Category: 2017 Daily Blackboards

Mark 5:28-29

For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction

Have you ever heard people say, “I will believe it only when I see it.” Generally, that is the way the world thinks. But God’s ways are not like the ways of the world. The world says, “If I can’t feel it or see it, I cannot believe the miracle is here.” While God says, “If you believe it before you feel it or see it, you will see your miracle.”

Believing first before seeing the evidence of what we are believing for is called faith. Faith is like a spark and Jesus is the dynamite powder.

In the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, there were many people who touched Jesus (Mark 5:31), but nothing happened to them. They didn’t touch Him in faith. But when the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years came to Him and touched Him in faith, He felt power leave His body (Mark 5:30), and it sparked off an explosion of healing in the woman’s body! Hearing about how good, kind and loving Jesus was fired her faith to believe that He could and would heal her. So convinced was she (even when the condition in her body was still evident) that she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Did she experience her healing first before she believed? No, she believed first in Jesus’ goodness and power, acted in faith and only then felt the healing in her body.

In the same way, God wants you to believe in His goodness and love toward you. He wants you to know how willing He is to act on your behalf to bless you, and how, with Christ, He will freely give you every good thing. (Romans 8:32) He wants you to declare by faith that all is and shall be well with you, and to expect to see just that. And then, no matter how long you have had the problem, no matter how bad the experts say it is, healing and restoration will take place, and you will receive what you are believing for!

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…

Each time you hear the gospel of Christ, you are hearing God’s good news for you. And the Bible tells us that the gospel of Christ – the good news that God wants all men to hear – is the very power of God for your salvation, not just from hell, but also from illnesses, financial lack, harm, a failing marriage – every aspect of your life that needs saving!

You may say, “I’ve heard the gospel of Christ, but it seems like I am one of those whom the power of God has missed.” When you hear the gospel of Christ, do you really believe it? You cannot just understand it in your mind. You must know and believe the good news in your heart, and then you will see that it is the power of God for your salvation. So what is the good news that God wants you to know in your heart, which will release the power and salvation of God into your situation?

“For in it [the good news] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith…” (Romans 1:17) The good news is that you are the righteousness of God in Christ, which you receive from faith to faith. This means that this righteousness comes because you have faith in His blood, not your good behavior, to make you righteous. It is from faith to faith, not faith to works, or works to works. The good news is not preached to show you what is wrong with you. It is preached to show you what is right with you because of Jesus’ work at Calvary, in spite of what is wrong with you! There is nothing left for you to do to earn God’s blessings for your life. You only need to hear and believe the all-encompassing saving power of the gospel of Christ to heal you of diseases, preserve you from danger, bless your finances and bring well-being to your family.

The world may say that the good news is too good to be true. But for those of us who are the righteousness of God in Christ, the good news is so good because it is indeed true!

1 John 1:7

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

During the day, the devil may whisper, “You cannot go into God’s presence because you have not been reading your Bible and serving in church.” Or he will tell you that it is because of the sin which you have just committed. The devil will always make you feel that you are not qualified or clean enough to go near God. But the truth is, regardless of how you feel and what you have done, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

In the original Greek text, the tense for the word “cleanses” denotes a present continuous action. This means that once you are a believer, the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing you from every sin! So you can rest knowing that you are always forgiven in this continuous “wash cycle” of Jesus’ blood. Because you are continually cleansed, you are always in the light. Of course, you will fail here and there, but you are still in the light because the blood is continuously washing you! The Bible says that we overcome the devil, the accuser of our brethren, by the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 12:11) If you have sinned, remind yourself that Jesus’ blood keeps on cleansing you from every sin – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – and move on with God! The devil cannot defeat you when your faith is in the blood that cleanses you continuously.

Some Christians are guilt-ridden because their consciousness of their sins condemns them. Although Jesus’ blood continuously cleanses them, they would rather hold on to their past mistakes and feel bad about them, thinking that they are being humble and holy when they do this. But this is nothing more than self-righteousness. The eternal blood of Jesus Christ offers you eternal redemption and everlasting righteousness. Accept the payment of His blood as the final, perfect and only sacrifice you will ever need!

Hebrews 10:17

…”Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

I think your would agree that Hebrews 10:17 is good news. God sees all our sins – past, present and future – and says, “Your sins I remember no more!” The words”no more” are a strong double negative in the original Greek text. In other words, God is saying, “Your sins I will by no means ever remember!” So has God lowered His standards? No, He is still perfectly holy. He did remember all our sins – 2,000 years ago at the cross. Every sin which we have committed or will commit has been punished to the full in the body of Jesus Christ at the cross. That is why today, God remembers our sins no more. We should, therefore, not be sin-conscious.

Each time we feel condemned for our past mistakes, God wants us to remember the cross and say, “Lord Jesus, you were sentenced for this sin I committed. You bore the judgment, so God will not judge me for this sin. You were condemned for this sin, so God will not condemn me for it.” If you don’t look to the cross, you will become sin-conscious and you will walk around with a certain expectation of divine judgment. This will only lead to despair and more sin.

You must come to the place where you know and believe that all your sins are forgiven, and that you are saved eternally. Such security enables you to come to God and receive His grace and power to overcome sin. Hebrews 10:12, 14 says, “But this Man [Jesus], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… For by one offering He has perfected forever…”

You and I are perfected forever because of Jesus’ perfect work on the cross. We are perfected by God’s full acceptance and perfect delight in His Son’s work. Hear God say to you, “I will be merciful. Your sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more,” and live for His glory!

John 10:3

…he calls his own sheep by name…

Do you sometimes feel like you are just a face in a crowd or a number in a system? If you feel depersonalized and dehumanized, that is exactly how the devil wants you to feel – that you do not matter much to anyone, especially to God. But you do matter to God! Did you know that He calls you by name? He knows exactly what you are going through and where you are hurting. He sees you and cares for you, just as He cared for the people when He first walked on earth.

He will do for you what He did for the woman in Samaria. The Bible says that “He needed to go through Samaria” to get from Judea to Galilee (John 4:4). Now, any Jew of His day would have taken a different and longer route to avoid going through Samaria because they hated the Samaritans. But Jesus deliberately took the shorter, avoided route, just so He could stop by Samaria to speak to the woman who had been searching for something in her life to satisfy her. This woman had had five husbands and the man she was living with was not her husband. Clearly, things had not been going right in her life. She was probably looking for answers and fulfillment, and must have felt ashamed about her failed marriages and current lifestyle. Yet, in spite of all this, she mattered to Jesus! He needed to go to her to minister to her. And indeed, after she met Jesus, the perfect Man, she was transformed. She was no longer ashamed, and went into the city to tell the people about Him (John 4:28-29).

Jesus wants to meet you wherever you are at in life and minister His grace to you. You certainly matter to Him. He came to give you life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). You are not just a face in a crowd or a number. No, He knows you by name and has a personal love for you. And in spite of the mess that you might be in, He wants to meet your every need and make your life beautiful!