Matthew 8: 14-17
When Jesus came into Peter's home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on them.
Impulsive Peter invites Jesus for dinner, and the cook is sick in bed!
What is noteworthy here is that Peter had a wife. It was his wife's mother who was the matriarch in his home, so she was in charge of meal preparation.
And Peter still had a wife when Paul was writing to the Corinthian saints (see I Corinthians 9:5). So those who consider Peter to be the first "Pope" yet forbid marriage to priests are inconsistent in their dogma.
When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.
This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases (Isaiah 53:4).
When Jesus healed people of their diseases and infirmities, He didn't take them into Himself, He cast them away. I think of movies like The Green Mile, where the gentle giant of a man would take into himself the sicknesses and wounds of the people he had compassion on. Jesus didn't do that, He threw them away.
What Jesus took on Himself is the consequence, the debt, of our very sin-nature, when He became our personal Sacrifice as the Lamb of God. That is what caused the greatest part of His suffering, having to be cut-off from His Father. He prayed three times in the Garden for any other way for us to be able to live with Him, but there was none. He had to do it. That's how much He loves each one of us!
O my Father, You are Love! You are the standard for what we can call love. You, Father God, are the standard for everything good and positive: for beauty, for Truth, for right, for light, for justice. You are our Source of everything we need to exist, to live, to prosper. You are our everything!
Father, I lean on You; I depend on You for eveything I need. I don't want to depend on myself any more at all--only on You. Only You can make me successful, even in being faithful to post this blog every day! Only in You do I have good physical and mental and psychlogical health.
You are my Provider of the shelter, clothing, and nourishment I need. You are my means of understanding this World and life in it, and in interacting with others here. Your written Word, as taught to me by Your Spirit, has opened my mind and thinking processes to connect so many dots to see a much bigger picture of what You are doing, and my part in Your Plan.
Your wisdom has planned out and is working out Your great Plan of the Ages, to build Yourself a family to rule and reign over all creation. And Your government will continually grow and increase throughout all eternity!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
