Source: European Journal of Cancer Care – At a leading cancer center in Southern California, researchers surveyed 101 patients with prostate cancer and their spouses, to see how religion can help people cope with chronic illness. They compared the impact of religious beliefs and practice if both spouses were or were not religious, or if only one spouse was religious. The study concluded that if both husband and wife shared religious beliefs and these helped them cope with the disease, problems were more easily resolved.
Spiritually: The Bible New Living Translation (NLT) – Mark 5:25-30 stated, “A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind Him through the crowd and touched His robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch His robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. 30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from Him, so He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched My robe?” 31 His disciples said to Him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 But He kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and told Him what she had done. 34 And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Life Application:iLumina Bible Studies – In the crowd that pressed on our Lord Jesus Christ was another person in need of divine help. A woman who had had a hemorrhage (that is, bleeding; this may have been a menstrual or uterine disorder) for twelve years. The bleeding caused the woman to be in a constant condition of ritual uncleanness (see Leviticus 15:25-33). She could not worship in the synagogue, and she could not have normal social relationships, for anyone who came into contact with her would also become unclean. Thus, the woman was treated almost as severely as a leper. She had suffered and become destitute in trying to get a cure. There was no hope for alleviating her suffering, until she heard about our Lord Jesus Christ.
The woman worked her way through the crowd and came up behind Lord Jesus. She knew she only had to touch His clothing and she would be healed. The decision to touch Lord Jesus’ garment was due to the popular belief that the clothes of a holy man imparted spiritual and healing power (see Mark 6:56; Acts 19:11-12). She may have feared that Lord Jesus would not touch her if He knew her condition. Or she may have feared that if her disease became known to the crowd, the people who had touched her would be angry at having become unclean unknowingly. The woman knew she could be healed, but she tried to do it as unobtrusively as possible. She thought that she would just get healed and go away.
The moment the woman touched our Lord Jesus’ garment, the bleeding stopped. The disease that had weakened her body for years suddenly disappeared. She felt the difference and knew not only that the pain had stopped, but that she was also completely healed of the disease. What a moment of incredible joy this must have been for this woman!
The healing had been immediate upon the woman’s touch (Mark 5:29); our Lord Jesus’ knowledge of the healing was also immediate. As the woman felt the healing of her body, Lord Jesus felt the supernatural healing power go out of Him. Someone had touched Him in order to be healed, that person’s faith had allowed the healing to take place, and Lord Jesus perceived what had happened. Our Lord Jesus’ question, “Who touched my clothes?” had a definite purpose. Whether Lord Jesus already knew who touched Him or not is inconsequential. What mattered was that Lord Jesus wanted to establish a relationship with this woman. She had hoped to go away undetected. Lord Jesus, having healed her physically, wanted to heal her spiritually as well.
Reference: The Mind Health Report – Special Report from Newsmax
Elias A. Busuego, Jr., PhD, DTM is self-described as “proud of the only two women in my life – my wife and my daughter (with her husband and one grandson & one granddaughter). I am also proud of my three sons: John and his family (two sons & 1 daughter); Christopher and his family (with his wife and one grandson & one daughter); and Elias Jr. IV and his family (with his wife and one son & one daughter), who are all serving in the U.S. military.” The author states that he read the Bible back-to-back, and learned the history behind it, but did not understand its deeper spiritual perspective until he experienced of being Born-Again, born in spirit.
Since he was Born-Again on March 17, 1972, he started understanding the Passage and/or Scripture on John 3:3-7 NLT.
These are most of his favorite verses. In John 3:3-7 NLT says, “3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again? "Jesus replied, “I assure you; no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’
In John 3:5 – This statement has perplexed and divided commentators for many centuries. Some traditions have taught that the water denotes physical birth (referring to the “water” of amniotic fluid or even semen) and Spirit to spiritual birth – in which case our Lord Jesus Christ would be saying that a person has to have two births: one physical and the second, spiritual. This view builds upon the preceding context when Nicodemus referred to physical birth. It also points to the parallel our Lord Jesus Christ makes in verse 6. According to this position, our Lord Jesus Christ would have been granting the Pharisee’s point in order to highlight the nature of the second birth as spiritual. Two strengths of this interpretation are that it avoids making the physical act of water baptism a necessity and that it avoids bringing almost a “third birth” idea into the discussion. If water doesn’t refer to natural birth, say its defenders, then our Lord Jesus Christ seems to be saying that a person must be born of their parents, born of water, and born of the Spirit.
Other traditions have taught that the water refers to baptism and the Spirit to spiritual regeneration – thus, our Lord Jesus Christ would have been saying that a person must both be baptized and receive the Spirit in order to enter the Kingdom of God. This view is at times influenced by the belief that the sacrament of baptism is itself a requirement for salvation.
A parallel view makes water refer to baptism but places the emphasis on teaching two steps of baptism; one by water, the other by the Spirit. For support, these views point to the larger context in John where John the Baptist and water baptism are mentioned just preceding the events in Cana and following this encounter with Nicodemus. They also rely on the tendency of previous generations of Christians to equate the mention of water with baptism. But in the first seven chapters of John, water appears in some way (naturally or symbolically) in each chapter. To associate water and baptism too closely makes baptism a higher priority than the Scriptures give it. Here, for instance, if our Lord Jesus Christ was speaking of two completely separate acts, two baptisms, it is odd that the rest of the discussion between our Lord Jesus Christ and Nicodemus never again refers to the subject but revolves entirely around the work of God’s Spirit.
Still other traditions have taught that our Lord Jesus’ reference to water is not physical in either the sense of birth or baptism. The term water is simply another description of the Spirit – or the Spirit’s activity of cleansing and giving life (see John 7:37-39).
In John 3:6 – Humans can produce only more human beings; this answers Nicodemus’s question in verse 4. Only God the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. At the same time God puts His Spirit into us, we are given a new regenerated human spirit. It is God’s Spirit, not our effort, that makes us children of God (John 1:12). Our Lord Jesus’ description corrects human hopes that we might somehow inherit goodness from parents or earn it by good behavior, church background, or correct associations. At some point we must be able to answer the question: Have I been born of the Spirit?
In John 3:7 – Our Lord Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus that evening has been heralded to all the world ever since. Both Jew and Gentile have heard the divine mandate: You must be born again. Without the new birth, one cannot see or enter into the Kingdom of God. In those words, millions have heard our Lord Jesus Christ speaking directly to their hearts and our hearts. Behind our Lord Jesus’ challenge is His invitation to each of us –” You must be born again; allow me to do that for you.”
Since he was born again on March 17, 1972, he started also understanding his other favorite Passage on Romans 12:2 NLT.
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
When Elias offered his entire self to God, a change happened in his relation to the world. As one of Born-Again Christians, he believes we are called to a different lifestyle than what the world offers with its behavior and customs, which are usually selfish and often corrupting (Galatians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:14).
He commented that Born-Again Christians are to live as citizens of a future world. There will be pressure to conform, to continue living according to the script written by the world, but Born-Again Christian believers are forbidden to give in to that pressure.
But refusing to conform to this world’s values must go even deeper than the level of behavior and customs – it must go to the transforming of the way we think.
In Elias testimonies as a Born-Again Christian believer, he emphasized that born-again is an experience and he experienced a complete transformation from the inside out. And the change must begin in the mind, where all thoughts and actions begin. Much of the work is done by God’s Spirit in us, and the tool most frequently used is God’s Word. As we memorize and meditate upon God’s Word, our way of thinking changes. Our minds become first informed, and then conformed to the pattern of God, the pattern for which we were originally designed. When we as Born-Again Christian believers have had our minds transformed and are becoming more like our Lord Jesus Christ, we will know what God wants and we will want to do it for it is good, pleasing to God, and perfect for us.
It is from those gleanings that he was able to write this book.
View all posts by Elias A Busuego Jr PhD DTM
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