When I was in prison, I often prayed that God would work in the hearts of the Texas Parole Board members to grant me an early release. God answered those prayers – for years, the answer was, “No.” That may not have been the answer I wanted, but it was indeed in God’s perfect will. Now I know the Lord was teaching me that whole while something about the nature of faith.


In the wilderness, the Lord chastened His people by sending poisonous snakes into their midst. When many of them begged Moses to pray for them, God commanded him to make a snake out of bronze and put it on a pole. If “anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived” (v. 9).


On the cross, our Savior became sin for us, taking our guilt upon Himself and enduring, in body and soul, the infinite wrath of a holy God. Just as Moses lifted up the pole in the wilderness and those who looked to it were healed, so we are healed from the sting of death by looking in faith to Jesus Christ (John 3:14-15; 1 Corinthians 15:55-57).