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Showing posts from June, 2014

vulnerability

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I wrote this earlier this spring, in my personal devotion time. The story at the onset of John 8 has been in my mind this week, so I read it this morning and decided to look up where I had studied and journaled on it. Just knew I needed to share it. Thanks for reading! This is one of my favorite stories of Jesus' ministry. Though perhaps not really an episode of the evangelists, I do not think it has survived for nothing. In fact, it almost didn't. But evidence against it's truth is small. It even fits with the current storyline of John, in my opinion, with the attitudes of the Pharisees overwhelming their sensibilities so it is not surprising that they would conduct this accusation scene to aggravate the people and to trap Jesus. If he said to stone her, he would have gone against everything He had been teaching. If He had merely said "Don't stone her," the Pharisees would have had great cause to accuse him of blasphemy.  But something he does her...

when the enemy doesn't seem disarmed.

There is this verse that I quote a lot. Colossians 2.15: "He [Jesus]  disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame , by triumphing over them by it [the cross].   "   I quoted it last night for a friend. Texted it to her as soon as it came to mind. Claimed it over her as I prayed for her. I turned over to go to sleep, when tears flooded my tired eyes. Painfully aware of the battle raging not just over my friend miles away, but even in my own body, my broken voice whispered:  "They don't feel disarmed, father."   I'm the one who feels disarmed.  Struck down with whips, disrobed and mocked, chained, halfway driven to death, then placed on an instrument of torture to die--this is how disarmed feels.  But rewind those images of self-centered romanticism concerning my own pain, my own cross. See Jesus kneeling over me, shielding the blows from my skin in exchange for his own. See him allowing his robe to b...