Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Acts 3:14-16
Peter spoke to the people after healing the lame man. "The God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You put to death the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. Of this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, this man whom you see and know has been made strong. Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him has given him this complete healing and perfect health in the presence of all of you."

Peter is brushing up against the gates of Eden. In the garden of life as God created it, death did not exist, let alone have dominion. Death came with the fall when God said, "Man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever" (Genesis 3:22).

Adam and Eve chose the wrong tree to eat from. Once the deed was done, God protected them from the misery of eternal selfishness and fear. Life in this new place outside Eden would be temporary. Thus came death.

But we took death and made it something else again. Cain killed. God didn't use death to deprive his children of life. He used it to protect them from something worse. We turned it to our advantage, intimidating each other to gain safety and power. We learned quickly to take what we had no patience to be given.

With Jesus, God reclaims his right to bring life even when we have pronounced the sentence of death. This lie born from fear has no more power. Death has lost its sting because it means nothing now. I am a phoenix that rises from my own ashes. There is something vast and wide in me beyond the body I carry around. God walks back and forth in this spacious space of soul and claims me for his own.

So I imagine the moment when my body stops its work and God comes up to me and says, "David, rise and walk." And I do. I leap and laugh and run. Praising God forever to be home.

When I consider your heavens, Lord, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what am I that you are mindful of me, this son of man that you care for?

But you made me a little lower than the angels and crowned me with glory and honor. You made me ruler over the works of your hands, you put everything under my feet: all flocks and herds and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea - all that swim the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! --- Psalm 8

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Thursday, April 8, 2010