Daily Bread - Nov 24 2006

John 3:14 - "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, likewise it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up;"

Nicodemus being unwilling to simply accept the fact that God had made a way for him to be born of the Spirit continued to question Jesus as to how these things could be (3:9). Jesus then relates to him an incident in which the hardness of heart and the murmurings of Israel had made them victims to fiery serpents. As a remedy for the poison, God commanded Moses to place a serpent on a standard-bearing pole. Unfortunately for many of the Israelites, their stubbornness and hardness of heart prevented them from responding to God's remedy, and they died. They were unwilling to simply believe the remedy that God had provided for the poisonous venom that circulated through their blood (Numbers 21:8).

Just as many refused to be taken to the place of the pole to look upon their cure, many today refuse to be taken to the cross to see that it was Jesus who bore their sin away. Even as those Israelites only needed to look on the serpent in order to live, all we must do is to look to Jesus. If any man comes to the cross and believes in Jesus they are healed from the poison of the serpent that injected its venom into the heart of man in the garden.

Through the work of redemption accomplished for us when Jesus was lifted up, we are transformed into new creatures and translated into the Kingdom of God (Colossians 1:13).

Blessings,

Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
www.abidingplace.org