Today's Worship

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in James 5:15,

 

"And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven."

 

Every once in a while I turn on religious programming while watching TV. I wonder about myself sometimes as the experience is usually painful to me. The greatest source of my pain comes from seeing the Lord I love so much misrepresented or represented in a reprehensible way. Something, I'm sure, many of us feel from time to time. One way in which this happens is by those who claim to have great abilities given them from the Lord. Just send in your faith-promise pledge of $$$ and you can be healed! "We will pray for you, for your finances!" It is all done for your good... for God's good. They have the connection with God you don't and they have the ability to do things you can't. How did they get this from God? Why is there always a money connection to it all?

 

I find the account of Peter and John instructive here. In Acts, chapter 3, I read of a true miraculous healing that took place through Peter and John. A crippled man begged money from them as they were on the way to the temple. Peter and John, of course, had to walk, as they couldn't afford the Mercedes Benz our TV evangelists of today have. Peter told him they were broke, "silver or gold I do not have", verse 6. Then Peter took him by the hand, helped him up, completely healed! "What I have, I give you.". Through Peter the man was healed, "in the name of the Lord."

 

Peter and John were immediately thronged by astonished people. What Peter told the crowd is what I find instructive. He said, "Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?" After speaking of the rejection of Jesus Christ by the people, Peter said, "It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see." Peter pointed out it wasn't anything within them that the healing took place. It was faith in the Lord. It was not about Peter or John. It is not about TV evangelists, it is not about me. It is about the Lord that the miraculous takes place. And, it takes place due to faith in him as we pray!

 

The Lord did the healing, not Peter or John. The Lord responded to the expression of faith and healed the man. If healing requires the involvement of some TV evangelist driving a Mercedes Benz with a diamond the size of a doorknob on his finger, then salvation can not come about without his involvement either. No, it is the Lord who saves, it is the Lord who may bring healing if he so chooses. It is the simple faith of those who embrace God that brings about either.

 

Here is my fascination in all of this: that my God, the Creator of all that exists, has within his heart the compassion and kindness to consider the heartfelt concerns of us all. Unlike the crowd in Acts 3, the astonishment for me is not that a healing took place. It is that our God so loves us and holds such a place in our hearts that when we ask for those things that concern us, if we approach him in faith, he hears us! And to think that he would actually subordinate his judgment, the consequences of mankind's sin and rebellion against him, to his love for us in Jesus Christ is something to really be astonished at!

 

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com