Here is day 2 with “scars”. If you had to choose between a life with no problems but no Jesus either, or you had a life that had troubles but Jesus was always with you, which would you choose? (You don’t have the third choice of no problems and Jesus is always present until you get to heaven 🙂. For most of us, the road we traveled to get to salvation and a beautiful relationship with Jesus included some bumps and bruises, some potholes and pitfalls, and maybe even a few crashes in the ditch. If it weren’t for the troubles, we might not have ever turned to the Lord because life was too good without Him – or at least we thought it was. I don’t want to experience any more troubles in this life BUT neither would I trade the storms I’ve weathered because they helped lead me closer to Christ – from my new birth to where I am today still maturing in my faith. So, in a way we are thankful for the scars, and we are definitely thankful for the scars in the hands and feet of Jesus.
The song for today is entitled Scars by I Am They. It has a powerful message to help us have spiritual wisdom as we look back on our life and how the Lord has used difficulties to help us draw closer to Him.
Read Heb. 12:4-13 and II Cor. 12:7-10 and then listen to Scars.
Hebrews 12:4-13
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are punished by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He punishes every son whom He accepts.”
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is impaired may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.