Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
October 10, 2012Good morning, dear people.
Someone on the recipient list asked about a photo of the little boys. So I’ll stick one on here as an attachment. All three “little boys”…along with Max.
Well…I think I finally found our missing cat. We haven’t seen him for a couple weeks. On my return jog yesterday morning, I chose to run the other side of the road from my normal course. I came onto a very unhealthy-looking flat cat. Dallas! (That’s his name.) Phooey! He was obviously involved in a hit-and-run traffic accident. Unless a healthy Dallas were to reappear, I think the mystery is solved.
I need to get on with solving the mystery of TODAY. So do you. Let’s begin and proceed in partnership with the One Who is mystified by nothing.
Love, Dad/Ray.
An overview of this reading leads me to underscore the fact that, whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not, WE ARE IN A RACE. It’s not some optional recreational event, but an ongoing struggle against sin, self, and Satan—to the finish line of eternal life. Far too many never finish the course. “Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” Do you see the implied importance of personal daily devotions in this exhortation? I hope you do.
There is a lot of preaching that could be done from this little passage. But for now I wish to raise a pair of short simple questions: (1) Who are the LAME? (2) Who are the HEALED? May I suggest that the LAME represent all of us before Christ. The HEALED are all of us after Christ. Sin is a universal condition that leaves us all quite LAME in doing the will of God that leads to Life. If the condition is not diagnosed, treated, and HEALED, it can only lead to DISABLEMENT. Praise God for the healing power of Christ.
I am convinced that it is primarily this kind of healing that is prophesied by Isaiah: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are HEALED. 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” (Isaiah 53:4-6).