The Peace of God

The (Scientific) Death of Jesus

At the time crucifixion was the “worst” death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, because unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus was to be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long.

The nails were driven into His wrist.  Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There’s a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.  The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.

Both of His feet were nailed together.  Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross.  Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain, so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breathe.  Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering and the courage.

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.

Yes, over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering?  A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding.

He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side.  But do we realise His wounds were actually made in His body.  A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even larger nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear.   But before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten.  The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body.  The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.  The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp.  Most men would not have survived this torture.

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds.

The human adult body contains about 5 litres of blood.

All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying his own cross for almost 2 kilometres, while the crowd spat in His face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where his hands were nailed).

Accept the reality, the truth that JESUS IS THE ONLY SALVATION FOR THE WORLD.

God has plans for you – think about what He experienced to save you. May God bless your life richly!

What Do We Celebrate when We Celebrate Easter?

This is a card that I made for my friend, Gwenda, and it has symbolism within the design of the card. The red symbolises the blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; the black symbolises our sin prior to His death on the Cross and the white represents the righteousness of the Saints, which is only received through God’s grace and Jesus shed blood on the Cross of Calvary.

Do we celebrate Easter? Well, I know that Easter has long been associated with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, but we don’t worship her in our home. We worship the one true God, the one who died on the Cross so that we could have everlasting forgiveness of our sins. There was to be no more sacrifice, as the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

Easter has been associated with many things – Easter eggs and hot cross buns, but we need to remember the true reason for Easter, and that is the love that God had for us in sending His Son to be the substitutionary sacrifice for us all. It’s not about furry bunnies, Easter eggs or hot cross buns.

Easter is defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as:

• A feast that commemorates Christ’s resurrection and is observed with variations of date due to different calendars on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon.

While the Collins Concise Dictionary that we have at home defines Easter as:

• A festival of the Christian church commemorating the Resurrection of Christ: falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

And World Book Encyclopaedia defines Easter as being:

• The most important Christian festival of the year. Easter celebrates the return to life of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, after His Crucifixion.

Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly (John10:10), and it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ that we receive this free gift of eternal life. Christ’s death and resurrection is the message that we should be sending to our friends and loved ones, and it should be His death and resurrection that we celebrate, knowing the love that our heavenly Father has for us.

Feed My Sheep

A holy man spoke with the Lord about heaven and hell. The Lord said to the holy man, “Come, and I will show you hell.”

They entered a room where there was a large table, and a group of people sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate and starving. The stew made the holy man’s mouth water. Each person held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arms that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible, and everyone sitting around the table were thin and sickly.

“Come, and now I will show you heaven,” the Lord said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the first — the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished. “I don’t understand,” said the holy man. “Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything looked the same?”

The Lord smiled, “Ah, it is simple,” he said. “Here they have learned to feed each other.”

The greedy think only of themselves.

When Jesus died on the cross, He was thinking of you!

Remember that I will always share my spoon with you.

How Scripture Memorization Can Be Important to the Christian

This is another of my son’s essays for Christian Growth, and it is on a subject that we hold very dear to our hearts, as Scripture memorization is so important in our everyday lives. In some countries it is illegal to own a Bible, so the only way to have God’s Word near to you is to hide it in your heart.

Scripture memorization is extremely important to the Christian. It helps him to withstand the attacks of the Wicked One. Scripture memorization will help the Christian to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (1 Peter 3:15). Scripture memorization should be an integral part of every Christian’s spiritual walk with God. Scripture mentions the memorization of God’s Word in many places, especially in Psalm 119. How fitting it is that the longest chapter of the Bible contains so many references to memorizing God’s Word as well as many indirect references to it.

Scripture memorization is one of the most effective ways of blocking Satan’s attacks. Why wait until Satan attacks to try and counter attack and find your armour? Isn’t it better to have your armour on before the battle, than to walk out onto the battlefield, start the battle, and then discover that you forgot to bring your armour with you? Oh, how true are the words of the Psalmist David when he said, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11). Hiding God’s Word in your heart will help you to overcome Satan time and time again. Here are just some of the verses in Psalm 119 discussing Scripture memorization: Psalm 119: 9, 11, 16, 17, 38, 50, 82, 101, 105, 162 and 172. There are many more in that one chapter that deal less directly with the issues. Some of those may not deal with the benefits of Scripture memorization, but with the results of not memorizing the words of our Mighty Lord. We should always seek to memorize more of God’s holy, inspired Word.

If someone asks you the “reason of the hope that is in you” if you have memorized God’s Word, then you will be able to give them an answer direct from God’s Word. God’s Word has the power to change people’s lives. “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;” (Romans 10:8). Praise God if His Word is found in our mouths and our hearts, and not just in our heads. His Word is of no value if it is only in our heads and in our hearts, It only has the power to change our lives if it is our hearts and committed there through prayer and the Holy Spirit.

No matter if you memorize a passage a week, or a larger passage a month, pray that God will commit that passage to your memory for life. One day you may need those passages that you memorize, so don’t just let them be forgotten in the busyness of life. If you have never memorized God’s Word before, or if you have trouble memorizing His Word, pray to Him that He will help you to “hide His Word in your heart.” He can help you to overcome any problem that you are facing right now – don’t be afraid to ask Him, and to ask Him for a double portion of His Spirit to help you overcome.