Reflection

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When two of you agree ...

A female resident - greatly advanced in years- from the retirement home where Inger used to work, was eagerly looking forward to the wedding party of her granddaughter, with whom she had a special bond. A while before the wedding, she was visibly getting worse: she became confused, had no strength left. She was expected to die very soon. Years before all this Inger once had talked with her about Jesus, but she did not want to choose for Him nor receive prayer. She thought it was "too late to change her mind". When her condition became critical, she allowed Inger to pray with her and she gave her heart to Jesus. Inger also prayed for new strength, so she would be able to attend the wedding. The next day her condition was much better, and slowly but surely the confusion disappeared and she recovered her strength. With a fresh mind, and a lovely outfit, she enjoyed -amidst her family -the wedding party she had longed for so much.

A blind aunt accepts Jesus and receives faith for healing

HEAL THE SICK Luke 10:9

This is one of the assignments with which Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out into the cities of Israel. It is still valid for us who are His disciples today. Ela took this up and sent us some of her testimonies (for which we are grateful!):

My German aunt is 93 and has been blind for the last 5 years. Several months ago I prayed for her on the phone and she accepted Jesus in her heart.
During a reunion where the whole family was present, I asked if I could pray for her in another room. I asked my father to come along. I prayed for her in Dutch because I can’t pray fluently in German. She didn’t understand one word of the whole prayer.
Because of the blindness she is seeing very odd things: moving giraffes, rhinoceros, constantly swaying tendrils and continuously falling sand. After the prayer she said she could see the blouse I was wearing and could describe it.

John, the disciple Jesus loves

For me and for many others, this is a stumbling block in the Bible. What to do about it? So Jesus seemed to love one of the disciples more than the others. Some even claim that Jesus had a homosexual relationship with John. But if you really want to understand the core of this verse, you just have to think twice and read carefully what it says. What's important is that it's not Jesus who makes this statement, but John. And nowhere in the Gospels do we read that Jesus says that He prefers one to all others.

So the saying and the conclusion come from John himself. Did he receive a special revelation? As far as I'm concerned, over the years it happened occasionally that someone said: "God is happy with you". It was a statement that I kept in mind because I was used to hearing sometimes "God loves you". But according to me there is a difference between loving someone and being happy with someone.

Recently an elderly lady came up to me after a meeting and said God told her to tell me He is happy with me. Usually I forget such a sentence quite quickly. But this time I began to think about it. I did not have a special revelation, but I did have the Word that clearly states that God loves us and is happy with us. So I decided to just accept that word.

Maybe the same happened to John. Maybe he was so proud that Jesus loved him that he felt the need to make it known, while the other disciples weren't so concerned about telling it. Nobody knows exactly how it went. It seems clear to me that Jesus did not love John more than the others. But one thing is for sure: John knew for sure that he was the disciple Jesus loved.

I just wanted to bring this to your attention and hope you will think about it. I wish you a lot of blessing with it.

Hugo, the disciple Jesus is happy with.