Category: lost causes

Twisted and Bent

“One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!”

Luke 13:10-13

When we read through the Gospels we see that Jesus never laid His hands on those who were demon possessed, rather He would first command the demon to leave. (Interesting.)

The text tells us that the woman had been bent over for 18 years. (That’s a long, long time.) The cause was being “demonized” which is very different than being possessed.

There is a difference. Demons can oppress people and influence their lives, especially if that person is living in sin and rebellion.

“The physical cause of her inability to straighten up has been examined by J. Wilkinson, who identified the paralysis as the result of spondylitis ankylopoetica, which produces the fusion of the spinal bones.”

14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

That is absurd. There’s a truth here that this “leader” is covering up. The woman is instantly healed, and this so-called leadertries to nullify what has just happened. Rather than rejoicing, he renounces what has just happened, and claims that the Sabbath law has been violated. He declares the Law is greater than this woman’s healing.

Jesus never once asserts His authority. Rather He points to this woman’s healing as being truly the very essence of the Law. In spite of what the Law means legalistically, it can never invalidate mercy.

“For eighteen years she had not gazed upon the sun; for eighteen years no star of night had gladdened her eye; her face was drawn downward towards the dust, and all the light of her life was dim: she walked about as if she were searching for a grave, and I do not doubt she often felt that it would have been gladness to have found one.” 

CH Spurgeon

Her private agony was never to be found again. She was free. The pain she lived with was no more. The captivity was gone, and she was freed. The biblical text seems to ignore this and concentrates on the synagogues leader’s response, and that’s well and good. Perhaps though we should focus on this woman’s healing from an awful terrible darkness.

She is free. The stoop is gone. The pain is gone. Jesus has set her free, she gazes at the sun after many years. She stands erect, and though everything now seems different, she now knows her deliverer, and her healer.

“Bent,” brokenbelievers.com, Bryan Lowe

In Need of Grace–Quotes

I’ve put together a collection of quotes one of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning.  I have found that when he writes, he penetrates.  What he writes goes deep into the soul of losers: junkies, drunks, and mentally ill people–he tells us of God’s love like few have ever done. 

To Manning, every person is redeemable, none are too far gone.  Brennan Manning was a strong voice to the weak, the lame, the mentally challenged, and for the prodigal.

I blame him for the theme of this post–that brokenness is our path out of depression: Bipolar, Schizophrenia, OCD, PTSD, Schizoaffective disorder, and addictions.

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“There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.”

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”

 “To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

“To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace.”

“Christianity doesn’t deny the reality of suffering and evil… Our hope… is not based on the idea that we are going to be free of pain and suffering. Rather, it is based on the conviction that we will triumph over suffering.”

“I am what I am in the sight of Jesus and nothing more. It is His approval that counts.”

“[Be] daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, wild enough to be burnt in the fire of love, real enough to make others see how phony [you] are.”

“The blood of the Lamb points to the truth of grace: what we cannot do for ourselves, God has done for us. On the cross, somehow, someway, Christ bore our sins, took our place, died for us. At the cross, Jesus unmasks the sinner not only as a beggar but as a criminal before God.”

“Do the truth quietly without display.”

“It is for the inconsistent, the unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker.”

“The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.”

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him with their life style. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

“The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness.”

“In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us–that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace.”

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I really hope some of these quotes have connected.  Brennan Manning has authored several books all of which I can heartily recommend. 


Despair and David’s Theology

For those on the mat and wrestling, things can move very fast.  Our own adversary is strong, and he knows us too well.  He is quite aware of the sequence of moves needed to pin us to the floor, and crush us.  He is spiritually dangerous. He is lethal.

I get bewildered and rattled by his attacks.  He knows how to pressure me at just the right time, and he refuses to follow the rules. He is no gentleman, he is both a cheater and a liar.

Of course I am talking about Satan and his team of demons.  I will not dispute their reality with you.  There is almost as much scriptural support for his existence as there is for Jesus’.  His hostility is  toward God and His people, and his viciousness cannot be camouflaged.  Evil is real, and believe this–

Satan has a terrible, and ugly plan for your life.

As a Christian, who has bouts of depression it quickly morphs into despondency and despair.  When I sink to that level I start to lose all hope.  It’s like I’m in a lifeboat and decide that I should abandon it and tread water on my own.  Despondency is not rational and just a little bit is deadly.

David intimately knew all about darkness and desperation.

He had been chased by his enemies, and maneuvered into the most difficult of situations.  To observe him at a distance we would say that “there is no hope for him in God.” Even God can’t save him, for he is reprobate.  We would be convinced that there is nothing for him in God’s thinking.

David fully understands how twisted he really is inside, and it’s at that point he composes Psalm 51. It shows us the way to freedom.

David was a moral failure; he was an adulterer and a brazen killer. You can debate this, but it seems that David had sinned deeper and more intensely than Saul ever had.  Join with the logic of the crowd, “There is no hope for him in God!”  No hope, none, nada, zero.

“Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.”

–Psalm 73

David defied the theology of his day.  He embraced the Lord God with a desperate passion.  It was not orthodox or logical.  You could say it was disturbing for many who didn’t understand the infinite mercy of God.  But David would not let go of God!  He hung on, and continued to sing in faith, even though most wouldn’t agree he had the right to.

I encourage you besieged brother, and embattled sister.  Hold on to Him, even if it baffles all logic or theology. Renounce your sin, but seek His promises with a fervency, open your heart to Him with a passion.  Remember that sin can and will destroy you.  It is part of Satan’s stratagem.

Sing in your cave, and never lose hope of God’s love for you.

“The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance.”

C.S. Lewis

“Despondency and David’s Theology,” brokenbelievers.com, Bryan Lowe

 

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Touching Him

“A woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years, who had spent all she had on doctors and yet could not be healed by any, approached from behind and touched the end of his robe. Instantly her bleeding stopped.

45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are hemming you in and pressing against you.”

Luke 8:43-45, (Matthew 9:20-22)

I just had to touch Him.

I had to reach out and somehow get His attention. It was no longer an option. I bled all the time and it wouldn’t stop. It was constant, and it had been 12 miserable years. No one or nothing could cure this, no doctor, no medicine. I was so desperate. It had to stop, you must understand, I was dying.

I had spent so much money, on so many doctors.

I had nothing left. Each doctor promised a cure and my hopes were always dashed. But then I heard about a teacher named Jesus, I was told He had the power to raise the dead and heal every disease He encountered. I don’t really know why, but instantly I knew only He could heal me.

I had an issue of blood, that meant I was ritually unclean and all that I touched became unclean. The temple was off-limits to me, I had been cut off from sacrifice and any kind of personal forgiveness for my sins. In my darker moments, I really wondered if God really had forsaken me? Was I damned?

It had been 12 terribly exhausting years.

What I had to do must be done secretly and quietly. I knew I just somehow had to touch this man. I would have to wriggle my way through the crowd to get close enough. I would be violating ritual law, if I got caught and I’d be harshly censured and condemned.

But I was always tired. Sometimes I barely could walk without fainting.

The crowds were packed all around Him, but honestly, I knew all I needed was just a simple touch. I knew Jesus had the power. I just knew it. I needed somehow to get close enough; I knew that everything depended on me somehow connecting with Him.

So I waited and watched. I tried to jockey myself and get in the right position. The crowds were tightly surrounding Jesus, I had to push, drive and squeeze. Sometimes I had to get on my hands and knees. But in that split second when He passed, I just managed to grab just the very outside corner of the tassel of His head covering.

And immediately the flow stopped. Just like that! I felt it inside, and immediately knew what happened. Finally I knew, deep down, I had been healed! I was clean.

Please understand dear one, only Jesus can free you. If you can only reach out and touch Him, He will change you– forever.

“Christ is the Good Physician. There is no disease He cannot heal; no sin He cannot remove; no trouble He cannot help.”

    James H. Aughey