The General's Easter Message: By His Wounds We Are Healed

Who among us does not need healing? Which of us is perfectly whole? Where is the one with no need of a Saviour? The first step toward healing is to recognise our need. Yet how often our pride gets in the way and we struggle on wounded, our vitality quietly seeping away and our effectiveness for the Kingdom compromised.

The Salvation Army consists of soldiers of Christ working tirelessly for God’s Kingdom of purity, love and light. The work takes its toll. The fighting can be hard. Inevitably there will be wounds along the way. Many of you reading this are aware of it. You serve well, but can grow weary. You work hard, but can grow tired. You give of yourself sacrificially for others, but the results can seem small.

God sees it all. More than that, our Saviour has experienced it for himself. In the person of Jesus Christ we find a Saviour who is the Wounded Healer. Those resounding, passionate, moving verses found in the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53, speak to us still today: ‘He had no beauty or majesty ... He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering ... and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows ... He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities ... and by his wounds we are healed' (vv 2-5).

There is no one who does not need the Saviour. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory God intends for each human being (Romans 3:23). Isaiah 53 says: ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (v 6). This is Jesus, our only Saviour. This is the Son of God, born of Mary, raised in Nazareth, the young man who was perfectly filled with the Spirit of God, born to be our Wounded Healer.

Do you know him? Have you searched him out? Have you recognised your need of a Saviour and turned to Jesus? Countless millions have done so, included among them the world’s Salvationists. By his wounds we are healed. Without him we would be nothing. Only Jesus makes us whole, and we return to him again and again seeking fresh healing from the hurts and trials of the battle against sin and evil.

How gentle is this Wounded Healer, how understanding of our pain. How gracious he is, how patient with our pride, how tolerant of our foolishnesses. He has walked our way before us and understands. Therefore we can approach him with confidence, for he knows and sees it all. He is not shocked by our sin, not repelled by our lack of love, not anxious to make us feel small. Instead he longs for each of us to reach that full height of all we can become in the strength of his power and love as they flood our beings. He has a plan for each of us and it begins at Calvary’s Cross.

See the Wounded Healer there impaled. The nails through his hands and his feet hold him, but not as firmly as his love for you, not as determinedly as his longing for your healing from sin. How ardently he desires your salvation, how invincibly he loves you. Do you see it? Can you realise it? Your Wounded Healer did it all for you and for me. At Calvary’s Cross we find forgiveness for our sins, balm for life’s hurts, healing for our wounds, through the only Saviour. There is no other.

Shaw Clifton, General of The Salvation Army

The Easter Predicament

With public holidays either side of the Easter weekend and the added fact of living in a secular society, it's easy for many (Christians included!) to have a secular attitude to this most sacred time of the year.
My wife's words this morning offer us a good challenge.

EASTER ~ IT'S EITHER A HOLIDAY OR A HOLY DAY.

YOU MAKE THE CHOICE!

Well, I know where I stand on the matter ~ Holy day.

What about you?

Saviour, Redeemer, Friend

Day 2 of Holy Week was a further opportunity for contemplative worship with our 'extended congregation' in the nursing homes and hostels. We considered the following text.

John 15:13-15 (NIV) ~ "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

The complete, Divine love of Jesus paid the price of sin for us ~ He is our Saviour.
"He died that we might be forgiven...saved by His precious blood" ~ He is our Redeemer.
His personal, sacrificial Love demands our souls, our lives, our all ~ and that's why we can call Him, Friend.

Contemplating The Holy Land

Today's Palm Sunday worship experience was inspirational on all levels. Commissioner Merle Linnett shared her reflective poem, Salvationist in the Holy Land, giving us an insight into her personal visit some years ago, while the choir sang with emotional feeling, "All In the April, I thought on the Lamb of God".

By far, the most faith-impacting part of our worship time was when Mavis Sanders (Chapel and Choir Pianist) spoke of her visit to Israel in January this year. Her concise and challenging Bible-focussed presentation allowed us to contemplate the Holy Land, seeing places where Jesus lived and ministered, concluding with the scriptural mandate to "pray for Jerusalem".

Our emotionally-charged and spiritually-insightful worship time was then continued when we gathered for a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon led jointly by the Waverley Temple (VIC) and Launceston (TAS) Timbrel Brigades. It was more than an entertaining programme, it was a time of deep soul ministry. Praise was marked by precision and purpose in encouraging us to truly be "Hosanna People" as we move into the coming Holy Week.

Zechariah 9:9 (NLT) ~ "Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey ~ riding on a donkey’s colt."

In His Footsteps

As I comtemplate again, during this Lenten season, the events that led Jesus all the way to Calvary I am reminded that every step He took was demonstrative of His unconditional love for me.

Meditating and reflecting on the life and ministry of Jesus helps me to keep a proper focus on my own God-appointed ministry. I find it helpful to have my Officers Covenant side by side with God's Word as I seek the empowerment of God's Holy Spirit on my life to enable me to walk worthily in His footsteps. Lent is a personal time of recommitment to Jesus' cause and a vital reminder that we are called to continue His spiritual ministry.

This recent picture of my nephews, Jesse and Jordan, is my current favourite. Having installed it on the desktop of my PC, it provides me with daily encouragement to walk in my Lord's footsteps and stay focussed on the things that have spiritual and eternal significance.

Psalm 119:133 (NIV)
"Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me."

The Holden Era Begins

Today was 'Delivery Day'!

Like awaiting a child's birth, I didn't want to know what I was receiving until delivery day. As soon as I knew the date of changeover family and friends wanted to know the details ~ eg. model, colour, etc.

So, here it is...
HOLDEN COMMODORE OMEGA
Colour: Nickel silver

I hope the new vehicle is not a Biblical prophesy!

Revelation 22:13 (NIV)
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."

A Special Place

In preparing for a funeral later this week, I met with the decedent's relative to discuss arrangements. During the conversation, the relative remarked to me in reference to the chapel, "I'm not particularly religious, but I know that this was a special place."

I was reminded that faith is not about proving the absence of God, but rather sensing the presence of God. My sincere prayer is that we when we meet in a couple of days time to give thanks to God for His gift of life and love, that this relative would have an overwhelming personal sense of God and that faith would have a special place in her future too.

Here a Lenten thought I've been reflecting on. It's a rephrase of Paul's question from 1 Thessalonians 3:9 ~ How can we thank God enough in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God?