Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“A leper approached Him with a request, kneeling down as he addressed Him: ‘If You will to do so, You can cure me.’�” –Mark 1:40 Leprosy in the New Testament is sometimes symbolic of such spiritual conditions as unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, resentment, hatred, self-hatred, and other sins. Leprosy can appear as a scab (Lv 13:2). A scab is a wound that has closed and is beginning to heal. Scabs often itch. We are tempted to pick at them, re-open the wound, and lose the healing already received. Are you “picky”? Are you itching to say something to a certain someone?...

“He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel.” –Genesis 3:15 Satan used food to alienate the human race from the Lord (see Gn 3:6). Jesus made His flesh real food (Jn 6:55) to give us an intimate communion with the Lord in which He lives in us and we in Him (see Jn 6:56). Satan seduced Adam and Eve to sin and by this fall seriously wounded and disordered human nature. Jesus even became sin (2 Cor 5:21) and gave us a new nature (see Jn 3:3, 5) by which we can be adopted sons and...

“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made.” –Genesis 3:1 Never get into a conversation with the devil. Refuse to speak to him. “He is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44); he’s a fallen angel, superior to us in intelligence. You’re a fool to talk with the accuser, adversary, and liar. That’s the mistake Eve made. The devil initiated the conversation, but “the woman answered the serpent” (Gn 3:2). It wasn’t long before Eve thought God was depriving her of opportunities. She put faith in Satan’s lies and...