Gifts and Talents

          There was a young, beautiful lady who volunteered at an orphanage in Africa. While driving to the Airport, on her way home, she was in a head-on collision. It was a very serious accident. Her face was cut from her forehead down beside her eye, to her chin. It took hundreds of stitches to close the wound. She was a beautiful woman, she looked like a model. Now her face was changed, it was permanently scared. After it was healed, people were concerned about her self-esteem, how was she going to handle it. Much to their surprise, she did not get bitter, she was not depressed, she was thankful that she was alive. She knew she could have lost her life. That happened several years ago. Now she sometimes goes out without make-up. She does not try to cover the scar up. She wears it with pride, she is blessed to be alive.

      We all have an enemy that is always trying to put things on us to slow us down. He would kill us if he could. We all go through these battles in life that leave scars on our bodies and on our soul. We all have battle scars. Some are very obvious, some are not. We lose a spouse. We lose a child. We are told we have a cancer. We sometimes have many scars. We may have hidden scars also; Ones that are on our soul. No one can see them, but we know they are there. We feel them every day. We go through many things in this life, and we receive many battle scars, that are always with us.

      There is another Person who has a lot of battle scars. His name is Jesus. He has scars from the nails in His hands and feet. He has a scar from the spear in His side. He has 39 lashes on His back. He has scars on His head from the thorns. When Jesus’ was raised from the dead He could have had a whole new body. But those scars are for us. They show us that He died for everyone, for our sins and our battle scars. He is the Great Healer. He not only died for our sins, He also died for our bodies. He died for all of our scars. No one can console us, or take our scars away, like our Lord. When He heals us, He takes away our pain, all of our scars that we see, but for the ones that no one else can see, also. During the resurrection, we will get a new body, one that has no scars. There are no scars in Heaven, except for Jesus. No matter, our battle scars, they will not slow us down. We will fulfill all of God’s plans for our lives.

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      New King James Version
1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--
52* in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53* For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54* So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."