How do you cope with losing a wife? And then a son when he’s just 17? Or how about falling out with your brother so that you have flee from home. That’s just some of the heartache Jacob faced. In Genesis 48 he reveals how he got through:
Gen 48:15 “the God who has been my shepherd all my life long”
That is his secret, he knew what his descendant David would come to write “the Lord is my shepherd.”
Like many of you I have lost friends and family to cancer. One of those was a dear man called Jeremy Marshall. I remember him often saying that he couldn’t have got through cancer without Jesus. Knowing the Lord as His shepherd.
Ah, someone might say, Christianity is just a crutch. Well, if you can’t walk properly you would be very grateful of a crutch. Sooner or later we will all discover what Jacob discovered, hard things come our way. Some try and be strong in themselves, “I don’t meed any help.” They may struggle on for years, claiming to be fine, but our reading from Galatians 3 tells us that there is one thing that no one can get themselves out from, the curse of the law. No matter how strong anyone is, all of us fall short of God’s perfect standards.
We cannot get ourselves out of this problem because we are to love God and neighbour all of the time, so we can’t just make up for the times we fail by trying a bit harder. But listen to what the apostle Paul tells us “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” (Galatians 3:13).
I heard a great sermon on Sunday evening on Justification, it was based on the Westminster shorter catechism questions 32-33:
“Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”
The sermon hasn’t been shared online yet, but I’ll try and share a link if I can find it! But what an amazing truth, because Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, we can be justified, our sin taken, and given Christ’s righteousness! That’s a crutch I know I need to lean on and I am delighted to do so. And when you lean on Christ, you find Him to be that shepherd that Jacob knew all his life long. He is the one who can get you through the loss of a wife, a son, an awful diagnosis and more.
Have you lent on Him with all your weight?
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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