Christian LivingUncategorized
One of my recent blog posts; Look Up and Live was centred on Numbers 21:4-9. That is the story of Moses, the disgruntled Israelites, the poisonous serpents and the golden bronze serpent.
‘Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.’ Numbers 21:4-9 NKJV
In John 3:14-15, Jesus relates this particular incident and experience in the wilderness to His death on the cross and the salvation of mankind….
‘And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ‘ John 3:14-15 NKJV
As much as I do not want to write another Look Up and Live, one interesting thought from the story in Numbers 21:4-9 that crossed my mind is; where did the poisonous serpents go? ……….
We read from Numbers 21:9, that everyone who had been bitten by the poisonous serpent lived (didn’t die) as they fixed their gaze on Moses’ bronze serpent.
Hallelyah!
But did you notice that nothing else was said about these poisonous serpents as the people obeyed and directed their gaze as admonished? Where did the serpents go? Were they withdrawn? Did they crawl away? Did they die? ….What happened to them?
You know, as I thought about the uneventful ‘disappearance’ of the poisonous serpents, I realized that actually that is how life problems ‘pass away‘ as we move our focus away from life’s troubling issues and rightfully fix them on Jesus and His Word. Suddenly, we see them no more. Suddenly, the pain stops. All of a sudden the lump is no longer there, all of a sudden, your marriage is restored, all of a sudden, your spouse is believing again. This brings to mind, one of my favorite blog posts…When You See The Clouds.
Again, reminds me of a tiny growth that appeared at the side of my right eye about 2 years ago. This growth just kept increasing in size. Every time I touched it, it felt bigger than the last time. And my initial attitude to it was ‘anyway, you’ll go some day‘, but it didn’t. Then one day, my older daughter (with microscopic eyes) noticed the growth. And in her usual way, she ‘kept an eye‘ on it. Now, that got my attention. You don’t want this child spotting an ant in a jar of milk, no!
As it happened, after her discovery, I started paying more attention than usual to this tiny increasing lump. Well, one day, I decided to speak to it as the ‘mountain‘ it has chosen to become. I commanded it to dry up. From then, I just never paid attention to it again. Many months later, I remembered it, touched my face, didn’t feel it, looked in the mirror, it was gone!! Disappeared! Just like the poisonous serpents.
Ofcourse I proudly informed my daughter of my ‘great faith feat’ 🙂 And that was a necessary telling that birthed another miracle…..
A tiny growth appeared on my youngest child’s finger. She kept coming to me to complain about it. I wasn’t really giving it much attention. Until one day, it crossed my mind that I had an opportunity here to build my children’s faith. So I called a meeting, we discussed the possible things that can get the growth out of their sister’s hand- surgery, injection, etc. I quickly reminded my older daughter of the growth on my face and how it suddenly disappeared after prayers. That testimony boosted their faith. So we rebuked this tiny growth on my daughter’s hand, commanded it to leave.
Ofcourse I knew it was a done deal. Let’s just say I was feeling like Jesus when He prayed to the Father before calling out Lazarus from the tomb 🙂 Jesus’ prayer wasn’t for God to raise Lazarus, because Lazarus was going to jump out of the tomb at the sound of His voice anyway. His prayer was that those around would believe in God when they see the miracle of resurrection….
So by the next day, we inspected the growth on my daughter’s hand and it has started drying up. It’s color changed from a milky pulp to something brownish. My children were astonished, I was elated! Today, we see no growth on that hand, only a tiny scar. We didn’t even know when it disappeared. Just like the poisonous serpents.
Last Saturday, the right side of my head just started throbbing…..some sudden headache. I thought to myself; drink some water (I did), break bread (I did not), take paracetamol (I did not), rebuke it (that I did). Laid my hands on my head and repeated ‘headache leave and be gone in Jesus name, by His stripes I am healed‘ for about 5 times. Then I just carried on with what I was doing. Wasn’t long after that I started getting some relief from the headache, and about 2 hours later, there was no more headache! It disappeared, just like the poisonous serpent.
Your question: ‘Grace, are you saying you will not be taking medications or go see the doctor anymore’. Well, what I said, is that once there was a tiny growth at the corner of my eyes, I rebuked it, and now I can’t see it anymore. Once my little girl had a disturbing tiny growth at the top of her hand, we rebuked it and now we see it no more. Some throbbing headache worried me last Saturday, I rebuked it and 2 hours later it was gone!!
The serpents just disappear as we fix our gaze on Jesus and His Word!!!
Can we trust Jesus enough to keep looking unto Him, the Perfecter of our faith? I shared a bit about ‘looking unto Jesus’ in a recent post; Weights Won’t Let Us Run: Blogpost 3.
Stay Blessed and In the Word. ❤
