything (see John 16:30, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11)
• He has a will for all of us, including His Son (see Luke 22:42)
• He speaks to us (see Matthew 3:17)

God also is three persons, in the form of the Father (see Philippians 1:2), His Son Jesus Christ (John 10:30), and the Holy Spirit (see Acts 5:3-4). In the form of the Father, He is God, creator of all there is and holy (see Habakkuk 1:13). In the form of the Son, He is the resurrection and life for us, redeemer of us from our sin. In the form of the Holy Spirit, He points to Jesus as the way to be saved (see John 15:26).

So what does it matter? Because God made us (see Psalm 139:13-14), and He loves us. He loves us enough that he sent His Son to die for our sins:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17 (NIV)

If God is willing to go to that length to save us, creatures who have effectively spit in His face, doesn’t that say something to us? We were sentenced to death (see Romans 3:23), but saved through Jesus Christ (see Romans 6:23).

And if Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, shouldn’t He mean something? Shouldn’t He be worthy of our affection and our attention, our loyalty as King?

To end, please listen to this sermon by Dr. S.M. Lockridge, titled, “My King.”

The 14th Station of the Cross: Taking Care

Courtesy: Vatican Museum

"As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away." - Matthew 27:57-60 (NIV)

Jesus was dead. As He was taken down from the cross, a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea was allowed to take the body and place in a new tomb.

Whether Joseph believed or understood Jesus' words that He would be raised again in three days is never specified in the Gospels. Yet, Joseph knew he had to do something to honor the man who had done so much for people and had been wrongly convicted and executed by the Roman authorities and Jewish religious leaders.

In the celebration of the Stations of the Cross by Pope John Paul II in 1991, the minister prayed this prayer:

"Lord, grant us your compassion that we may always provide for those in need."

In the same way, we need to have the compassion of Christ to help others. Repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus came across different groups of people and had compassion on them (see Matthew 9:35-37, Matthew 14:13-15,and Mark 1:40-42, among others).

The great thing to come out of this is Jesus was true to His word: He did rise from the dead. After His resurrection, it is recorded that He appeared before several hundred people before He was taken into Heaven (see Acts 1:1-10). He also will come back again.

I've said it once and several times before, but we can be ready for Jesus' return. Romans 10:9-10 says this:

"That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

With the world celebrating Easter and the resurrection this weekend, this is as good a time as any to have your own rebirth through Jesus Christ.

Just ask Him. He is compassionate and willing.

(Editor's note: This is part of a series of the Stations of the Cross.)

The 13th Station of the Cross: Who Do You Trust?

Courtesy: Liberia Editrice Vaticana

"It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' When he had said this, he breathed his last." - Luke 23:44-46 (NIV)

In the celebration of the Stations of the Cross by Pope John Paul II in 1991, the minister prayed this prayer:

"Lord, grant us trust in you that when our time on earth is ended our spirits may come to you without delay."

Settling where you will go when you die is the most important question you will ever have to answer. To ensure that we do get to heaven, the Bible tells us that we have to know God personally through His son, Jesus Christ. The truths outlined in the Bible are these:

-- God loves us.

-- We have sinned and are separated from God by that sin.

-- Christ died for us while we were still sinners and rose from the dead.

-- Christ is the only way to God.

-- To receive his gift of salvation and grace, we must repent and believe in Christ.

Jesus knew His ultimate fate as He hung on the cross, and we can know ours as well.

(Editor's note: This is part of a series of the Stations of the Cross.)

'Let others know what you have seen'

"Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " - John 20:17 (NIV)

It had been a time of sorrow for the followers of Jesus.


Their leader, the man they believed to be the Messiah, was dead, crucified at the hands of the Romans and the Jewish religious leaders of the day. Howver, when two women came to dress Jesus' body for final burial, they discovered the tomb was empty.


Obviously, the women who first made this discovery and later Peter and the other disciple who came to investigate had reason to be concerned. They knew that people would say that Jesus' followers had come and taken the body so they could say He had been resurrected (indeed, the Jewish religious leaders worried about this happening that they convinced Pontius Pilate to post a guard outside of the tomb).

But Jesus slowly made Himself known to His followers, particularly to Mary Magdalene, who had been one of His earliest students. She had remained at the empty tomb crying, and was desperately hoping that whoever had taken Jesus' body would return it so the persecutions from the religious leaders and the Roman authorities would ease up.

He tested her by asking why she was crying, to make sure that indeed it was Him that she was looking for, that she hadn't turned away like others had when He was arrested and later crucified. When He revealed Himself to her by merely saying her name, she knew right away that her hopes that He had been right all along about His pending resurrection was true, that her and others' following of Jesus, who they believed the long-awaited Messiah, had not been in vain.

However, Jesus also told her to not just sit there, but to go and tell the others what she now knew to be true. He said to not just hold on to Him, but to let the others what she knew to be true.

That is the call to the church today as well. Too often, religion is to be a private matter so not to offend others.

If we know something to be true, something that is so unbelievable, that our merely having faith and putting our trust in it has eternal implications, then we are obligated to say something about it. We are to tell others that not only isn't Jesus not dead and buried, but also alive and eventually, coming back.

We are not so smart...

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." - 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (NIV)

We are not so smart as we sometimes think we are.