The angel Gabriel visited Daniel when the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon in the Old Testament. He also came to Mary in the New Testament to announce that she would have Jesus.

You can honestly say, the angel Gabriel has seen almost everything. He’s a warrior and messenger for God. He’s like the Farmers Insurance commercial that says, “We’ve seen almost everything.

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I love the thought of quoting Bible verses that are unique. The angel Gabriel told Mary that with God nothing shall be impossible. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s been on the frontlines of spiritual battles through the ages with God!! I’m with Gabriel!! I refuse to deny the power of our Heavenly Father!

The Bible also says in the end times people will know about God but deny that He is powerful. I understand why people would be this way. In America, we can easily be materialistic. But as Christians we need to step forward. We should unite and boldly proclaim God’s power even if everyone around thinks we’re having too much faith or depending on God too much! If others think that, that just means we have the privilege of being like Paul…We are fools for Christ!  Everyone in earshot needs to hear bold words that God powerfully intervenes in our lives! And He deserves to be greatly respected for His ability to fully, above and beyond, meet all our needs! Set aside pride and speak out bold words that God is our powerful source!

I refuse to deny the power of God in these end times when Christians half heartedly trust God’s power. Let it be that I appear to be a fool for the cause of Christ!

THE PRESENT

Last Wednesday I cried out to God. I told Him I’m real tired of my back hurting. I trust that God heals. He has healed me in every way because the Bible says that. Every day I do my best to thank God that He has forgiven my sin and healed my diseases. (Psalm 103:1-5) So, then I asked God why my back hurt the day before.

THE PAST

I’ve prayed and sought the answer for my back to be healed since I was 14 years old. I’m 52 now. That’s 38 years. When the doctor diagnosed me with scoliosis (s curve 35 degrees/25 degrees) I figured it would be too costly for dad (raising an extra large family) to afford. He always complained about giving Mom money for the family anyway. I surely didn’t want to burden him down more.

So, I did the best I could to make my back better. For the side of my back that bulged out, I would sleep on a paperback book. Then in the evenings after school I would do lots of back flips in the back yard. The thought of wearing a Milwaukee back brace was scary. It was bulky and I didn’t want to be made fun of at school. I was already real shy and didn’t want mean kids to make fun of me. I even sought God, in an odd sort of way. I asked God to heal my back through me drinking raw milk with honey in it. In my immature thinking, I was getting healthy natural calcium there for the bones in my back and I had heard about the wonderful Promised Land flowing with milk and honey in the Bible.

In my child bearing years, I had four children. The s curve progressed. When I carried my babies on my hip I tried to carry them on the the hip that was least harmful to my back. Once I saw in the paper of a doctor that promised a cure for scoliosis. When I saw the article I got on my knees and begged God to use this doctor to heal my back. We went to the meeting and it was a chiropractor doctor who was trying to talk patients into selling supplements that supposedly helped cure scoliosis along with getting treatment from him. It was vague so we walked out of the meeting.

In my thirties, I worked at a manufacturing plant. The insurance was awesome but taking the weeks off for back surgery wouldn’t be realistic. So I learned to deal with the pain by stretching on my breaks. I learned to press on the parts of my back with my thumb that were in pain to calm down the overactive imbalanced muscles. I liked the physical movement in the job but everyday my back hurt.

I have a high tolerance for pain. So, if my back is hurting I won’t tell anyone. All through the years, oh, how I wanted to just have a normal back. All of my life, I have intentionally, tried not to complain out loud. I don’t want to be a whiner so I don’t say my back hurts until it’s so distracting that I can’t focus on the task at hand. I’ve tried sucking my gut in and working hard to have the best posture possible. I’ve always been sensitive to people noticing my back. So sensitive, at times, that someone, as a kind gesture, would touch me on the back and I would jerk away.

In recent years I’ve taught Yoga. It really helped keep the pain down. I even gained confidence and lossed the fear of people judging me for being different. I’ve also discovered that when I lie still for a long time the pain gets worse. My back has hurt so bad, my mouth would water but I would try hard to ignore it. An important way I keep pain away is movement. Sometimes I wish others could see the s shape (60 degree/45 degree) X-rays that have been taken.

THE PRESENT

God answered my prayer last Wednesday. It was a windy warm springish evening. It reminded me of happy grade school days when my best friend and I would play on the playground together. I was supposed to go to church but I was burdened down so I went for a walk on a familiar walking trail since the weather was finally warm enough. I have had pain in my lower back for about a year. I try my best to take pain relievers as little as possible but I’ve taken them more in recent days. In my fifties, I’m not on any regular medicine. I like it that way and thank God. After the walk, my crying out to God had an answer. I realized the three mile walks take the pain away. I had stopped walking during the winter and have just been a couch potato.

In a reasonable way, God had promptly answered my prayer. I still trust God to heal me completely. I am healed. I don’t care what anyone thinks that reads the previous words. If I’m going to look like a fool to anyone it will be because I’m looking to the Creator of all existence who has unfailing love toward me. So I trust and thank my ultra powerful Heavenly Father that He has healed me in every single way before I die and go to Heaven, and it is all to glorify His name. Jesus rules my life everyday.

Zechariah served in the temple. He had a wife named Elizabeth. They loved God but we’re old and had no children. God blessed them to have a baby. The baby would be called John.

John prepared the way for Jesus when He began His ministry.

When their baby was born Zechariah spoke these words of blessing over his new baby.

Luke 1:

⁶⁷ Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:

⁸⁰ John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.

God used the humble, young, teenage girl Mary to make the impossible reality. The Holy Spirit came upon her before she married her future husband Joseph. Thus, she brought Jesus, the Savior of all humanity, into the world.

Luke 1:

²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. ²⁸ Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings,^[a]favored woman! The Lord is with you!^[b]”

²⁹ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.³⁰ “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.³² He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ And he will reign over Israel^[c] forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

³⁴ Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”

³⁵ The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. ³⁷ For the word of God will never fail.^[d]”

³⁸ Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.

³⁹ A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town⁴⁰ where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

⁴² Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. ⁴³ Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me?⁴⁴ When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. ⁴⁵ You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

⁴⁶ Mary responded,

⁵⁶ Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back to her own home.

At the beginning of the third Gospel in the New Testament, the writer, Luke, was writing a letter to a man named Theophilus. Luke’s intentions were to tell him all the details he knew of Jesus’ life. These first words of the book of Luke are sweet to me because I, too, am a writer of the story of Jesus. I love thought of relating to the excitement of Luke as he began his writing adventure. He scrutinized and then carefully gave an account of Jesus, the Son of God, as He carried out His mission of being human like all of us.

Luke 1:

1 Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. ² They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples.^[a]3 Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, ⁴ so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.

God hears our cries of distress.

Psalm 55:

But I will call on God,
    and the Lord will rescue me.
¹⁷ Morning, noon, and night
    I cry out in my distress,
    and the Lord hears my voice.
¹⁸ He ransoms me and keeps me safe
    from the battle waged against me,
    though many still oppose me.
¹⁹ God, who has ruled forever,
    will hear me and humble them.
For my enemies refuse to change their ways;
    they do not fear God.

Jesus was in full control when he allowed the Jews to falsely convict Him and then put Him on the cross. He chose the moment he breathed His last. He could have called armies of angels to rescue him. He fixed His human mind on the goal to be achieved and the joy He would have when His mission was complete. He lived a sinless life and then He offered Himself up as the final and ultimate sacrifice to cover every sin that could ever be committed so that any human, so choosing, could have a close relationship with God.

I wish the chilling yet profound realization of the Roman soldier would be the conclusion and opinion of every soul on this planet. Then revival truly would come.

So, I pray for this Easter, great revival would come and human souls everywhere would realize Jesus truly is the Son of God!

Mark 15:

³³ At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. ³⁴ Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”^[a]

³⁵ Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. ³⁶ One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. “Wait!” he said. “Let’s see whether Elijah comes to take him down!”

³⁷ Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. ³⁸ And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

³⁹ When the Roman officer^[b] who stood facing him^[c] saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

⁴⁰ Some women were there, watching from a distance, including Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James the younger and of Joseph^[d]), and Salome. ⁴¹ They had been followers of Jesus and had cared for him while he was in Galilee. Many other women who had come with him to Jerusalem were also there.

⁴² This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation,^[e] the day before the Sabbath. As evening approached,⁴³ Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was an honored member of the high council, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.)⁴⁴ Pilate couldn’t believe that Jesus was already dead, so he called for the Roman officer and asked if he had died yet. ⁴⁵ The officer confirmed that Jesus was dead, so Pilate told Joseph he could have the body. ⁴⁶ Joseph bought a long sheet of linen cloth. Then he took Jesus’ body down from the cross, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance. ⁴⁷ Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus’ body was laid.

In the Old Testament in Psalm 53, David wrote of how God was seeking even one single person that was good. He found none.

But His Son, Jesus, in the New Testament, was a human on this earth without sin. So when we let Jesus rule our lives God accepts us as righteous.

Psalm 53:

When Moses was leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, his sister Miriam and his brother, the priest, Aaron came to him criticizing him for who he married.

The Bible says Moses was the most humble, meek man on earth. God spoke mainly to him as he led. God was angry with Moses’ siblings because of their unnecessary criticism.

Being human, we all need to keep a close check on our humbleness. What’s the reading on our humble meter? God speaks to and can use humble people. There are so many ways to get prideful. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.

Numbers 12:

 1 While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman. ² They said, “Has the Lordspoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lordheard them. ³ (Now Moses was very humble—more humble than any other person on earth.)

⁴ So immediately the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, “Go out to the Tabernacle,^[a] all three of you!” So the three of them went to the Tabernacle. ⁵ Then the Lord descended in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle.^[b] “Aaron and Miriam!” he called, and they stepped forward. ⁶ And the Lord said to them, “Now listen to what I say:

⁹ The Lord was very angry with them, and he departed. ¹⁰ As the cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, there stood Miriam, her skin as white as snow from leprosy.^[c] When Aaron saw what had happened to her, ¹¹ he cried out to Moses, “Oh, my master! Please don’t punish us for this sin we have so foolishly committed. ¹² Don’t let her be like a stillborn baby, already decayed at birth.”

¹³ So Moses cried out to the Lord, “O God, I beg you, please heal her!”

¹⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had done nothing more than spit in her face, wouldn’t she be defiled for seven days? So keep her outside the camp for seven days, and after that she may be accepted back.”

¹⁵ So Miriam was kept outside the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back before they traveled again. ¹⁶ Then they left Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.