Spiritual Encouragement of the Week

Hey, everyone! I had some really cool devotions last Thursday, so I wanted to share them with you. Since this isn’t really focused on one particular verse or passage, I changed the title. 🙂

First, my one devotional talked about the gift of myrrh to Jesus. Myrrh was used to make people smell good, used for healing, and used to make dead people smell a little better. It showed how Jesus healed people in His life, and also it showed His death and resurrection (how He healed our sins!).

Two verses to go along with this:

 ^“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.” Matthew 2:11

^“For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” Romans 6:10

Next was my book about 2nd Peter (written by Rand Hummel. He’s pretty cool. Check out his devotionals.) It was focused on 2nd Peter 1:16-18.

^“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.  For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.”

It’s talking about how Peter witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration. This validates what Peter wrote (through the inspiration of God) in the Bible. He saw Jesus’ heavenly glory and heard the voice of God. Can you imagine hearing the voice of God?

I also love Jesus’ response to Peter. Peter had wanted to set up tabernacles to worship Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Worshiping Moses and Elijah would have been idolatry. God says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” Peter, James and John were rightly terrified and fell on their faces. You’d expect Jesus to reprimand Peter for what he said, but He just touched them and said, “Arise, and be not afraid.” Such a gentle and loving response! I can see it in my mind. We should also have the same fear/respect for God that the disciples had when they heard God’s voice. Even though we don’t audibly hear God’s voice today, He speaks to us in more ways than I realized. One of the questions in the book asked how God speaks to us today and to give examples from my life. I realized actually that God had shown me things through books and a blog post on spiritual growth recently! I’m thankful for the many ways God uses to speaks to believers (His Word, the Holy Spirit, our consciences, people, circumstances). Then, I read Psalm 138. It was really neat. I’ll do another Verses of the Week post to expound on that. 🙂

I know this post was kind of long, but I hope you got some encouragement out of it.

Have a Happy New Year!!!!

-MorganAshley