Heart Tracks - The Signature

 "From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Galatians 6:17......"Every 'signature' of wounding in our lives can be covered by the 'signature' of Christ....Our wounds can either mar us, or mark us as His." Beth Moore

Beth Moore tells the story of a young woman attending one of the gatherings where she was elaborating on her above quote. She asked if there was anyone in the audience who bore a scar upon their lives from some great tragedy. Sitting only a few feet away was a young woman, who Moore said was looking at her with wide open eyes, and who'd raised her hand. Moore called her to her side and asked her to tell her story. As a very young girl, she had been attacked and mauled by a dog, nearly severing her arm. So much damage was done that all were concerned that she might never gain full use of it again. Her parents asked the Doctors what could be done to bring it back to full strength, that they were willing to do anything. They said the most effective, as well as most difficult and painful way was violin lessons. It would be a tremendous challenge for her, but if undertaken, they felt it would restore her, but warned that in the beginning, it would seem impossible to her. Moore said the scar the young woman bore was the deepest she had ever seen, yet knew that in the midst of it, there was a great story. She asked her for what the late Paul Harvey always called "the rest of the story." Now, so many years after that terrible attack, the young lady was a concert violinist, as well as a sold out believer in Christ. Moore said that the Father had taken that deep scar and by putting His signature upon it, had brought forth a beautiful song in her life, the music of His Kingdom and eternity through that life. This will always be the result when we allow Him, in Christ, to write His name, His signature, upon the deepest, most painful wounds and scars of life. It is so because His signature is always written in the wondrous power and glory of His blood....shed, as the old hymn says, for you and me.

We are not going to escape the wounds and scars of life in a fallen world. What matters then is whose signature will we carry upon them? We can be sure that the enemy of our souls, the devil, will do all in his power to write his name upon them, making them an ongoing and open wound. A wound that never heals, that never releases us. What we must know and experience is the writing of His name, the applying of His signature upon them all. Something mystical and supernatural takes place when we allow Him to do this. The power of that wound, that scar, no matter how deep, is broken when He comes and writes His name on it. That which the enemy meant to bring ongoing shame, bitterness, anguish and sorrow, is turned, as it was in that young woman, into the music of heaven in and through us. The enemy means to mar us with his mark. Jesus Christ means to mark us as His through the writing of His name upon the very wounds and scars our enemy meant to use to destroy us.

Whose signature do we bear today? You may be saved by grace but deeply marred by life. The devil has used your wounds to write his name upon them, using them to cripple you. Into it all, if you, we, will believe and receive, comes Christ. Healing, wholeness, fullness of life is ours if we will allow Him to write His name, affix His signature to every wound. The scars, the marks will still be there, but they will be marks that bring Him glory as they show how His life gives victory, beautiful music, over the the deepest most terrible wound.....There is no other Name, and that name is written not only in our hearts, but over all of our lives. We, like Paul, bear on our bodies, the marks of Jesus.

Blessings,
Pastor O