Love

I once ministered to cancer patients in the oncology ward of a hospital in Bloemfontein. One day I visited a patient who was very weak and in my prayer I committed this person into the hands of God because he was too weak to fight on his own. The intention was to strengthen the patient and to have him healed and rejuvenated. Sadly, soon afterwards the patient died.

I felt very sad about this until I discovered that this happened every time I prayed this particular prayer for a person in that condition. Then the Holy Spirit revealed to me that when a person is very weak, the devil torments him even more because he is defenceless, but when I submit someone into the hands of God, He steps in and takes the person out of his suffering.

Years later a friend of mine confirmed that he experienced the same while serving terminally ill patients. The highest purpose of the devil is to torment human beings and the more vulnerable they are, the easier it is for him to achieve that goal.

Last week we were reminded what Jesus had gone through on the cross because of His love for the Father and for us. One of my sons, Jan, drew my attention to the suffering Jesus had to go through and he sees the death on the cross as an act of love and an act of worship to God. Time and space does not allow me to publish his full report in this postcard and I will only focus on one aspect in particular.

Just after Jesus was crucified, God left the scene. Although the sun was shining, it became dark, indicating the absence of God and the presence of evil. That happened at the sixth hour and it carried on until the ninth hour when Jesus surrendered His life to God and died with the words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:45-51)

Apart from the humiliation and torture by human hands, Jesus had to experience the torment by evil powers for three hours all on His own! He was nailed to a cross, defenceless, weak, thirsty and longing for the presence of His Father who had left the scene.

Before you think that the Father should not have left Him alone in His hour of suffering, we should consider the fact that due to this, no person can ever claim that it was easy for Jesus to accomplish this because

He was in the presence of God. Jesus suffered and died without the aid and support of His Father being there for Him in His hour of greatest need. Even if we should suffer persecution we would be supported by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus however, did everything on His own as a normal, completely defenceless human being – and He prevailed.

For three hours He held on to proof to the world that He was on His own, beaten, tortured, stripped from His clothes, His dignity, the presence of His disciples and most horribly, the presence of His Father to take the punishment for our sins on Himself. He was ALL ALONE!

That is LOVE! For three hours the devil tried to kill the Spirit of Jesus by tormenting His body, but he failed.

Jesus conquered the devil and through His death He made us one with Him so that we can follow suit triumphing over evil and sickness and death, with one difference – He aids us.

Let us love and worship our God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!