Christian Art | Angels In The Bible | Audio King James Bible | KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
2 Samuel 24: 15-17 | King James Audio Bible | Powerful Prayer
‘So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men. And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite. And David spake unto the LORD when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house.’ (2 Samuel 24:15-17, KJV)
Explanation Of Context | The Angel And The Plague In Jerusalem | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
During the reign of King David, King David ordered a census of the people of Israel, an act that displeased the Lord as it revealed a reliance on human strength rather than on God’s providence. In response, God sent a severe pestilence that resulted in the death of seventy thousand men across the land. As the angel of the LORD was about to strike Jerusalem with the plague, God, in His mercy, commanded the angel to cease the destruction. The angel halted at the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite, just outside Jerusalem’s borders.
Reflection – Divine Judgment And Repentance | Meditations On The Love Of Jesus Christ
The account of the angel and the plague in Jerusalem is a powerful reminder of God’s holiness and of God’s prerogative to execute judgment. The plague was a consequence of David’s sinful act of taking a census for prideful and worldly reasons. God’s response highlights His intolerance for human arrogance and a lack of trust in His provision.
When we encounter God’s judgment or experience consequences of our actions, we are prompted to reflect on our own lives. Like David, we must acknowledge our sins, in humility confess our sins before the Lord, and seek God’s forgiveness. David’s plea, asking God to direct His judgment towards himself instead of the innocent people, demonstrates a heart of repentance and willingness to bear the consequences of his actions.
Powerful Prayer to Jesus | Love Revealed By Jesus
Dear Jesus,
When we face the consequences of our actions and when we witness the effects of sin in the world, we ask for your forgiveness and redemption. As you, God, sent the angel to bring judgment upon Israel, so we acknowledge that your holiness demands justice for sin.
Like David, we have sinned against you. Forgive us for the times we have relied on our strength and abilities, when we have neglected to trust in your divine provision. Help us to be humble and dependent on you alone.
May your divine judgement prompt us to examine our hearts and to confess our sins before you. Teach us to be quick to repent and turn away from our transgressions, to seek your grace and mercy.
Like David, we intercede for others, asking that your judgment be redirected from the innocent. We pray for your compassion and mercy to prevail, sparing those who may suffer the consequences of our actions.
Lord, lead us in the paths of righteousness, that we may honour and glorify your name. We surrender our lives to your will and trust in your unfailing love.
In your precious name, we pray.
Amen.
Jesus speaks of his crucifixion as he speaks of his being sent by his Father and of his being consubstantial with his Father. Jesus has made himself man, and this was necessary for our sakes. However, his being is most truly in heaven. He is divine. The entirety of Jesus’ being, as God the Son, is beyond our human comprehension. In order to be with Jesus, we must surrender our fears and our doubts and have faith in what has been promised to us. Jesus is from above – and he asks us to join him [ … ]
On Tuesday, His Grace turns to the theme of Jesus’ hidden years. His Grace asks the students to consider questions concerning what really happened: ‘Who, for instance, was Joseph? Was he indeed a carpenter, or has Joseph’s true role in the society in which he lived been misconstrued and forgotten to us? Though it be a beautiful, simplifying image to grasp, which offers to us much that is of value in Catholic faith… ‘A wise elder, which carpenter could mean, or a great engineer, an architekton, which in the Greek does not mean carpenter. But carpenter in the Hebrew could mean a wise man…’ His Grace turns the pages of his Bible back and forth, as if to itemize the paucity of information. Then he says: ‘What I think I can say to you with confidence is that it is of profound significance that we simply don’t know what Jesus was doing for most of his earthly life. There are some very different possibilities. One idea cherished by the Church is that Jesus worked with his father Joseph as a carpenter. Another possibility is that Jesus lived and prayed and studied closely with John the Baptist. They were cousins, and very close, almost the same, in age. Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly that Jesus and John knew each other from within the womb before they were born. So there may have been something quite important happening there. You see, we don’t know – it is an impossible mystery to us – just how much Jesus had to learn. This is because, if Jesus knew everything, humanly speaking, even as a tiny baby, then how can we say he is fully human? We simply can’t probe too far into this mystery, but we can draw extraordinary truth and healing from this thought, which becomes of immense relevance in our own lives. Jesus came to know and to understand himself not merely as a son of God, but as God the Son, and so as self-identical with his Father. It is not an adoptive relationship. Jesus is God. Now so much is hidden here. But this is a great gift. If you think about it, how do we come to know that we are loved by God, that we have our relationship with God? What are we born with in here’ – his chest – ‘and what do we have to learn? This is to say, what is gifted to us by other Christians at our baptism? ‘Jesus must have studied, and experienced profound revelation about who and what he truly was, and, so it seems to be, these studies cannot have been confined to the Semitic world. But this is the important point: there is a hiddenness about all of this. No matter which schools and which sects our Lord might have encountered all these years, this to us is as a desert space. What this means is that we can enter into the hidden life of Jesus, and there we can discover our own being with God, our own sonship. Our own particular being loved by God can come to us, if we can enter within this great unknown – into this desert space, where we are loved by Jesus. I firmly believe that there may be a great Lenten mystery in this period of our Lord’s life.’ A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 1 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 2 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 3 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 4 | King James Audio Bible | KJV A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 5 A Bishop’s Lenten Homily | Holy Week | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | Faith And Hope And Love And Sexuality | Part 6
The psalm extends from individual predicament towards cosmic reality – the overarching knowledge of God as the reality of the universe [ … ]
