I have joy like a river, joy like a river, joy like a river in my soul x2// Praising the Lord always, praising the Lord always, praising the Lord with all your power, praising the Lord with all your might always. Alleluia, my Lord is good alleluia, my Lord is good, alleluia my Lord is good, is good to me.

Our Father is good to us, He gave us life, He gave us health, He gave us abundance, He gave peace, He gave us protection, He gave us provision, and above all He gave us love.

Beloved, God gave us Himself, what greater love than this? He offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, the sins of the whole world. Glory be to God on high.

By His strips I was made whole, is that same with you? The beaten and scourging experienced by Jesus is sufficient to take care of any sickness and situations we may ever come across, I tell You. Have you been opportune to watch the passion of Christ on television, words are failing me to describe the feelings that ran through me at those times.

Is only Jesus that can survive a beating as such, however, the beauty of this is that for every stroke; there is healing. Forty strokes less one is sufficient to see us through any situation we will ever face in our lives.

Pray that this strips will not be in vain in your life rather it must heal, it must delivery and it must set you free from all operations of wicked ones and the kingdom of darkness. This stripes must restore any backslider you can remember and pray for at this time.

Is there any business or career that needs the touch of God? Beloved, today, an answer is coming your way. You are walking out of that room free from all the malady of the devil. Hear it again by His strips we are healed:

With His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5

Pilate delivered our Lord to the lictors to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were inter-twisted every here and there among the sinews; so that every time the lash came down these pieces of bone inflicted fearful laceration, and tore off the flesh from the bone.

The Saviour was, no doubt, bound to the column, and thus beaten. He had been beaten before; but this of the Roman lictors was probably the most severe of His flagellations. My soul, stand here and weep over His poor stricken body.

Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon Him without tears, as He stands before you the mirror of agonizing love? He is at once fair as the lily for innocence, and red as the rose with the crimson of His own blood. As we feel the sure and blessed healing which His stripes have wrought in us, does not our heart melt at once with love and grief? If ever we have loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing now within our bosoms.

“See how the patient Jesus stands,

Insulted in His lowest case!

Sinners have bound the Almighty’s hands,

And spit in their Creator’s face.

With thorns His temples gor’d and gash’d

Send streams of blood from every part;

His back’s with knotted scourges lash’d.

But sharper scourges tear His heart.”

We would fain go to our chambers and weep; but since our business calls us away, we will first pray our Beloved to print the image of His bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts all the day, and at nightfall we will return to commune with Him, and sorrow that our sin should have cost Him so dear.

Look at what the love of a mother can do for her slayed children. She kept watch over children; beloved how often do you watch with Christ? Let’s get going:

“And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.” 2Samuel 21:10

If the love of a woman to her slain sons could make her prolong her mournful vigil for so long a period, shall we weary of considering the sufferings of our blessed Lord? She drove away the birds of prey, and shall not we chase from our meditations those worldly and sinful thoughts which defile both our minds and the sacred themes upon which we are occupied?

Away, ye birds of evil wing! Leave ye the sacrifice alone! She bore the heats of summer, the night dews and the rains, unsheltered and alone. Sleep was chased from her weeping eyes: her heart was too full for slumber. Behold how she loved her children! Shall Rizpah thus endure, and shall we start at the first little inconvenience or trial?

Are we such cowards that we cannot bear to suffer with our Lord? She chased away even the wild beasts, with courage unusual in her sex, and will not we be ready to encounter every foe for Jesus’ sake? These her children were slain by other hands than hers, and yet she wept and watched: what ought we to do who have by our sins crucified our Lord? Our obligations are boundless, our love should be fervent and our repentance thorough.

To watch with Jesus should be our business, to protect His honour our occupation, to abide by His cross our solace. Those ghastly corpses might well have affrighted Rizpah, especially by night, but in our Lord, at whose cross-foot we are sitting, there is nothing revolting, but everything attractive. Never was living beauty so enchanting as a dying Saviour.

Jesus, we will watch with Thee yet awhile, and do Thou graciously unveil Thyself to us; then shall we not sit beneath sackcloth, but in a royal pavilion.

Watch and pray beloved, today, our prayers must be answer. By His strips we are made whole. I decree into your live for everything that had hitherto defy solution must by the love of Jesus receive solution today in Jesus Name.

Remain blessed in the Lord.

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