Meditation Moments 78: "THE MIRACLE OF CHRISTIANITY"
One sat alone
Beside the highway begging,
His eyes were blind,
The light he could not see,
He clutched his rags
And shivered in the shadows
Then Jesus came
And bade his darkness flee.
When Jesus comes
The Tempter's power is broken,
When Jesus comes
The tears are wiped away,
He takes the gloom
And fills the life with glory,
For all is changed
When Jesus comes to stay.
Greetings and welcome to Meditation Moments. May God wonderfully bless you, and again we say may He use you with His great blessings for others.
I cannot but God can
Oh balm for all my care,
The burden that I drop
His hand will lift and bear.
Though eagle's pinions tire,
I walk where once I ran,
This is my strength to know
I cannot, but God can.
I know not, but God knows.
Oh blessed rest from fear,
All my unfolding days
To Him are plain and clear.
Each anxious puzzled 'why?'
From doubt or dread that grows,
Finds answer in this thought:
I know not, but God knows!
Christianity is such a miracle all 'round! To me it shall never cease to be a marvel, the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ! And no matter what angle you look at Christianity, it is always a miracle, the most amazing, amazing miracle!
And I've just stood on the outside and watched lives that we have dealt with and that have come to us sometimes for prayer, and watched God transform those lives! I've seen many of them and it ceases not to be such a marvel to me!
Because a man becomes a new creature by receiving the life and nature of God. There are so many Scriptures to illustrate this: Colossians 2:13, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened (make alive) together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses:"
We have been made alive together with Him! And Verse 12: "Wherein also ye are raised with him through faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." -- And so in the mind of the Father, we are made alive with Him, that's what happens in this transformation that takes place when there comes a new birth, this wonderful new creation.
When He was made alive in the Spirit, we were made alive in the Spirit! That's the legal aspect of the new creation. This becomes a reality to us when we personally accept Christ as Savior and confess Him as Lord. -- The life of God comes into our spirits and recreates us.
"And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;" Ephesians 2:1. It's a miracle of Christianity, an actual new creation.
I remember years ago hearing it told and it was a real story, it truly happened, about a Christian minister in Los Angeles, and into their home they sometimes took young people and helped them and encouraged them.
And there came to that home a girl who had lived in the very depths of sin, but there came a day when this wonderful man of God and his wife, felt that she had been there long enough, and that she should make room for someone else now that she was a new creature in Christ Jesus, forgiven and cleansed; that they should make room for someone else who needed them more.
So this girl took a position as a chamber-maid in a hotel. She was getting along beautifully, but they had not seen her for a long time. Before she left this home she said to this pastor,
"Brother Eldridge, I'd like to know, can God change my face? He's changed my heart, He's changed my life, can He change my face? The marks of sin are still on my face, and I don't want to ever go home to mother until my face is changed and doesn't show the sin."
Then Brother Eldridge told her about people he'd known whose faces really did change, through all the changes of their lives God brought a complete change. It was about 8 months after that that he was up just sitting on the balcony on the mezzanine floor of this hotel, and here was this young woman dusting.
And she walked up to him and spoke to him and he didn't recognize her. Again she mentioned his name, but he didn't recognize her, and she threw up her hands and she said, "Oh, I'm going home! I'm going home to mother!
"God has changed my face like He changed my life!" -- Well so many times it is such a complete miracle, such a complete transformation: changing the lives, the loves, the habits, even the face of some. For the Word says again, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sin." (Eph.2:1.)
There is a wonderful Scripture in Hebrews 9:26 also -- because I do believe that He that hath borne our sins has also born our diseases:
"But now, once at the end of the World hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifices of Himself." -- He puts sin away that you might be born again, become a new creature, that the sin nature which had held you in bondage to the Adversary, shall be eradicated and the nature of God should take its place.
Now you are in God's family and of the righteousness of God. Hebrews 10:38 says, "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."
Now I believe there is no escaping the fact that if He dealt with the sin problem, that He deals with the sickness and disease problem: that He bore our sicknesses and our disease. God's Word in Isaiah 53:10 says, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; He hath put him to grief." Well what does that mean?
We also have these Verses, "He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not." Then it goes on to say, "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." And at the last Verse,
"He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." -- (Isa.53:10,3,4,5.) -- Matthew 8:17 says, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."
Our infirmities: Those little mental quirks, the things that make it disagreeable and unpleasant, many of them are infirmities of the mind. But just the same how we do need that healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ! And it's all included in this miracle I'm talking about! And I say this to those who are sick and suffering: He's still on the throne and prayer changes things!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family -- This file has not been proofread.